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Gore Park

Friday April 8, 2016

April 7, 2016 by Graeme MacKay
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator Ð Friday April 8, 2016 Gore developers back with plan to save some historical features Developers of a site with historic buildings facing Gore Park are back with an amended proposal to save some and incorporate some heritage features before demolishing the current structures and rebuilding. The redevelopment project screeched to a halt in 2013 when city council slapped a last-minute heritage designation on a small strip of buildings addressed 18 to 28 King St. E. just before they were to be torn down. They are on the southside of the park. Proponents for redeveloping the site made an unscheduled appearance before city council's general issues committee Wednesday with a new plan to save the faade of 18 to 22 King and demolish the rest. A new five-storey, 20,000-square-foot building is planned that will also encompass a small adjacent vacant property where a building was demolished in 2011. The building will have retail stores on the first floor and 14 apartments above, all with balconies overlooking Gore Park, said Tim Bullock, a lawyer representing the consortium that owns the properties. The preserved faade will form half of the new building's front. "This is a compromise," Bullock told councillors. He said the faade to be preserved has Escarpment stone in its design and has the most heritage features worthy of preservation. The other faade or building front, on addresses 24 to 28, has fewer heritage features, different stonework, and has deteriorated beyond reasonable repair, he said. "Restoring all the facades would make it economically unfeasible É The engineering report says 28 (King St. E.) is very unsafe and 24 King has had its heritage features stripped." The two addresses also have small retail fronts not suitable to today's retail industry, he added. The new plan is "very respectful of the Gore," he suggested. "It's a win-win for the city." Architect David Premi, who worked on th

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday April 8, 2016

Gore developers back with plan to save some historical features

Developers of a site with historic buildings facing Gore Park are back with an amended proposal to save some and incorporate some heritage features before demolishing the current structures and rebuilding.

The redevelopment project screeched to a halt in 2013 when city council slapped a last-minute heritage designation on a small strip of buildings addressed 18 to 28 King St. E. just before they were to be torn down. They are on the southside of the park.

Proponents for redeveloping the site made an unscheduled appearance before city council’s general issues committee Wednesday with a new plan to save the façade of 18 to 22 King and demolish the rest.

A new five-storey, 20,000-square-foot building is planned that will also encompass a small adjacent vacant property where a building was demolished in 2011.

The building will have retail stores on the first floor and 14 apartments above, all with balconies overlooking Gore Park, said Tim Bullock, a lawyer representing the consortium that owns the properties.



The preserved façade will form half of the new building’s front.

“This is a compromise,” Bullock told councillors.

He said the façade to be preserved has Escarpment stone in its design and has the most heritage features worthy of preservation.

The other façade or building front, on addresses 24 to 28, has fewer heritage features, different stonework, and has deteriorated beyond reasonable repair, he said.

“Restoring all the facades would make it economically unfeasible … The engineering report says 28 (King St. E.) is very unsafe and 24 King has had its heritage features stripped.”

The two addresses also have small retail fronts not suitable to today’s retail industry, he added.

The new plan is “very respectful of the Gore,” he suggested. “It’s a win-win for the city.”

Architect David Premi, who worked on the downtown library and farmers’ market project, told councillors the building, with the original façade for half of its front and a complementing front for the other half is “an attempt to be respectful” to the original design. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

 

Posted in: Hamilton Tagged: conservation, Gore Park, Hamilton, heritage, history, King street, preservation, restoration, revovation

Tuesday June 30, 2015

June 29, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

Tuesday June 30, 2015Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday June 30, 2015

Hamilton’s Porch Problem on the Eve of the Pan Am Games

The Johnson family is rather fond of the wooden table set on their east-end front porch — the city, not so much.

Jennifer and Tony arrived to their Chestnut Avenue home last Friday to find a bylaw notice taped to their front door ordering them to remove the furniture, hide their garbage containers and cut their lawn within three days or face a maximum fine of $10,000.

“The way this was done made (us feel) bullied,” said Jennifer, who notes the family would opt for a nicer set if they could afford it. “We sit here all the time.”

The table set hasn’t generated a single bylaw complaint in three years, so why is the city cracking down now?

When they called to complain, the Johnsons said a city staffer told them it wouldn’t look good for the Pan Am Games. But Coun. Matthew Green has apologized to the family, saying the staff member was mistaken and the bylaw blitz is part of the city’s proactive approach to property standards. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

A new city order to fix up crumbling and controversial heritage buildings in Gore Park won’t get action before the Pan Am Games.

The city issued an order earlier this month to repair falling bricks and missing mortar by July 5 at 28 King St. — one in a series of addresses in a historic park frontage that was slated for demolition until council imposed a last-minute heritage designation at the end of 2013.

The ownership consortium for 18-28 King St. has appealed the order to a rarely convened committee that isn’t scheduled to meet until September. Consortium partner Robert Miles confirmed the appeal, but declined to comment further.

The appeal prevents the city from doing the repairs — at the owner’s expense — in advance of the July 10 to 27 Pan Am Games, which feature a major themed party in Gore Park.

“It’s unfortunate nothing can be done because bricks are still falling off and it doesn’t look very good,” said downtown BIA executive director Kathy Drewitt, who added the group sought, but couldn’t come up with cash for artwork to hide the plywood-covered windows overlooking Gore Park’s iconic fountain.

Drewitt said planners for the Pan Am Promenade event in the park will “strategically” park food trucks and first aid tents in front of the buildings. “We can basically hide the bottom section, but if you look up, it’s hard to miss,” she said. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Posted in: Hamilton, International Tagged: BIA, Blanchard, civility, Fred Eisenberger, Games, Gore Park, Hamilton, Pan Am, porch, repair

Saturday July 12, 1997

July 12, 1997 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday July 12, 1997

Targeting Goths wrong way to fix downtown

“Here’s a suggestion: build a gibbet in Gore Park and take all these teenagers and the poor beggars down there and hang ’em. We’ll have a hanging every month, and that’ll bring people back into downtown.”– Sarcasm from a shopper who lives on the Mountain and says she’s never been bothered downtown.

Judging people by category never works. In every group, whether you measure it by age, race, belief, wealth, job or gender, there are saints and there are slugs.

Most are somewhere in the middle.

This goes for the people who fight to keep downtown alive by opening their stores every day just as it does for their sometime opponents: the people who sit on the sidewalks and ask passersby for money.

And of course, it applies to the people who provide the cash to keep them both alive: the consumer.

Downtown’s many communities have reacted strongly to this week’s proposal for a bylaw that would prohibit pedestrians from gathering on Hamilton sidewalks.

The primary target is people who call themselves Goths or Freaks: the tattooed, pierced and pancake-faced teens and young adults standing and sitting along King Street east of James.

To them, the bylaw would be an unfair restriction on their freedom to congregate and, for those among them who don’t have homes or jobs, to collect pocket change from downtown workers and shoppers.

The good ones can “pan” up to $60 or $80 a day.

To the people whose goods and services compete for the same pool of money, panhandlers are killing them.

At the downtown strip club Chez M, they take strong exception to the Goths’ plea that they are gentle and non-threatening.

On June 6, a group of Goths chased a patron leaving the club down the alley, catching him just outside the back door.

“They were laying the boots to this guy’s head, ” said Jeannette, a Chez M bartender. “These kids don’t care. They will say and do whatever they feel like.”

Hamilton-Wentworth police confirm a beating took place in that alley and that a 32-year-old man was taken to hospital and treated after being kicked in the chest and head.

An 18-year-old has been charged with assault causing bodily harm.

The staff at Chez M say there is constant trouble with Goth kids hanging around their entrance.

“They ask us for spare change, ” Jeannette said. “I say, ‘Hey, buddy, I work for spare change’.”

She said the same people use the abandoned store entrance next door as a washroom and staff constantly have to pour bleach in the corners just to get rid of the smell.

“I’ve been in this business 10 years. I’m a pretty tough cookie, but this has to stop, ” Jeannette said.

Tough to argue with that.

Further down King Street, the owner of an independent business, who, fearing retribution, asked not to be named, said he used to bring in $200,000 a year. Now, some panhandlers take home more money than he does.

“Sidewalks aren’t for sitting on, as far as I’m concerned. People don’t want to be pestered when they go shopping, ” he said. “The whole downtown’s a mess. I don’t know where to start.”

Not by stopping people from gathering, says Frank Rocchi, a stockbroker who works in the office towers above King and James. He’s no fan of the Goths, but he won’t stand for sidewalk segregation.

“I’m absolutely appalled by this proposal, ” he said. “It’s not only draconian, it’s antediluvian.”

Frank has a good point. So, however, does Louie Petrou, owner of Leathers and Leathers Giant Discount Warehouse. He’s been at King and Mary for 25 years.

He doesn’t think it’s right to target people for what they wear, either, but he knows panhandlers are hurting downtown’s image.

And in business, image is important.

“No one should have to be approached like that, ” he says. “Everyone has the right to be where they want, but not the right to disturb others.”

All these rights still add up to something wrong.

There doesn’t seem to be much patience left among the shopping public — the people who will really decide whether downtown lives or dies.

“I almost don’t care if anything is done, ” said one shopper, “because I think our downtown is toast anyway, whether we have a nice new fountain or not.”

They say their former customers would rather go to a mall, where security guards move along the bothersome beggars. (Hamilton Spectator, 6/28/1997, A3)

Goths are not the problem

The idea of banning Goths, panhandlers or any other visible minority group from downtown Hamilton is truly remarkable in one way: It has absolutely no redeeming value. It’s unfair, impractical, draconian, imprecise, illogical and ultimately useless.

Somebody, please, put this ill-conceived plan out of its misery, followed quickly by the plan to spend $150,000 to study loitering.

Talk about fiddling while the city is burning. Hamilton’s downtown core is a mess. The office vacancy rate is sky high. Storefront after storefront is empty. Our downtown mall is eerily empty. The cheque-cashing outlets, bars and adult entertainment arcades are doing a solid business while retailers suffer through month after month, year after year, of stagnant business.

While no one has suggested Goths and panhandlers are directly responsible, the argument being put forth by some downtown businesspeople seems to be that these are generally unpleasant people, and they intimidate shoppers.

Perhaps this is true. But it’s also true that other people stay away from downtown because of the proliferation of arcades and sex shops, and no one is suggesting they be banned from the core. People have been saying for years they don’t go downtown because they don’t want to pay for parking when it’s free at suburban malls, but to date we’ve only had Band-Aid suggestions and solutions to the parking problem.

Perhaps that is because these larger issues demand bigger, complex answers. There’s nothing simple about solving the parking problem, about recruiting new business and residential properties to the core. Fixing the core requires many solutions to many problems, and above all requires a vision for downtown development.

Getting rid of Goths and panhandlers is easy by comparison, so perhaps it’s understandable in a way that businesspeople and some local politicians, lacking answers for the bigger problems, reach out to do what they can with the simple ones.

But the problem here isn’t too many Goths and panhandlers, it’s too few people. If our downtown core was healthy and well- populated, visible groups like these wouldn’t stand out, or probably even be noticed. Anyone who remembers the chaotic city core of the ’60s and ’70s, hippies, shoppers and businesspeople all sharing the same sidewalk, can attest to that.

That some people are intimidated when they go downtown is a symptom of the area’s overall state of decay, and that’s the problem that must be addressed.

As for the $150,000 plan to study loitering, we’d suggest an’ alternative. Take the $150,000, and hire a qualified, dynamic organizer, marketer and promoter to co-ordinate a downtown revitalization plan, even if only on a one-year contract. The right person in that job, combined with political will and a vision, will go a long way toward really fixing Hamilton’s downtown core. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)

 

Posted in: Hamilton Tagged: culture, downtown, Gore Park, goth, Hamilton, loitering, Queen Victoria, tearsheet, Youth

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This website contains satirical commentaries of current events going back several decades. Some readers may not share this sense of humour nor the opinions expressed by the artist. To understand editorial cartoons it is important to understand their effectiveness as a counterweight to power. It is presumed readers approach satire with a broad minded foundation and healthy knowledge of objective facts of the subjects depicted.

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