Comments Open

I have re-activated the commenting feature of this blog, so feel free to comment on posts, you thousands upon thousands of readers. I hope to recieve slightly less tactless personal-attacking drivel from anonymous trolls this time around, thanks.

***

It appears that urban explorer and amateur photographer 1ajs found part of the original facade of the Rex/Regent (Epic) Theatre on Main Street, which has been hidden from view since the 1930s, when it was covered by the Miami-styled late Deco facade we see today.


Window detailing

The underside of the arch


For their own sake, and their wish to not be seen as ravaging philistines, Centre Venture and the WRHA should hope that the tenative plan to briefly expose this facade briefly--for documentation purposes, prior to demolition--does not go through: it would be so much easier for the public to watch the Epic Theatre be destroyed if they never knew the ornate beauty that lay behind the pastel-painted stucco.
***

For the second day in a row, the Business page of the Free Press features a story of how the draconian nature of centralized urban planning is currently prohibiting renewal in Point Douglas. This time, it is the story of the roadblocks erected by officialdom facing a North Point Douglas woman who is in the process of opening up a coffee shop in a mixed-use building on Sutherland Avenue near Annabella Street. (I would add the links to these stories, but the FP's website seems to be down currently.)

Way to go. A storefront coffee shop would do more to improve the social health of troubled central neighborhoods like Point Douglas than any socially-motivated government funding scheme could, yet this woman faces roadblock after roadback from the City's plethora of zoning regulations and parking requirements.

Maybe she should have "practised due dilligence" before jumping into this venture. Right, planners?

Or better yet, maybe she should have never bothered with trying to bring commerce back to Point Douglas, and instead asked for a job at a Tim Horton's Drive-Thru in the suburbs--which successfully meet all the City's zoning and parking requirements.

Good luck with that

The usual suspects were on the front page of the City section of the Free Press today, heading up the recently formed Winnipeg Citizens' Coalition, which describes itself as "a broad-based, progressive, democratic, socially and environmentally conscious collection of individuals."

In spite of such a, um, diverse group, the WCC "recognize that we are more likely to effect change in our city when we work together. Hence the coalition.

(Left-wing civic group plans first meeting - WFP)

While socialism is a spectre that indeed haunts the city and province (if it doesn't bury it alive), the longest-running of all leftist traditions in Winnipeg continues to be the inability to coalesce (or to remain coalesced for any lenght of time) to to actually be effective.

Even at the height of the General Strike of 1919, when the strikers literally controlled the city, they just couldn't keep it together. They squabbled along ideological and ethnic lines, and their fragile solidarity was stressed by the overwhelming task of running a city and continuing its production. Power was theirs, but since no one was making food, their brothers and sisters in the North End began to go hungry, and they gave up.

In the civic election of 2004, with the fear of Sam Katz being mayor for another four years, the progressive vote against him was split between two mayoral candidates, representing old and new versions of the left respectively. At mayoral debates, these two candidates squabbled between eachother, while Sam Katz didn't show up. He should have, but he didn't need to--he handily beat even their combined votes with an incredible lack of effort.

In fact, there has been only two successful Labour-backed mayoralty candidates in the city's history: John Queen at the height of the Depression; and Glen Murray in the 1990s--a credit to his skill at being, as someone once described, "a mile wide, but an inch deep."

I have my doubts that this latest cabal of citizens will have better luck. That is, of course, unless they do what the socialist movement has always needed to do to reach its goals of creating that better world: finding a strongman--someone who can get things done.

Putting my mouth where my money is

There is sometimes the sentiment that I should, in effect, "put my money where my mouth is" and buy a derilict commercial building and restore them if I think its such a good idea, rather than just whine from the sidelines when someone comes along with a plan I don't like.

This argument was recently presented to me in the case of Centre Venture's plan to demolish nearly all of two blocks of Main Street to make way for an office building, a parkade, and a surface parking lot. (Main street getting multi-million dollar makeover - Global News)

I am not in the business of telling private individuals or organizations what they should or should not do with their money, but the destruction on Main Street is not market-driven. It was concieved and facilitated totally by a publicly-funded agency.

Centre Venture does have money, but it is public money. It's not theirs, they did not create it, they did not earn it. They simply recieve it--from me and other munincipal and provincial tax-payers. Citizens have every right to crticize what they do with that money, and Centre Venture has every obligation to be transparent with the designs and plans they choose, and to consult the neighborhood(s) that are going to be so greatly affected by their plans--two things that have simply not happened.

If that process is too cumbersome to undertake, then they should be dissolved. And if the City and the agencies they fund are unable maintain buildings they own in accordance to the Vacant and Derilict Buildings By-law, or ensure that the character of historical neighborhoods are kept intact as much as possible, according to Plan Winnipeg, then they should forever get out of the real estate development business. Either that or repeal these pesky by-laws.

I don't have the money to purchase and rehab derilict heritage buildings on Main Street, or to conduct other costly developments that I would love to see happen. (And even someone were willing to purchase and develop, say, the Jack's Hotel on Main, would the owner, Centre Venture, have sold it to them? Not if it interefered with their ultimate plan for the block, which included razing Jack's Hotel for a parkade.)

I was, however, able to afford the purchase of a house nearby in Point Douglas, and for two years have volunteered too many hours to improve the qualitative value of this neighborhood. I live and work nearby, and walk down this stretch of Main Street almost every day. The plan for Main Street will aversely affect the potential revitalization of the area, and, by extension, the quality of life for me and my family, and the investment I made when I purchased (and continue to renovate) this house.

Recognizing and opposing the obvious failure in this plan was never, ever just a matter of sentimentality.

***

One thing that I've noticed in this whole process, has been that, as far as I can tell, the people (all three of us) who have been critical of this plan in the media, all live in the Main Street area. A large, more "empowered" residential population could prove to be a thorn in the side of more bone-headed pipe dreams of men and women of the downtown renewal industry, who invariably reside in far-flung suburbs.

***

Thanks to Free Press city reporter Bartley Kives for the mention in his column in the Detour section today. (Comfortably numb - WFP)

"Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves. Even when we had Penn Station, we couldn’t afford to keep it clean. We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed."
- "Farewell to Penn Station," New York Times editorial, October 30, 1963


Related: I, Ectomorph - "So much for Main Street"

[insert pun about signs here]

Another iconic sign disappeared from Winnipeg's streets yesterday. Thankfully, it was will be saved from destruction by the Neon Factory down the street.
(Photo by Christian Cassidy)

As this photo of Main Street shows, the Starland Theatre's sign (framed) had been around since at least 1935.


Everything about this photo exemplifies a much more humane city, a city that was a much, much larger place than the Winnipeg of today.

Zoning keeps Higgins Avenue an eyesore

A century ago, a lack of zoning was detriminental to Point Douglas, when loud and smokey industry encroaching on its established residential areas. Today, too much zoning is what impedes the neighborhood.

As the CBC reported today, Wayne Imirie, the man who has owned the gutted Able Wholesale building at Higgins and Annabella Street since last summer, was planning to restore it and "develop it into housing, renting the first two floors to businesses and renovating the top floors into condos, one of them his own home...

"If you're on the fourth floor, you have a perfect view of the river. You just see right across and see the whole river. It's beautiful," he said."
CBC Manitoba - "Long after fire, charred eyesore ignites complaints"

What stopped Mr. Imirie, the story said, was the munincipal zoning that the Albe Warehouse site, and much of South Point Douglas is under, which doesn't allow for such innapropriate uses of historical buildings such as condos.

Maybe if Russ Wyatt (and other Winnipeggers who Drive By That Building Every Day®) are so disgusted by this hulking building, they should demand that the City's Property, Planning and Development department start removing the antiquated M2 (Manufacturing) zoning that this part of Point Douglas is under. This may be slightly less counterproductive than the same old north vs. south, suburbs vs. inner city grandstand politics, of which the nauseatingly populist Councillor Russ Wyatt is the worst offender.

Under M2 zoning, Higgins Avenue, and the prime riverfront land to the south of it, will only continue to go unexploited. Waterfront Drive will be ineffective in spuring retail and residential development, because retail and residential uses will be illegal. Higgins Avenue will continue to be nothing more than it is today: a decrepit expressway to Transcona, lined with scrapyards, tow truck firms, U-storage lots, and other uses that Planning, Property and Development find suitable for the area.

www.pointdouglas.com

Patience rewarded

With any amount of patience and cleverness, any developer (private, but especially public) can do whatever they want, where ever they want--even if it is in the most important neighborhood of the city.

Ken Zaifman's plan to demolish the Albert Street Business block--that little row of modest storefronts with an ancient house affixed to it--recieved approval by the Property, [Planning], and Development Committee today. (Free Press story here)

When Mr. Zaifman finally dropped the plan to build a driveway to the parking lot from Albert Street, which he said was essential to redevelopment, he recieved cautious endorsement from Heritage Winnipeg, once the crazy building huggers who for 30 years have routinely stood in the way of some C-list developer's plan to further suburbanize Winnipeg's downtown, particularly the Exchange District, which the Albert Street sits in the middle of.

Between a Property, Planning, & Development boss who takes lessons in urbanism from the Geritol Belt (City property boss under fresh attack - WFP), and a self-enfeebling Heritage Winnipeg (Heritage advocates support new plan - WFP), it should be no problem for any destructive idea to be approved by City Hall.

And if this is how a man with no development experience is ultimately treated, how much easier will it be for a bigger, respected, and experienced local development player comes along with a bright idea that involves destroying buildings in the Exchange District?

Still, it wasn't all rosey for Mr. Zaifman at City Hall today, the Committee stipulated that he must complete at least 50% of the renovation work in the St. Charles Hotel before he is allowed to demolish the business block next door.

This will be the tough part, because Mr. Zaifman will have to show that he actually has the will and capability to be a developer. While he has waited two years for the ability to demolish next door, he has sat on the St. Charles Hotel. Recently, he quietly re-opened it as a single-room occupancy (SRO) hotel.

"He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much." - Luke 16:10

But if the patience to jump through a few hoops is all that is required to win the right to punch a hole (driveway or not) in a historically intact streetscape, it should be possible to somehow show enough work has been done in the St. Charles to allow for demolition next door.

Keep those reciepts when you repair the rooms your SRO tenants trash, Mr. Zaifman.

Main Street, 4:00 A.M.

On the eve of destruction, April 29, 2008

No city for streetscapes

Fresh from fighting to save the footprint of Upper Fort Garry--a structure that was demolished in 1882, Heritage Winnipeg has just given the thumbs up to the demolition of the Albert Street Business Block--and the 130 year-old house that stands adjoined to it--because Ken Zaifman, the developer who has sought demolition now promises to not add a driveway from Albert Street to his parking lot.

That's good enough, isn't it? I mean, if he's going to not build a driveway--something the Downtown Zoning Bylaw wouldn't allow anyway--why fight for anything better, like, let's say, "promot[ing] the restoration, rehabilitation and preservation of Winnipeg's built environment?

2008 is shaping up to be a banner year for Downtown Revitalization in Winnipeg.

First Main Street's remaining theatres at Logan and Main, and the commercial buildings north of them.

Then the Albert Street Business Block.

Then, as I learned of recently, the Smart Bag/Prosperity Knitwear building at 145 Pacific Avenue near Lily Street. Built in 1884, it is one of the older warehouse buildings in the city. It is threatened by a plan to replace it with a giant parkade.

It seems the ones that will benefit the most from all this Downtown Revitalization will be Paragon and Imirie demolition companies.


Winnipeg Free Press: Heritage advocates support new plan

The secret's out, if only too late

Thankfully for Centre Venture Development Corporation, the condition of the Epic Theatre is only being revealed to the public less than a week before its rubble, and that of the Starland Theatre next door, will be shipped off to the Brady Road landfill.


"The building no longer embodies distinct or unusual architectural or design characteristics, and does not possess its historical or architectural integrity..."


"There are really no features left inside because of water and other damage due to lack of proper care and attention."


"I am surprised to hear about the condition of the Epic as everyone (including Centre Venture) has told me that it was irredeemable or gutted."


"I agree about the misinformation--if people knew what was in there, there would've been a protest. At least I hope so."

Photographs taken by April 23, 2008, by Christian Cassidy
Click to enlarge

An epic mistake

I am not a building inspector, but I was surprised by how good of shape the old Rex/Regent/Epic Theatre on Main Street is in. From what the City of Winnipeg (who have owned this theatre since 1992) has been saying about its interior, I was expecting sunken roof and water-soaked plaster everywhere, but there was very little water damage that I could see, except for one spot above the balcony, where a patch of the ceiling had fallen in.

There were many pigeons on the balcony, which was unspurprising, since the building's owner for the past 16 years, the City of Winnipeg, has neglected to cover the upper windows. Pigeon excrement is a daunting and expensive thing to clean up, but nothing that bothering to affix placards to window frames could not have prevented. (I hope that one winter with an opening on the third floor of the Bell Hotel, another building owned by the City of Winnipeg via Centre Venture Development Corp., won't end up adding cost to future redevelopment of that building--or serve as an excuse to demolish it.)

In March, Councillor Jenny Gerbasi, fresh from fighting tooth and nail to save the First Church of Christ Scientist in her home ward of Fort Rouge, shrugged off the Regent Theatre being removed from the City's Buildings Conservation List, saying "the elements [of the Regent] that were considered of heritage significance were destroyed." Surveying the building from the stage, it was hard to know what in the world she was talking about.

The interior is stunningly ornate, looking largely unchanged from when it opened as the Rex Theatre in 1912, only the second theatre in Canada to be built specifically for showing movies (rather than Vaudeville) . Many of the original, leather upholstered seats were bolted to the hardwood floor. Ornate mouldings ran up the walls and across the vaulted ceiling, the British coat of arms above the stage. Brass railings led up to the balcony, where a very old film projector sat.

Again, I am not a building inspector, but there is no reason to not believe that with any will, the Regent Theatre can be saved and restored. Unfortunately, there exists within the City of Winnipeg and the public revitalization industry, about as much will to preserve Main Street as there was in 1998, or 1968 (in spite of the undeniable historical significance of the neighborhood in general, and the second oldest movie theatre in the country in particular).

If there was any will, "pro-heritage" and "pro-urban" councillors like Ms. Gerbasi--who has held munincipal office for 13 of the 16 years the Regent Theatre has declined under City ownership--would not simply shrug off its impending demise.

Of course, there is also no apparent recognition of the several recent, privately-led improvements on Main Street, or how it is only by the existance of modest old buildings that this true re-vitalization is possible. The Main Street Strip has a sushi restaurant; Waterfront Drive does not.

It would be of some comfort to know that we will one day learn from this tragically brain-dead attempt at urban renewal, but even though the Civic Centre on Main is regarded almost unanimously as a failed experiment, and Portage Place is not far behind, we still obviously believe that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is somehow not insanity.

***





Under the peeling Art Deco-ish exterior of the Regent, added in the late 1930s, does the original facade that bore some resemblance to the famed Chicago Theatre still exist? I suppose if we ever find out, it won't be until after the wrecking ball begins to swing against it.
(photo of Chicago Theatre by Christian Cassidy, christiancassidy.com)

***

Related: 'Revitalization by obliteration', Uptown Magzine

The elephant in the fort

At a fundraising luncheon for Heritage Winnipeg held at Hotel Fort Garry on March 28--mere hours before Mayor Sam Katz announced he had convinced the developer to back away from building an apartment adjacent to Upper Fort Garry’s site--Garry Hilderman, landscape architect and decidedly close Friend of Upper Fort Garry, gave a presentation on the fort’s past, and the future the Friends envision for the site.

Along with the Grain Exchange Curling Club and the building at 100 Main Street which both sit within the fort’s footprint, the Petro Canada station at Main and Broadway is eyed for removal by the Friends. This is not so it can be developed into a building that better serves the prominence of this intersection than a gas station, but so it can become greenspace--part of the heritage park.

Even Assiniboine Avenue between Fort and Main would be converted to greenspace so that Bonnycastle Park could be merged into the scheme.

With these buildings and roadway allowing for a heritage park, it becomes harder to ignore the fact that the Manitoba Club’s house at Fort and Broadway is the only property on this block not threatened by the Friend’s plans. When one considers the fact that many of the Friends of Upper Fort Garry are current members of this venerable club, the unquestioned occupation of this site stands out even more peculiarly.

While the Manitoba Club’s house is certainly the most impressive building on the block (aside from the fort’s remaining north gate of course--beautifully primitive and looking centuries older than it really is), it is also what obstructs the north gate the most. Were the clubhouse not standing, the gate would emerge from its hiding spot and face directly out to the intersection of Fort and Broadway.

Through much of the 19th century, before urban development began in ernest south of Notre Dame Avenue, overland travellers coming west to Upper Fort Garry would turn off the Portage trail at around modern-day Carlton Street, heading southeast for the fort, entering it through the north gate. With the Manitoba Club’s house out of the way, this ancient entrance way could be reclaimed.

But to demolish such a fine heritage building would be a mistake. Built in 1904, the clubhouse is the oldest building on Broadway east of Osborne, and it could be argued that just as much was done to shape the destiny of the city and province within the club’s oak-panelled walls than within the old stone walls of Upper Fort Garry.

In public hands, the clubhouse could be a showpiece of the park second only to the Fort Garry gate itself. The interpretative centre could be located there, and the lush garden terrace overlooking the ancient gate could be used as an observation deck. Should the Manitoba Club choose to move, there would be no shortage of sprawling mansions in Crescentwood or pristine banking halls on Main Street that would serve their purposes most suitably.

Over the last few months, Winnipeggers buckled at the idea that on a vacant parcel of land adjacent to Upper Fort Garry’s site, an apartment would rise (or as many were led to believe condos--a synonym for yuppies). City Hall was heavily criticized for what was seen as a total lack of vision, and an attempt to desecrate the sanctity of an immensely historical site with crass commercialism and cronyism.

Would Winnipeggers, indeed all Manitobans, be affronted by an exclusive and private club being enveloped on two sides by a public park--mere feet from the so-called birthplace of Winnipeg--any less than they would by an apartment built in a city with a lack of new affordable housing?

Speaking against the proposed apartment building Mr. Hilderman speculated that not only would the smell of barbeques emit from the balconies, but so would the sounds of tenants yelling at their kids. (Who is to say that apartment dwellers would not also hang their laundry from clotheslines between Fort Garry Place, or let their kids play hop-scotch and stickball in the middle of Fort Street?)

Expecting the Manitoba Club pack up and move after 104 years at Fort and Broadway might be fanciful, but so is believing that the private club at its current address--with no high-rise neighbors to pollute the future tranquility--would not be the ones benefiting the most from a largely public-funded park at Upper Fort Garry.

This is too easy

The gentle and benevolent French Metis fur trader Kevin Lamoureux, stands beside the evil and colonizing Anglo-Saxon HBC comptroller Jon Gerrard, united in the quest to "preserve" the fort that was lost 125 years ago. ('story' here)

The sheer magic-marker cheapness of the signs, I imagine, is for grassroots cred.

Perhaps unbeknown to these two olden time gentleman, is that they were standing close to the arched entrance way of Union Station, which--whether it was the intention of the architects or not--bears some resemblance to the primitive archway of Upper Fort Garry's north gate.


But like the Fort Garry Hotel (1913), Union Station was built in an age when it was still believed that we honor the past by building greater and greater. We do more than be born at Upper Fort Garry; we grow up around it.

Today of course, we seem incapable of paying tribute to the efforts of pioneers by building better. Were Union Station, the Fort Garry Hotel, or the Manitoba Club's house built today, one could be sure that opposing them would be the cause celebre, and that politicians would bedeck themselves in silly costumes, protesting their construction.

Construction site of Fort Garry Hotel, 1913, mere feet from the city's birthplace which it would cast an affronting shadow upon

Civilization's progress, 1909 - 2008

1909:


2008:


Related:
Greyhound relocating to airport (WFP)
Bus depot belongs downtown (WFP)

The St. Charles Motel--now with 30% more CGA people out front!

Two months ago Ken Zaifman, owner of the St. Charles Hotel, hired architect Sasa Radulovic to come up with a conceptual drawing of the drive way from Albert Street he simply must have. Here is what he came up with:


Promptly sent back to the drawing board, Mr. Zaifman came back to City Hall with this rendering yesterday:


Less green myst is a nice change, more people (preferably non-translucent people) on the street is nice, and who can argue with photos of old buildings that replace actual old buildings, but no mater how this plan is presented to City Hall and the public, it is essentially unchanged from a year and a half ago: simply a plan to demolish buildings for a driveway.

The threatened building, the Albert Street Business Block, perhaps owes its present existence to Daren Jorgenson. While Mr. Jorgenson has been unsuccessful in his continuous attempts to purchase the ASBB, he has succeeded in proving that 'Peggers can again be choosers when it comes to downtown development. No more should the City fear telling a developer "play by the rules or take a hike," because there's better developers out there.

The Exchange District BIZ and CentreVenture may have bought into this antiquated and fearful notion that downtown will fall apart if any short-sighted developer is allowed to do whatever he wants in the city's most historically intact, distinctive and renowned neighborhood.

But the Standing Committee on Planning Property & Development isn't buying it--for now at least.

Here is part of Mr. Jorgenson's letter submitted to members of that committee yeterday:

"In an attempt to help Ken Zaifman get the increased surfacing parking he states he requires for his project to move ahead I have offered to "swap" our back parking lot at the Royal Albert Arms Hotel for the Albert Street Business Block. This plan would actually give him MORE parking than the plan he is presenting to you today because the space where he now proposes to build the "interpretive centre" would not be used as parking.

This property is a classic example of Demolition By Neglect and your Committee must not reward it's owner for his actions. Globe agencies has:
1 - refused to sell the property
2 - neglected to maintain the property
3 - shown no interest in developing the property
* 4 - and now fourthly has refused a swap of adjacent land to meet their stated objective of increasing the parking capacity.

I remind you which company originally brought this demolition of the ASBB to the city in the 90's - IMPARK.

Keep Winnipeg's Nationally designated Historical Heritage Exchange District "HISTORICAL." It is not just the right thing to do but also the smart business move for the area in general. If we hold strong on the heritage aspect of the Exchange District just imagine what this area will look like in 10 years as new investment continues to pour in and build upon the status of the area. We are blessed in Winnipeg to have such an area and we must not cast away the opportunities it affords us.

I took over ownership of the Royal Albert Arms Hotel March 1, 2008 and just wait to see how we incorporate the heritage of this hotel into our business plan. There is no reason why Ken cannot do the same and the both of us can enjoy such success."

Clear-cutting a streetscape

This article appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press today:

A drawing was released this month of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority's future offices at Logan Avenue and Main Street, which is part of Centre Venture Development Corporation's "cluster developments" for downtown. A 200-car parkade will adjoin the building, and up the street close to Higgins Avenue, a new surface lot will join the cluster of parking spots.

Reviews of the design for the WRHA building from local architecture critics have so far ranged from bad ("pretty poor -- standard office park architecture"), to very bad ("an affront to Inkster Industrial Park, never mind the most historic street in Western Canada").

But the tragedy is not only what the fabled Main Street strip -- which even in 1892 was called "Winnipeg's Bowery"-- will be stuck with, but what it will lose.

The Starland Theatre, a former vaudeville house built in 1909, and the Epic Theatre, a Grade 2 heritage structure which was one of Canada's first movie theatres -- once two of five theatres at Logan and Main. Then there is the Jack's Place building at 652 Main (1912), and the Weir Hardware building up the street at 666 Main (1899). To allow for demolition, the Starland and Jack's were removed from the Historical Buildings Inventory by the city's heritage buildings committee on March 20. The fate of the Epic and Weir's, meanwhile, will be decided at a later date.

For such a feat of perfidy and hypocrisy, the heritage buildings committee should congratulate themselves: Three historical buildings being approved for demolition in a single day probably hasn't happened since the 1970s.

continued...

Editions, etc.

I corrected facts in my last post to reflect what is going on regarding the Albert Street Business Block, and Ken Zaifman's--who wants to demolish it--appearance at City Hall this morning.

While Forks North Portage Partnership and the Winnipeg Parking Authority are apparently behind the demolition of the Grain Exchange Annex, the Winnipeg Sun reports today that Mr. Zaifman claims to have the support of the Exchange District BIZ. I wonder: would a new parking lot be featured in their Summertime historical walking tours?

Less surprising is Mr. Zaifman's support from Centre Venture. After all, it was a staff person at Centre Venture who told the new owner of the Royal Albert Hotel, an outspoken opponant to the demolition of the Business Block, that he should be more of "team player" with regards to the St. Charles Hotel development, and even offered him the possibility of more funding for the Royal Albert if he does so.

Certainly, these publicly funded agencies know much about how to improve business conditions in a historical neighborhood...

When it rains...

Tomorrow morning, Ken Zaifman will be at City Hall, to try and convince the Standing Committee on Property Planning and Development (Mayor Katz, Councillors Swandel, Fielding, Vandal, and Wyatt) to de-list the Albert Street Business Block. This is the second time this year that Mr. Zaifman will have appeared at City Hall, to try and convince Councillors that. It seems that since his last visit his January, he hasn't come up with anything new to sell his idea--just the same architectural drawing and extortion-like threats about how he'll turn the St. Charles into a fleabag SRO hotel again, filling up Albert Street with hoards of drunken panhandlers.

Also on the agenda tomorrow is an appeal by architect Ray Wan to downgrade the heritage designation of the Grain Exchange Annex at 153 Lombard (ultimately to demolish it for a parkade).

In regards to the Grain Exchange Annex, a man on the inside writes of the impressively elaborate scheme to demolish the Grain Exchange Annex: "[I]t appears they first thought they had to change the main Grain Exchange building from a Grade 2 to 3 to allow the Annex to be demolished, but were advised to get the Annex listed separately instead. Unfortunately, if it is listed as a Grade 3 as the summary report indicates, it can be demolished 'if the owners prove that it is necessary.'"

One troubling aspect of this is what a Mr. Sid Storey wrote to the City Clerk's office, found on page nine of the agenda:
"The owners of the Grain Exchange buildings have been encouraged by both the Winnipeg Parking Authority and the Forks North Portage Partnership to construct a parking structure to meet the demands on downtown parking created by the growth of Waterfront Drive and the pending Canadian Humanities Museum. The structure, if constructed on the site of the Annex, could access the skywalk system through the Grain Exchange Building."



If the WPA and FNPP really are encouraging this, it would show that the threat to Winnipeg's historic neighborhoods (starting of course with the smaller, 'less significant' buildings) is not ongoing just because of a few lone, backward-thinking property owners, but because of public agencies and sometimes, City Hall. This is obvious with Centre Venture's plan for North Main, and in the City's Heritage Building's Committee's removal of two North Main buildings from the Historical Buildings Index last week. Not even the centre of the Exchange District is safe.

One must always remember that the Exchange District (or other historical neighborhoods like North Main) are not defined by their best, most ornate, most 'significant' heritage buildings, but by the integrity of their streetscapes. The whole will always be greater than the sum of its parts, and the integrity and viability of the whole will always suffer if lesser parts are taken away--particularly for the purpose of erecting a parking structure to serve condos that already have sufficient on-site parking, and a "Canadian Humanities Museum" that will be a ten-minute walk away.

Once these small, inconspicuous buildings are gone, other buildings will surely take their place as those deemed small, insignificant and expendable.

We can do better if we want to

The nature of large publicly-driven urban revitalization schemes in poor cities, is to make the project take up as much room, and take out as much blight as possible. Thus, 200 office workers and their parking spots take up an entire city block where a dozen buildings and a score of different uses once were.

But somewhere between the 1970s and today, other cities began to learn how to re-build streets in ways that doesn't destroy them further. Jeff Daniels aptly said on Leno recently that Winnipeg is "like Buffalo [New York], but with communists." In Buffalo, our less collectivist American counterpart, they've shown how beleaguered districts can be brought back to life within the context of that district's scale and architectural traditions.

BEFORE:


AFTER:


The question is, does anyone have the will to do this on North Main Street?

***

When I submitted this article to the Uniter last week, I had no idea how timely it would be. I was only writing on what I hope will one day take the form of a book: the colorful story of Main Street.


Looking north from the NE corner of Main and Henry Avenue, 1899


May Day parade at Higgins and Main, c.1915. The Dominion Bank, which is now home to the Bridgman Architecture firm, is on the left


the east side of Main between Henry and Logan Avenues, c.1918


Crossing the street at Main and Higgins, c.1935


Soldiers on Austin Street near Higgins, c.1945. Part of the Royal Alexandra and Mount Royal Hotels can be seen in the background


Looking north from Rupert Street, 1962

Please visit this North Main Walking Tour, which can be downloaded in .pdf format.