When is this city going to realize that Barrington st could be as SGR is?
It is time to move all of the transit buses down to Hollis st, and make Barrington st one-way opposite Hollis st. Get rid of the noise and bus fumes. Make it a street I would enjoy walking down!
You could have parking on one side, outside patios, more benches to sit on, lots of flowers and trees, but no, it might make to much sense. Close off spring garden during the summer, let it grow! —wantthecityback
This article appears in Jul 29 – Aug 4, 2010.
You’d need a whole fleet of “Soylent Green” type Scoop Trucks to get rid of the skells, the panhandlers and the drug scum. And unless you are planning to shut down the bars you are still going to have smashed windows and piss-soaked doorways for the poor bloody small business owners to deal with on a daily basis. The automobile hasn’t killed Barrington St.; human devolution has.
FMI are you talking about SGR or Barrington? LOL.
Yeah Bro, it is kinda like comparing Zimbabwe with Somalia. The differences are of degree, not of kind.
Make Barrington like Spring Garden. Great idea, but first can we make both Anti-Beggar Zones?
Removing ALL of the buses would be stupid. If you make it one way then buses could certainly use it in that direction.
Make Halifax even more dreadful to drive about, brilliant idea. Downtown Halifax won’t be revitalised until the anti-development lobbyists get their heads out of their asses about the dilapidated “heritage” buildings downtown and the oh-so-sacred view of the harbour from Citadel Hill. And until they add some decent parking that doesn’t cost $20 a day.
but, in this case they would be called soil-ent greeners.
A lot of the streets that are connected to Barrinton are one-way streets….I can see the maddness now :'(! Having to drive around more, create more polution elsewhere so this guy can walk down a CITY STREET IN QUIET…you people and your need for quiet in the city drive me nuts.
They should re-pave Barrington, last time I drove down it I realized I hadn’t been shaken around like that since I was a baby.
hey mr. blue…they have recently re-paved some sections
Two things that would improve Barrington? A giant 24 hour store and an even bigger strip club! Or we could just put some more Catholic/new age/lesbian book stores down there I suppose.
Pavillion has it right. There are too many people holding this city back. Once some of the old geezers die off we will make progress and have taller buildings downtown. I know that sounds cruel, but the heritage geezers are out of control!
I believe you mean, once some of the old geezers die off we can have another 50 architectural cancers (or ‘Brutalist masterpieces’, take your pick) like the Fenwick Tower littering the city.
The old buildings in and of themselves aren’t the problem, there are countless examples of cities out there filled with heritage buildings and cultural height restrictions that thrive regardless (mind-boggling, I know). Efficient use of buildings (or lack thereof) has a far more significant impact than their mere existence.
I like Fenwick. It’s like a heartless robocop building, and therefore keeps most criminals away from my neighborhood for fear of robocop. Now if only those perverts were afraid of robocop…
Apparently those “towers” have bedbugs.
*shudder*
Wasn’t it the Body of Salty Water Towers that had bedbugs?
That place has it too.
There’s a website someone posted here once that lists reports of bedbug infestations and that “tower” was on it too.
they’re soon gutting the thing anyways…. section by section.
I’m sure all those people will enjoy moving to a new floor for 6 odd months and then moving back again.
I’ve moved twice in 5 years and that was too much….
were it me, the first move would be the last… outta that place and into new digs.
Hell, even the alcove beside the black market is bug free….. go sleep there.
I live two mins. walking from Fenwick. Whenever I look out my window at night it reminds me of a Soviet bloc apartment.
I know, I was talking to someone who lives there a couple weeks ago and he was raving about how wonderful it was. Me, being new to Hali and when I was looking for a place was told to STAY AWAY from there, couldn’t help myself… so I said that it looks like a dump, I heard terrible stories, that they have bugs… etc, etc. He went on and on about new owners, pest control, how amazing they’re going to make it. Uh, ya. No thanks. It’s a terrifying place and the THREAT of bugs is enough for me to never, ever, live there. Oh well, a guess a male 20 something party animal doesn’t care much for cleanliness.
I think it was much worse off when Dal owned or leased it strictly for Dal students. Now it’s open to anyone. My mother lived there when she did law school back in the 90s and enjoyed her stay there.
Whenever I buy groceries at Sobeys it looks so ominous and looming – especially at dusk. At night when it’s lit up it’s not too bad. I like lights though.
Geezer is such a funny word.
I have no idea who planned Halifax but they should learn a thing or 2 from whoever planned Charlottetown, PEI. That is one pretty place.
Lot’s of nice shops. beautifully designed street, most are 1 way zigzagging from one end of the city to another. I also love their Pedestrian only row, Victoria Row. Talk about amazing food. Nothing I have ever tasted here.
PK – there are many buildings listed on the right side of this page: http://www.bedbugregistry.com/location/NS/…
Fenwick Tower is a great example of brutalist architecture. We’re going to regret altering it just like we regret altering what are now considered to be beautiful Victorian homes back in the 1960s and 70s, when they were considered out-dated dumps that should either be torn down or “modernized” with plywood siding, puke-orange and green tones, shag carpets, fake wood cabinets, and other hideous additions.
Yes but see, Victorian homes don’t evoke the spirit of a Communist Russian prison. The terms ‘great’ and ‘Brutalist architecture’ are mutually exclusive, it’s completely at odds with what makes for an enjoyable, inviting space to live or work in – they’re fucking MISERABLE buildings. Fenwick Tower has been a particularly brutal (harhar) example of this since it literally just sits there in a ghetto concrete sea of empty lots like a giant stone penis. There’s no consideration whatsoever for the area or the community that the building shares. The revamp project concept is already a massive improvement if only because it adds those secondary flanking buildings to help mute the jarring abruptness of the main building. It turns the building from something that simply happens to be there eating up skyline to something that can be a communal focal point.
It ain’t pretty, no, but it is a monument and landmark within Halifax whether we like it or not. We’re going to regret these changes one day, mark my words! Silly urban planners don’t know a damn thing… heh…
In all seriousness, some other additions and a few alterations may work, but we need to maintain the overall brutalist character of Fenwick Tower in my opinion. It is a part of our architectural heritage and a high-density development which can bring more people to live on the peninsula and reduce urban sprawl. Which is why I hate all these hypocritical NIMBYists who still want the city to grow, rail against urban sprawl, but then don’t like tall buildings or homes “crowded” onto smaller lots, either. Uhh, OK, I guess we’ll all live underground?
I dunno man, the only ‘character’ I get from Brutalist architecture is limited to “we want our buildings to be as depressing and uninviting as humanly possible”. I wholeheartedly agree on keeping city centers densely populated – I’m originally from Calgary which is a complete nightmare in that regard – and think that the height restrictions need to at least be modified to accommodate such. Nonetheless, any building – especially communal ones – need to be built with some degree of consciousness for the environment it’s in. Sure FT can happen to cram a lot of people into it but it’s a dead-looking building, and the way it forcefully dominates the region projects that dead feeling onto the area in general. If anything I think the tower is the reason why the NIMBYists have those hypocritical demands in the first place.
Of course, being a woeful logistical/financial farce for over 40 years hasn’t exactly done it any favours, either.