The oldest all-wooden building in Halifax is being taken down. I just took these photos of the Sweet Basil building downtown:While I was there, Phil Pacey from the Heritage Society arrived, and handed out a flyer explaining the history of the building. He believes that the building was constructed in the 1840s. City directories weren’t published until later, but by 1864 there is reference to a “eating saloon, steam ferryboat wharf, Thomas Martin, grocer and liquor” at the site. Later directories mention a boarding house, a grocer, a tobacconist and a confectionist. From 1952 to 1974 it housed Tom’s Lunch and coffeeshop.. In 1989 came Cafe Scanway, and in 1999, sweet Basil.Just before I left, Unni Simensen, the owner of Sweet Basil, arrived and said she still holds on the lease on the building until midnight tonight, but demolition was continuing despite her objections.The workers appeared to be removing all the doors, windows and fixtures of value, and then boarding up the building for the night. I’m guessing they’ll need to block Upper Water street to actually tear the structure down, and that will occur tomorrow so as to not affect traffic.
Waterside CentreThe Sweet Basil building is one of five involved in the Waterside Centre proposal that was voted down by Halifax council last week. The history is rather complicated—the Sweet Basil building had been given heritage protection, but owner Ben McCrea managed to get the NS Supreme Court to revoke that status on what Pacey calls “a technicality.”After that court ruling, McCrea applied for, and received, a demolition permit for the building. It was part of the larger Waterside project—from the start, he said he would tear down this building completely, and save only the facades of the other four buildings. When council voted against Waterside, there was no particular reason to rush through with demolition. Perhaps the building could have been part of a land swap that would have saved the entire block. I can only see the rush to demolish as an act of spite; McCrea’s taking his ball and going home with it because he didn’t get his way with council.None of this bodes well for the other four buildings. McCrea holds a demolition permit for the Imperial Oil building (housing O’Carrols), which the city has to act on within six months, and (according to Pacey) applied yesterday for a demolition permit for the others, which will have a year timeline for action.
Related Stories
Best Catering
This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 5, 2008.
Thank you, Tim, for posting the photos.That this is happening is horrible. Absolutely heartbreaking. I know that all things are impermanent, but this is a deliberate act of vandalism. What kind of heartless person would want to do this? Why have the been given permission to do this?Good bye to a beloved part of Halifax. Hello to another dumpy, bland, generic building.I can’t even muster up the energy for a real rant.I’m heartbroken that someone would do this to our historic waterfront, and that we the citizens are powerless to do anything about it.It seems that some members of City Council have not yet clued in to the fact that people don’t visit halifax to see Scotia Square. They LAUGH at things like Scotia Square.One more reason for people from away to call us all idiots and rubes; I guess this is proof they are right after all.Sigh.Thanks, Tim, for at least keeping us informed, even when the news is bad.
You sound quite torn at the loss of the building in the photo, Ruby Jane.I don’t mean to trivialize your sentiment, but I am not sure what it is about the pictured wooden square with 6 small windows that is so not “dumpy, bland, and generic” to warrant its alleged status as a historic cultural icon of this city.It looks like a wooden green square with regular windows to me. And I’m sure it does to everyone else who is looking at it with unbiased eyes, whether locals or from-aways. There are zero distinguishing elements to this building. No historical ‘artsy’ engravings. No stone gargoyles adorning its corners. Nothing. Nada. The only thing this building offers to heritage lovers is emotion by association. There is zero real tourism or cultural value to this rotting green wooden box of a building. The other four buildings that are part of the Waterside proposal (if photos were to be posted of them as well) share similar characteristics to this one. They are not historic architectural marvels to anyone, physically speaking. In fact, they are the very definition of dumpy, bland and generic square boxes.Scotia Square mall is also bland and generic. But at least the mall is a small economic engine of jobs and tax revenues for the city and its people, as opposed to the buildings in the Waterside proposal, which have been vacated by NSCAD for some time now and are not fit as office space for new businesses.You are right. People don’t visit Halifax to see things like Scotia Square mall. But I would suggest that they also don’t visit Halifax to look at the green box in the photo.