Canadian skylines of the past

[Trans Canada]

Originally Posted by Trans Canada

^ https://hermis.alberta.ca/paa/PhotoG...bjectID=A1085d

Noticed something funny in front of the Hotel Macdonald (Edmonton's grand railway hotel).Did a bit of digging and it is the Hotel Macdonald Annex, built 1953, demolished 1986. Apparently the entire hotel was at risk of being demolished.

1951:

Source http://www.connect2edmonton.ca/forum...ad.php?t=14417 "as archived by the province" (though I can't find it on HeRMIS)

1969:

(on left)
Photographer Munro Williamson, Provincial Archives of Alberta, https://hermis.alberta.ca/paa/PhotoG...ObjectID=A8377

[craner]

^Ahhh yes - the Mac & the box it came in.

[CanadianCentaur]

Originally Posted by Trans Canada

Date of 1969 is based on Telus (AGT) tower topped out, with the second taller tower completed in 1981.

That should read as 1971, the actual year when the taller AGT Tower (now Telus House) was completed.

Originally Posted by Trans Canada

And finally, Edmonton skyline in 1984 (or is it 2005?)

That couldn't have been any truer than this! if someone managed to shot this pic in 2005, it sure wouldn't have looked any different if it weren't for Commerce Place, which went up in circa 1990 (from the vantage point, its top would show up right between Telus House and Scotia Place). After all, Edmonton took a helluva loooong time to recover from the 1990s, when its downtown core probably had one of Canada's highest office vacancy rates, if not the highest. And of course, the perfect storm of a whole bunch of factors including WEM, underground LRT construction, losing so much corporate business to Calgary, government cutbacks, etc, etc ad nauseum.

Originally Posted by Trans Canada

Noticed something funny in front of the Hotel Macdonald (Edmonton's grand railway hotel).Did a bit of digging and it is the Hotel Macdonald Annex, built 1953, demolished 1986. Apparently the entire hotel was at risk of being demolished.

To demolish even the old hotel Mac would have been a HUGE loss for the city of Edmonton. But, yes, it's true that the city did once consider taking down even the original one. But it wised up and designated the Hotel Mac as a Municipal Heritage Resource. The original hotel was in such bad shape by 1983, that it had to be closed until it reopened in 1991, after CP Hotels bought it in the late 1980s and did major renos to its interior.

[davidivivid]

Didn't know where to put these... More af a then vs now type of post:

Jeffrey Hale hospital in 1901. Now a residential building. The Martello tower on the right was unfortunately demilished. The three other are still intact.






Chinese art museum built in 1910, now a commercial building.






Union hotel built in 1805, now a tourist information center.





http://www.lapresse.ca/le-soleil/mai...9_section_POS2

[thegx]

Originally Posted by CanadianCentaur

That couldn't have been any truer than this! if someone managed to shot this pic in 2005, it sure wouldn't have looked any different.

Well there's one obvious difference, Commerce Place.

[SignalHillHiker]

Wow, the changes to Union Hotel actually improve it tremendously. Don't often see that.

[vincefort]

I don't think this one was ever posted here before. Downtown Sherbrooke in the early 20th century view from the East.

[FrAnKs]

Originally Posted by vincefort

I don't think this one was ever posted here before. Downtown Sherbrooke in the early 20th century view from the East.

Impressionant !!

Tu évaluerais à combien le pourcentage d'édifices encore debout en 2014 sur cette photo ?

... pendant que j'y pense, Holy crap, ça fait depuis 2008 que j'ai pas mis les pieds à Sherbrooke... je serais dû pour une petite virée !!

[Darkoshvilli]

Thats a great pic of Sherb. Kinda crazy how little it changed in a hundred years though.

[drawarc]

Source:https://www.facebook.com/34781916535...type=3&theater

[Chadillaccc]

Calgary, 1989.

The word "transformative" comes to mind...


http://citiesofmigration.ca/good_ide...t-job-hunters/

[yaletown_fella]

Bankers Hall is a pretty respectable po-mo development. It wouldnt look out of place in New York in the 80's.

It makes Suncor look so grungy by comparison.

[Chadillaccc]

Yeah, I used to really hate Bankers because of how busy the design is, but I've really warmed up to it. Not sure if I liked it better as one tower or two. The silver tower (as pictured above) was alone for the first 11 years of its existence, until they built the gold tower in 2000.

My warming up to Bankers has seemingly coincided with my warming up to brutalist architecture, though I'm not sure if the two occurrences are related

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by yaletown_fella

Bankers Hall is a pretty respectable po-mo development. It wouldnt look out of place in New York in the 80's.

It makes Suncor look so grungy by comparison.

Bankers Hall always reminds me of the World Financial Center buildings in New York:



In fact (and I'm too lazy to actually look it up to confirm) I think they may be designed by the same firm?

[Chadillaccc]

They likely were. They are also both Brookfield owned.

[Trans Canada]

Bankers Hall was developed by Trizec and designed by Cohos Evamy (now Dialog), but influenced by New York's World Financial Center and London's Canary Wharf, both developed by Olympia & York and designed by Cesar Pelli.

Trizec and Cohos Evamy also did Western Canadian Place (Husky).

[thomax]

Hamilton | 1910


Source

Everything in the lower half of that photo was demolished and replaced by Jackson Square.

[Chadillaccc]

One of the west's greatest losses... Edmonton's Tegler Building.



http://donicabelisle.com/post/803028...egler-building




http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/postcards/PC013732.html

[Rico Rommheim]

What a shame!

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

What a shame!

Yeah, sucks balls. For a province that admittedly doesn't have much history to begin with, we really lost a lot in the five decades after WW2. Thankfully both cities have two of the most active heritage preservation and restoration commissions in the country now.