HIstory of Christ Church Vancouver

Architectural historian Hal Kalman writes a heartfelt tribute to a recently deceased and renowned Anglican clergyman, Herbert O'Driscoll -- and also manages to include the story of how Kalman and other architectural preservationists managed to save Vancouver's Christ Church Cathedral, one of the oldest and most admired buildings of the city centre -- against O'Driscoll's detrmination to replace it with a new highrise.  

Kalman's point is that by selling the air rights over the cathedral, as he proposed, the diocese earned enough revenue from a new building just north of the Cathedral to make its demolition and sale unnecessary.  

Insert reference to rendering unto Caesar here.

Local history in architecture; and big men to fear

Art of Bartoletti: mermaid on seahorse confronts mollusc

Dave Leblanc, who writes the Globe and Mail's "Architourist" column, has an entertaining piece on strange statues that decorated the forefront of some apartment buildings in an otherwise not very artsy corner of Toronto  -- the work of a little-known sculptor named Alfi Bartoletti.  

What I really liked is the abundant credit Leblanc gives to the Etobicoke Historical Society and its volunteer members Neil Park and Denise Harris, who guided and informed his search for the sculptures and the sculptor. Leblanc concludes the account of his visit: 

And, as I open my car door to leave, I remind myself that local historical societies do amazing work, and they are deserving of our support.

Well said, Architourist. Put "historical society" in the search box at top left of this blog and you can see a few occasions when I have had similar thoughts. Nice to see the idea making its way in the national media. 

Speaking of the Globe, I've been reading Big Men Fear Me, Mark Bourrie's biography of George McCullagh, who in the 1930s bought up the papers that would become The Globe and Mail.  I had not realized how bizarre the paper's origins are. McCullagh was an unstable high-school dropout who made a fortune in a very brief career as an investment broker. (Where are the customers' yachts? as they say.)  In his short career as proprietor of the newspaper, McCullagh made it the vehicle for a lot of crazy causes and ideas. 

Imagine today, if some rich crank took over an important social media news site! Somehow the Globe survived to become the respectably gray thing we know today. 

The author of Big Men Fear Me at times seems to share his subject's odd views about "the Left" ("It's likely she wasn't a Communist, but she did like some of their ideas, like old age pensions and unemployment insurance."), but he provides a lively read on a subject worth attention.  McCullagh was new to me -- though I can see good reasons why he fell into the obscurity Bourrie laments.

History of: Newspapers, Vancouver Heritage, and Trade Wars

It's a morally fraught business, reading a newspaper these days. Get one delivered to your door and you feel not only a hopeless dinosaur but also responsible for all those dead trees. And in any case more and more of the content is bland syndicated material from someplace in middle America.

So you go to an online source like The Guardian, and you can't read a single article without getting a little lecture about how The Guardian loses money and you need send them a cheque stat.

Anyway, qualms aside, yesterday The Guardian had a thoughtful piece by Tyler Stiem about how Vancouver is simultaneously one of the most liveable cities in the world and one of the least affordable, and how one consequence of that is the wholesale demolition and replacement of a whole category of the city's architectural heritage, the late 20th century modernist work that is too new to survive as heritage and too old to please the global developers.  It's not journalism you would be likely to read in any Canadian newspaper; it's supported by foundations like the Rockefeller Foundation,

The same issue has a piece on the 219% tariff the United States, at the behest of (militarily-subsidized) Boeing, has just imposed on Bombardier aircraft sold in the United States. Since Bombardier does a lot of construction in the United Kingdom, it is a loser along with Canada. The lesson the Guardian draws is mostly about Brexit, As part of Europe, Britain could play hardball with American in trade wars. Alone it is too small, and stands to get royally screwed. The way Canada is, it is too polite to say, but that's the Canadian reading that we don't get from our Canadian business press.

Image: Andy Clark/Reuters from The Guardian

Same OLD story: history of urban renewal

Went down yesterday to an overflow press conference with Toronto mayor John Tory and a crowd of other politicians and urban planning luminaries.  They were announcing "Project: Under Gardiner," a clever and not very costly plan ($25 million, donated) to turn the space under the downtown Gardiner Expressway, always accepted to be a grim godawful unuseable wasteland, into a urban playground. Landscaping, cultural amenities, bike and pedestrian walkways, all placed under the sheltering five-storeys-above roof provided by the highway, will now turn the Under Gardiner into "back yard and front room" for the 70,000 people who already live in the vertical city that has blossomed in the former industrial zone and transportation corridor on the west side of downtown.

Although the presser was held in a (spacious, convenient, well-appointed) space at the recently opened Visitor Centre of Fort York National Historic Park, and although speakers did allude to the potential of the fort's green spaces for dog-walking, cycling, kite-flying and the like, almost none of the pols and planners on the podium mentioned how the historic space has in fact been the prime mover in reconceptualizing the once-blighted space around it. For about 20 years people associated with the fort, foreseeing the new residential population about to settle in the area, have worked to make the fort the key identifier (Fort York Neighborhood, @FortYork, etc) of the new community, and also to maximize the value of the historic property to community values and community life. The Fort York campus is the largest green space in the community and the central node of the new non-car connections in the area, and the Visitor Centre is both an architectural asset and the best place for the community to gather (as at the press conference).  With no loss of its historic significance, Fort York has "suddenly" moved from being stuck in a peripheral wasteland no one wanted to visit to being the jewel of one of the hottest new neighborhood in Toronto.

This is not unique or strange or odd. It is always historic sites and heritage architecture - and the derided buffs and geeks who value them -- that lead in the preservation and then the rehabilitation of undervalued urban spaces.  Even when the planners and architects take the credit.

Photo:  Project: Under Gardiner, via Globe and Mail

History of Bridges

It's dumpy, and slow, and old - maybe not the Rocket after all

Charlevoix has the story of the debate in Montreal over the name to be given to the new bridge that will replace the Pont Champlain.  It is rumoured the feds will call it the Pont Richard for the Rocket, Maurice Richard.

I would have thought anything Rocket would go over well in Montreal, but apparently there is some outrage. What, dethrone Champlain?  Must say, I kinda love the idea of the Pont Maurice-Richard. But since I can see the affection for the Pont Champlain (there is also a Jacques-Cartier), I also kinda like the suggestion for how to have both Champlain and Richard.  Rename the Pont Victoria the Pont Richard -- and let the new Champlain be Champlain.

Yeah, I know the Victoria Bridge of 1859-60, first span over the St-Lawrence, significant engineering feat, vital link in making Montreal the railroad hub of Canada, etc etc, is of substantial historical significance. And mostly I'm not keen on endless erasing of historical nomenclature.  But we don't name the streets after Dorchester much anymore....

Update, November 7:  okay, Andrew Coyne was pretty funny on this:

Okay, I’ve got it. Rename the Champlain Bridge the Maurice Richard Bridge. Rename the Victoria Bridge the Champlain Bridge. And …
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) November 6, 2014

… rename the Montreal Canadiens the Montreal Victorias (five-time winners of the Stanley Cup!) http://t.co/p1cvAvvXhV
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) November 6, 2014

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Selling 24 Sussex Drive?

Run a blog and eventually you get on the lists of a surprising number of publicists and promoters who invite you to cover whatever it is they are publicizing.  The pitches are mostly for coverage of items largely if not exclusively of American interest, and I mostly ignore them - which is no doubt the usual expected fate for these scattershot emails.

But this pitch from San Diego Mateo, California has a Canadian connection, and the writer actually mentions a post on this blog from several years ago (one entirely forgotten by me).

Hi Christopher. I'm Nick at Movoto, a real estate research blog down here in the United States. Our blog has become known in part for research in valuing properties. Today, we published a study which values 24 Sussex Drive at more than $7 million: http://www.movoto.com/blog/novelty-real-estate/24-sussex-drive/
Thought it might be a fun and interesting story for Canadians. I saw you wrote about Paul Wells' motion to tear 24 Sussex Drive down back in 2009.

 Looking around, I see a lot of media bigger than this blog also bit.  Nice work, Nick.

Update:  Now that I have actually reread Paul Wells's report, I'm thinking Movoto hasn't at all got the value of 24 Sussex Drive right. Wells reports that several years ago the renovation budget just to fix the place up a bit was $10 million.  So just $7 mil for the house and the four-acres of grounds?

Even if it's a tear-down, there's gotta be more value there than $7 mil. Movoto finds its price estimate by a square foot valuation based on other large houses in desirable parts of Ottawa, but it has not allowed anything for the unique riverfront location, the prestige value, and other factors.  There just ain't a bunch of homes in Ottawa to compare 24 Sussex to, and that's gotta cost.  I'd say $20 million for openers, Nick.


Further update, November 27:  Nick proves he's a real American person and not some spambot program:

Hey Chris. You’re right…the two that spent time on this probably didn’t take into account the true overall value of the land and historical nature of the residence. That can be hard to peg. Perhaps we should’ve consulted with a local realtor? It’s great that such a powerful person in Canada lives so modestly. I want to visit Canada…I’m gonna move it higher to the top of my list. I live in Indiana, where we have cold winters, so vacation is usually to warm places! But I love me some snowboarding! Nick

Heritage and history on Prince Edward Island

CBC News reports efforts to preserve as a national historic site the 214 hectare Glenaladale estate of Captain John McDonald of Glenaladale, "one of PEI's earliest European settlers" who took up the property in 1772 (Francophone settlers not being European, presumably).

"Would be a nice venture for Scottish music and culture" suggests one comment on the CBC story.  But another observes:

As I recall my history these wealthy European types kept PEI in virtual slavery for almost 100 years.

 Pretty much right. Historian Ian Ross Robertson notes how the McDonalds/MacDonalds of Glenaladale "became legendary for their poor relations with tenants."  Captain John accused them of having the same principles as the French revolutionaries. His son Donald McDonald never went to his estate unarmed and was twice shot and wounded during disputes with tenants. His other son Catholic priest Father John McDonald, regarded the tenants "as his inferiors in every respect," aided the authorities against tenant agitators at every turn, and finally had to be removed from the island by the bishops. The family, however, successfully resisted efforts over many decades to have their estate "escheated"  (returned to the crown) for their failure to fulfil the settlement commitments they had made.

Scottish culture indeed!

(Photo from the very impressive PEI Heritage Buildings blog)

History of Canadian architecture... in Lego

Someone in Ottawa has built the Supreme Court of Canada building ... in Lego.

Via the (American) Legal History Blog, the Greenbag online has the story.  No word on whether it comes with a little Lego-person Beverley McLachlin.

Photo source:  this lawyer's blog.

Steampunk fantasies of the North Atlantic

Brian Busby's Dusty Bookcase, an always-surprising blog on obscure editions of often obscure Canadian books, recently took note of an 1893 publication on the Chignecto Ship Canal, which leads him to an inventory of what he calls steampunk fantasy -- spectacular but never realized Canadian engineering projects. It draws on his recent article on the same subject in the current Reader's Digest.  (The article does not seem to be online. Come to think of it, an online Reader's Digest seems just wrong, somehow -- but there it is and why not?)

The Chignecto Ship Canal, a marine railway that would have linked the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, never really got anywhere at at all, despite the prolific writings of Ketcham the engineer inventoried by The Dusty Bookcase.

Neither did the even more wierdly ambitious Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal project -- visions of enormous lakeboats proceeding down the Ottawa River  I don't know if that one has its own literature or if Brian takes up that one in RD, but you can read all about it in the Archives of Ontario.

Mount Allison to demolish 1927 Memorial Library?

An online petition seeks signatures for its campaign to deter Mount Allison University from demolishing one of the premier heritage buildings on its beautiful campus, the Memorial Library, built in 1927 as the university's memorial to students who served and died in the First World War.

Information and petition here.

Public History from below

Today I drove my daughter to the Toronto Island airport via Bathurst Street, a trip we take fairly frequently, since her uni is in Halifax and we are huge fans of Porter Air. This time, I did a double take on the way back north at Davenport when I glimpsed the sign for the Tollkeeper's Park.

Somewhere in the back of my brain I remember having read about efforts of the local community and the city of Toronto to restore a tollkeeper's cottage and set up a museum-y sort of thing at this site. But it was pretty buried--surprising in retrospect, given that my research revolves around 1800s Ontario local government history, which itself revolved much around roads and the innumerable problems of paying for them.

So I googled the park when I got home and found a couple of entries on the Heritage Toronto website. It seems that the renovated cottage was officially opened in 2008, at which time it was touted as a working class corrective to the better known but undoubtedly elitist public history establishments at the top of the hill:

The historic Tollkeepers Cottage, believed to be the oldest tollgate surviving
anywhere in Canada, was rediscovered 15 years ago and lovingly restored by the
Community History Project and public support. In the 1800s, private companies
were retained to build roads and were permitted to charge road tolls. The three-room cottage was home to the tollkeeper and his family when Davenport Road
was a toll road in the 19th century.

The museum will highlight the history of tolls, roads and 19th century life for those with modest means, a contrast to the wealth and luxury of Casa Loma and Spadina House Museum not far from the cottage site. The park surrounding the museum will be renamed The Tollkeeper's Park in recognition of the site's historic significance.

All of which is well and good. But I can't help wishing that the place had been a little less lovingly renovated. It seems likely that the before picture is probably more in keeping with what a tollkeeper's cottage would have looked like than the after picture. Which somewhat defeats the purpose.

Museum of Natural History in Ottawa

The Globe and Mail print edition salutes the elaborate renovation of the Victoria Building, now home to the new and refurbished Canadian Museum of Nature, in Ottawa's Centretown.  Online, the Globe offers this video instead. Museum's homepage here.

Before the majestic Museum of Civilization opened in Hull, the Victoria was home to what used to be the Museum of Man as well as what used to be the Museum of Natural History. But the building needed extensive restoration before it could go on being used for anything. That is what has now been completed, and both building and museum in their new guises sound pretty impressive.

The building has no lack of history itself. It housed the Canadian parliament for several years after the great fire of 1916.  And some personal history too; it used to be almost in our backyard during one of our sojourns in Ottawa.

Update, May 20:History Today covers the opening of new galleries at the Museum of London.  When can Toronto have one of these, please?

Not an Onion headline

The City of Brantford has decided to completely demolish all 41 buildings with the help of Federal stimulus money.

Brantford, Ontario, plans to demolish a neighbourhood's worth buildings in its downtown, possibly the largest surviving assemblage of Confederation-era architecture. Intended beneficiary: the local campus of Wilfrid Laurier University. And profs who decry this vandalism get hauled in for questioning by the bosses. Karen Dearlove has the story at Active History a couple of weeks ago.

History of the Common, no "s"

One of Halifax's many assets is its beautiful and civilized Common (not, apparently, "Commons.") It was set aside in 1763 "for the use of the inhabitants of the Town of Halifax forever" (and the occasional Paul McCartney concert). When they built a high school on part of it recently, people started to say, Huh?

Turns out less than a third of the Common now survives, and some people want to hold on to what remains. Tomorrow Friends of the Halifax Common are going to chalk around the Common -- literally draw a chalk line on the sidewalks to mark out the original boundaries. Wish I were there.

History of Architecture

Thanks to Dave LeBlanc, the weekly "Architourist" in the Globe and Mail's real estate section, I've been browsing a little in the online Biographical Dictionary of Canadian Architects. It announces itself as an "authoritative work" that "lists every Canadian building of importance between 1800 and 1950 whose architect can be identified, together with essential information on the date of design, construction, alteration or demolition of the work." And it backs up the claim, with a mass of information that is searchable almost anyway you want.

Museum of Toronto... maybe in another hundred years

The Globe reports on difficulties with the project to develop a Museum of Toronto. Converting the strange, dynamic Canada Malting silos into a museum was always a quirky cool idea, but apparently the city doesn't consider it feasible in these hard times. Old City Hall? Maybe after 2016.

Toronto -- history on the move

Jamie Bradburn, one of the Historicist gang who put up a moment of Toronto history on the Torontoist blog every Saturday, this week recalls in words and terrific photos the 1972 transfer of Campbell House, today a museum of legal historyand HQ of the Advocates Society. The house was put on wheels and moved through the downtown streets from its original location way to the east to this current location at Queen and University in Toronto, where one might think it has sat since the 1820s

Would tearing down 24 Sussex Drive be a heritage disaster?

Paul Wells thinks we should tear down the prime minister's residence and hold an architectural competition for an up-to-snuff replacement building.

Y'know, I hope all the various heritage societies I support won't excommunicate me at once, but I kinda like the idea.