Dirty Old Town, at Dawn!

[pyat]

As promised to paka, some photos of Hamilton's downtown core, taken at 6:30 AM on a misty November morning. This morning, in fact.



North side of Gore Park, looking west toward Stelco Tower and Jackson Square. Look, a cheque cashing place, a government employment office, and a tattoo parlour!




If it's November in Canada, it must be time to start advertising Cuban vacations.


Treble Hall has always fascinated me. It's not the most interesting building in the city, but it's unique in that it has not be remodeled or renovated, yet somehow clings to a trickle of commercial life.

The top three floors seem to be empty and crumbling, and assorted businesses appear and disappear in the bottom floor. Du Placey's barbershop was here for years, a curiously retro little place where the barbers wore white smocks and used hot towels, even though half the clientele were on welfare. It moved to the ground floor of the Crown Plaza Hotel in the early 2000s.


Detail of facade.


War Memorial in Gore Park, looking north. Look, a Salvation Army Thrift, a cash lending place, and some temp employment agencies. Also a shoe store, and Cheapie's, the best place in town to buy music.


Looking north east across Gore Park. Just outside the left side of the frame is Christopher's, once the cheapest diner in town, and still a good place to grab greasy food under flickering neon, in the company of retired bus drivers and people in scooters.


Looking west, toward the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Building, Stelco Tower, Jackson Square, and Hamilton Place.


Gore Park fountain, looking southwest.


West end of Gore Park, looking east toward the Hong Kong Bank of Canada and some bars and clubs. The statue is of Queen Victoria, described as "QUEEN AND EMPRESS. MODEL WIFE AND MOTHER. The Women of Hamilton, In Affectionate Admiration Have Raised This Monument."


Top floors of the Piggot Building. When we were kids, we thought this was the building in Ghostbusters.


Looking into the lobby of the Piggot Building. You can see my reflection. It's all condos now.


Stain glass windows in the lobby, depicting scenes from Hamilton, circa 1920s.


The old Standard and Loan building, now a web company. neosis works here - and he used to live in the tower in the background, Landmark Place, until the mid-90s the tallest residential building in Canada.

Comments

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

Hey, wow! I must have only seen the outskirts of Hamilton I those times I drove "through" it on my way to other places.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

If you drove on the Skyway Bridge, you'd have only seen the steel plants.

[paka.livejournal.com]

Or in short, Hamilton has a lot of shockingly crumbling urban sprawl, which being Canadian shockingly crumbling urban sprawl, is sort of like the just vaguely sad parts of American urban sprawl.

[dronon.livejournal.com]

Economics aside though, I like the photographs, with the look and the atmosphere. :-)

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. :) Our steel plants are still open! Yay!

[zenten.livejournal.com]

After spending time with my (now) ex at what was essentially a crack house in downtown Hamilton, if I never go back there it will be too soon.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I always say, the best way to get to know a city is to live in a crack house.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

Well, I did walk through most of the areas that are in these pictures as well on several occasions, and I wasn't very impressed either.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

*nods* Hamilton's downtown core is fairly economically depressed, yes. Most of the commerce has moved to the suburbs, leaving the core to get occupied by low-end businesses and government offices, or left vacant. If you are used to Toronto or Ottawa, I suppose it would be disconcertingly grim.

Still, there are pools of liveliness.

For example, near the Armoury, where there are open air fish and vegetable markets, and thriving businesses catering to the Portuguese and Italian community, or the nationally well-reviewed Vietnamese and Thai restaurants.

The indoor Farmer's Market at Jackson Square is still going strong, and Bayfront Park has been nicely revitalized.

Walk ten minutes south from the statue of Victoria, and you go past high-end boutiques, antique stores, used book shops, salons, and galleries, and end up Singer Family Mansion at the base of the mountain. Turn right, and you come to 150-year-old mansions on quiet tree-lined streets.

Saying that you won't come back because you lived in a crack house near Gore Park is like me saying Toronto is a dump because I work near Regent Park.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

Well, there was an excellent beer place with a huge beer menu. And I had good schnitzel there.

The main thing though is the air quality. It was a cloying, lung filling miasma. And I say this as someone who grew up in Toronto, and lives in Ottawa.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

*nods* The air quality readings downtown, or in the North End, are often fairly poor, a product of industrialization.

Though, often Toronto will have worse numbers on the same day. What bothers people downtown is the combination of odours from the steel plant, molasses factory, and brewery, rather than the actual the air quality.

Other parts of the city don't have this problem, or have it to a greater or lesser degree.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

I would like to take a moment to reveal that I am rather ill right now, to the point where I should probably have stayed home from work today (I did yesterday), and as such I seem to be even more prone to hyperbole than normal.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

S'all right!

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

Used bookstores downtown? Where??

::B::

[forkly.livejournal.com]

Hamilton looks nice so early in the morning! =O

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Sorta glowy!

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

Those are nice pictures with your new camera. I like how you caught the top two floors of the Piggott Building (which contain a single cool condo complete with fire-places and a winding staircase).

It would have been a cool HQ for a pulp hero or villain (sniff).

::B::

[aslowhite.livejournal.com]

I really enjoy your photo posts, pyat. :D