Gage Park

[realcity]

i was grubbing out today in Gage Park. i noticed sand-blasting on the gazebo near Gage and Main. removing all the TWO tags, at least the City is showing interest in the structure. I like that structure... I think an entrance facing the stopped vehicles at Gage is good idea, but just think it could be better then the render. Something more grand and historical, ANNOUNCING Gage Park as a destination. I don't think many cities have urban parks this size. I hope some money goes into the fountain, at least it still operates...

also saw lots of City crews cleaning up the Park. It is well used, and cheap entertainment, we went into the Greenhouse FOR FREE. Burlington would charge admission to something like this, I'm glad we have it, It's part of the little things that make Hamilton great. Once again, I didn't see any 'undesirables', just picnics, families, children, cyclists, walkers, dogs. My favourite "you know you're in Hamilton when..... you see a ten-speed cyclist steering with one hand while holding a double-double in the other".

[raisethehammer]

Originally Posted by I, Sinclair

You people are nuts.

From admittedly anecdotal evidence, I have been subjected to more nusiance behaviour and vandalism in my old neighbourhood just east of Gage Park than in the many years I lived in dodgy neigbourhoods in Toronto. The only comparison I can make is Cabbagetown, where minor property crime was a big problem.

Even in my new neighbourhood south of the HAAA, I experience what I consider to be a high level of nusiance crimes (broken car mirrors, cars broken into for change, broken bottles in the alley).

I have not lived everywhere, but in my experience nusiance crimes are higher in Hamilton than the other downtown districts I have lived in. I have no idea how to address it, but pretending I don't have this experience isn't going to make Hamilton any better.

As to the safety of Gage Park, when I lived beside it, I jogged every other night thru that park, most of the time after 10pm. I never had any problems, but I am 6'2 and north of 200lbs, so I probably am not a good example. I also saw at least one patrol car in the south lot every run.

But shit happens everywhere, and the poorer neighbourhoods in Hamilton have a lot more shit. To deny that people feel unsafe in Gage park, or to intimate that those that do are scared for no good reason, or worse, working a political agenda, is not particularly progressive, or helpful.

Oh, that entrance design is crap, in my opinion, but would be better than the mud and bushes that are there now.

this is interesting to hear of your experiences.
you live SOUTH of HAAA and still put up with those nuisance crimes eh?? I was under the impression that not much happened down there.
I've never seen or heard of anything of the sort in the 5+ years of living in Strathcona.
Although I did catch a young guy in my backyard once...nothing happened though. He was trying to steal something, but took off.

[I, Sinclair]

My wife's car has her passenger side mirror broken right now, some punks went the entire length of the street. My car, which I park in the alley, has been broken into so many times that I now carry the ownership and insurance in my wallet, because my glovebox would get rifled thru and all the paperwork thrown on the ground.

These are all nuisance crimes. I don't feel unsafe, I don't worry about the safety of my family, but it is definitely a quality of life issue.

Sadly, the probable root cause is the astounding level of poverty in the lower city. While refreshing park entrances and slowing down side streets undoubtedly are good for residents, I don't feel that residential development and urban improvements are enough to truly turn around some of these neighbourhoods.

Living just east of Gage was heartbreaking. There were children on my street that had almost nothing, and we would make any excuse to feed them a nutritious meal whenever they were playing with my kid.

At any rate, Gage park is absolutely a gem in the east end, and I hope the city finds more money to complete some of the other maintenance and improvement items that absolutely need to be done. That fountain could be spectacular if taken care of.

[fastcarsfreedom]

Agreed I, Sinclair on the point that it's a quality of life issue. Crime is a pervasive and worsening problem--all crimes--and society has become desensitized to an extent--regardless of neighborhood or environ. Property crimes are crimes--plain and simple. As you stated--and as has been discussed here at length--the rebirth of the core will, to an extent reverse the growth in the idigent population in that immediate area--but there are certain neighborhoods where the problem is only going to worsen. Keeping on point with this discussion--investment in Gage Park can and should spur an increase in property values and affluence in the streets which surround it--which are filled with beautiful, solidly built homes on streets lined with trees. The Greenhouse at Gage is a gem--and I've loved the tropical section since I was a kid--can still smell the humid air in there--and how great it would feel going in there on a dark November evening for the Mum Show (usually right after a 'brisk' visit down to Hutch's at the Beach). My dad's family is from the Rosedale area--not too far from Gage, and for many years my Grandparents lived just off Lawrence near Parkdale...great neighborhood.

[Goldfinger]

Does anyone know of any neighborhoods in Hamilton that have turned around? I have seen a few great ones go downhill, but never a turnaround. As long as there's cheap abundant housing and decent social services here, the poverty will continue flowing in from elsewhere.

[flar]

Stinson is turning around right now, I noticed a huge difference in the year and a half between phototours of the place. Lots of renos. Kirkendall and Locke has obviously seen a turnaround over the past decade. In the book "Up and Down Locke St" by Bill Manson there is a graph showing the decline in the number of businesses there from the 50's to 80's and then a sharp surge in the 90's. The James North area is also seeing some improvements, more and more houses getting cleaned up. Corktown is another area getting fixed up, check the residential on Augusta St for example. Also Ottawa St. was like the ghetto when I first saw it, now it has plenty of shoppers and shopping. I've only lived here since 2002, but I've explored nearly every street in the lower city and the improvements are quite impressive. A long way to go for some areas, but even the Keith neighbourhood is getting some renos.

[RePinion]

Originally Posted by markbarbera

I must giive credit to RePinion for the amount of time and effort he put in his earlier post. His vocabulary and verbose prosaic style is enough to make even the venerable Conrad Black blush. It is unfortunate that so much energy went into arguing an inarguable point.

RePinion betrays his own personal bias throughout his flowery diatribe. By using the third person narrative, he attempts to place himself above the forum participants he is critiquing. He is careful when selecting forumer's comments as examples of what he calls a prejudice of 'us/them dichotomy' to single out those who speak in defence of the inner city. Yet he chooses to ignore compelling examples of those who argue with equally fanatical bias towards the suburban lifestyle. For example, labelling the criticism of the proposal to rezone industrial land for big-box development as "Walmart-bashing" is at least as powerful an example of "lifestyle identity allegiance". RePinion's pointed selectiveness in example citation hobbles his arguement and diminishes the credibility of his thesis. Indeed, it exposes his own bias and lack of objectivity on the subject.

I will quite easily admit my pride and support for my neighbourhood without any shame or guilt. Nor will I veil it in heavily worded prose. When my neighbourhood is being unfairly represented in this forum, I will not let that misrepresentation go unchallenged.

Wow. I'm honestly quite shocked to see the responses (both positive and negative) which my critique elicited. I can't say I'm disappointed though ...

My response was to fastcarsfreedom's complaint about the lack of progressive thinking on this board. I certainly did not target any users' posts out of personal spite or animus. I simply think the posts I chose best illustrated the point I was trying to make. I think both markbarbera and RTH make valuable contributions to the board. I was not trying to invalidate their presence here at all, merely trying to show the inherent bias which I detected in those particular posts.

That being said, I think markbarbera's response to me was clearly motivated out of personal animus. No worries. His analysis is extremely shallow and, all in all, really doesn't make a lot of sense, so I'm not much offended by it. I certainly have never promoted suburban interests over downtown ones and I have no interest in maintaining the suburban lifestyle, which I personally believe to be unsustainable and anti-social (no offence to those who love it). If someone had made grossly biased statements promoting suburbia in this thread, I might very well have called them out on that too. However, the statements which struck me as betraying an egregiously one-sided view on the matter were all from the other perspective - in fact, on this board, they are consistently from that perspective. Despite my own personal convictions, I dislike whenever any discussion is unduly dominated by one particular agenda, which seems to be the case here.

On a side note, I hope you don't all think I'm spending hours writing these posts. Although I try to be thoughtful as much as possible, I am just naturally verbose (both a gift and a curse). Often I wish my posts were better thought out than they actually are ...

Sorry I wasn't on earlier to take part in the obviously lively discussion.

[fastcarsfreedom]

Another excellent (and well-thought) response RePinion. I actually dislike re-reading my own posts because I'm overly critical of them--I write as I think--in a strictly linear fashion--so my posts sound like I'm sitting in a bar somewhere with a cheek full of Beech Nut. I couldn't agree more on the "agenda" point--and believe me taking any sort of "opposing" point is treacherous. Though I personally prefer the suburban lifestyle--I too dislike anything that's egregiously one-sided or dominated by group-think. I love the core--I just don't want to go to sleep there.

Either way, in response to neighborhoods "turning around"--that's an interesting question. I suppose it depends on the definition--the Bayfront Park/Pier IV area has certainly "changed"--that is it has slowly evolved from a strictly working class neighborhood--to one which is becoming increasingly filled with new builds and renos that are of an entirely different scale than what existed previously. As far as areas that have gone into a steep decline--I'm not sure I've seen any go 180 degrees to thriving. As commercial sectors go, Barton is still the big fall. The residential neighborhoods that have declined in the lower city are another issue--off the top of my head I can't think of many/any that have "recovered"...keeping in mind much of the residential in the extreme north end industrial areas has simply disappeared.

[DC83]

Gage Park Family Movie Nights

I saw an ad for this while I was on the bus, but unfortunately missed the details.

Does anyone know anymore info on this?

[BrianE]

Movie Night September 25th. Starts "when the sun goes down". Family friendly, the signs didn't mention what the movies would be but they will no doubt be safe for all ages.

[raisethehammer]

sounds great. hope the weather is good.

[comadriver]

Originally Posted by I, Sinclair

Living just east of Gage was heartbreaking. There were children on my street that had almost nothing, and we would make any excuse to feed them a nutritious meal whenever they were playing with my kid.

I don't mean to dwell on this old thread, but WOW! When we were shopping for a house just east of Gage (Rothsay, Kensington, Rosslyn), we haven't seen this type of poverty at all. Am I missing something? The kids chasing the ice cream truck were well-dressed and appeared to be well-fed and in good health. There were decent cars parked in most driveways and the people we talked to were generally upbeat and articulate. We also spoke to some folks at the Rosedale tennis club, who all had good things to say about the immediate neighbourhood. Sinclair, your perspective got me very confused, given that we did go ahead and buy a house in the area...

[raisethehammer]

Sinclair was probably up closer to Barton area, east of Gage.

[geoff's two cents]

Indeed. We have good friends who live near Gage, and I was pleasantly surprised by the neighborhood. To be sure, it lacks many of the amenities we enjoyed in the Durand area (and it's a shame there isn't much going on directly adjacent to the park on Main), but it still had a lot of well-kept houses, trees lining the streets, etc. So I was told, however, there's an excellent second-hand bookstore in the area that I never did get a chance to check out. Hopefully I'll be back to the city and will have time kick around in that part of town.

[LikeHamilton]

I live in this area and there are company owners, VP's & presidents of companys, CFO's, teachers, ex ticats, union presidents, radio announcers etc living in this area.

[astroblaster]

i had a ton of friends in the area directly east of gage park and i always loved that area.

[comadriver]

phew!

[flar]

East of Gage Park is nice, but there is a change just east of Gage Ave around Cannon

This is Cannon just east of Gage:

[astroblaster]

i'd file pretty much anything north of main in that part of the city under "needs work"

it's not a lost cause or anything, but in my opinion, the area from wellington to red hill and north of main still needs a lot of TLC.

i also want to add to my previous statement, that i have a few friends who live west of gage park, and south of main, and that area is also really nice and "up and coming".. but the east of gage park area that i mentioned in my last post is among my favorite neighbourhoods in the city.

[raisethehammer]

keep in mind that Hamilton's 'main streets' are the roughest and 'ugliest' looking parts of the city. Decades of car-dependent sprawl has sucked the life out of street retail.
If you turn off of Cannon onto the residential side streets around Gage, they are wonderful. I have friends who live all around there...nice, friendly, quiet neighbourhoods.
Sadly, King/Main/Cannon/Barton look like shite thanks to city planning policies.