Pre-war apartments buildings in your town

Martin Mtl · #1 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 1:43 AM**

What are the great exemples of historic apartments buildings in your town ? Small or large. Lavish or not.

Here's Montreal contribution

Appartements Stanley (1897)

Picture: IMtl.org

Appartements Park Lane (1939)

Picture: gbrosseau.

Picture: IMtl.org

Appartements Garden Court (1926)

Picture: IMtl.org

Appartements Bishop-Court (1905)

Source: Wikimapia

Picture: François Rodrigue. Source: Patrimoine culturel Qc

Fairmount Court (1904)

DSCF7583 by Christopher DeWolf on Flickr

Montréal, Mile End by Coyolicatzin on Flickr

Picture: IMtl.org

Appartements Kensgington (1928)

Picture: IMtl.org

La Lorraine (1922)

Picture: IMtl.org

Appartements Pierrefonds (1910)

Montreal 2012 Panorama-Eye

Le Joseph Saint-Pierre (1915)

Picgture: IMtl.org

Appartements Empress (1912)

Picture: IMtl.org

Appartements King Edward (1939)

Source: Coolopolis

Picture: IMtl.org

Le Gonee (1912)

Source: IMtl.org

Appartements Denbigh (1899)

Picture: IMtl.org

Royal George Apartments (1913)

Archéologie contemporaine by Christian Aubry on Flickr

White Facade Adjoinng Webster Library by Margaret Griffin on Flickr

20090523_Montreal_10172 by R H Kamen on Flickr

Appartements Surrey Manor (1931)

Picture: IMtl.org.

Le Royal York (1928)

Montréal, Outremont by Coyolicatzin on Flickr

Appartements Towers et Dollard (1922)

DSC05381 by montréaliste on Flickr

Picture: IMtl.org

The Westmount

My Pic.

Westmount on Sherbrooke

My pic.

Westmount on Sherbrooke

My pic.

Appartements Haddon Hall (1928)

My pic

Rue Sherbrooke by Alejandro on Flickr

My pic.

Appartements Laurier (1927)

Picture: IMtl.org

Appartements Montlaurier et Montfort (1923)

Picture: IMtl.org

Appartements Royal Mount (1928)

Picture: IMtl.org

Le Furnhill (1923)

Picture: IMtl.org

Appartements Western (1914)

My pic.

Westmount by Alejandro on Flickr

Godin building (turn into a Hotel)

Plateau Mont-Royal - Rue Sherbrooke by JeanLemieux91 on Flickr

Acadia App. - 1227 Rue Sherbrooke O. (1925)

Picture: Jeangagnon on Wikimedia

The grand entrance to Acadia apartments on Rue Sherbrooke by Bharat on Flickr

Rue Sherbrooke by Alejandro on Flickr

Source

Appartements New Sherbrooke (1905 - now part of the MBAM).

Montreal museum of fine arts boutique by quan on Flickr

Appartements Richelieu (1925)

My pic.

Grosvenor Appartment (1905)

Rue Sherbrooke O (West Sherbooke Street) by chrisinphilly5448 on Flickr

My pic.

Appartements PickWick Arms (1926)

My Pic.

My pic.

Rue Sherbrooke - Westmount, Montréal by Axel Drainville on Flickr

Rue Sherbrooke - Westmount, Montréal by Axel Drainville on Flickr

115-119, avenue du Mont-Royal Ouest (1911)

Picture: Alain Laforest. Source

Appartements Gleneagles (1930)

Picture: Alain Laforest, 2012. Source

Source

Appartements Queen Mary (1911)

Picture: IMtl.org

Appartements Berkeley (1906)

Picture: IMtl.org

Appartements Trafalgar (1931)

Picture: Alain Laforest. Source.

Picture: Alain Laforest. Source.

Le 3636, ave. Henri-Julien – Appartements Frontenac (1903)

Picture: IMtl.org

Montréal, 30 nov. 2013. Le 3636, ave. Henri-Julien. by Philippe Du Berger On Flickr.

Le Linton (1907)

Montréal, 14 mars 2010. Le 1509, rue Sherbrooke, angle rue Simpson by Philippe Du Berger On Flickr.

Le Linton by La Belle Province on Flickr

Le Linton by YouTuber on Flickr

Source

My pic.

Les appartements Marlborough (1900)

Source: Archive du Musée McCord.

Montréal, 16 fév. 2009. Le 570, rue Milton. by Philippe Du Berger On Flickr.

My pic.

Sherbrooke street between McGill College and Metcalfe.

Montréal rue Sherbrooke 2 by Pascal POGGI on Flickr

Le Château

Source: Archives du Musée McCord.

Rue Sherbrooke Montreal by Andrew Sampson on Flickr

Les gigantesques batiments de la rue Sherbrooke ouest by Alice Powers on Flickr

Source

Appartement Oxenden (1906)

My pic.

Picture: IMtl.org

Appartements Saint-Jacques (1916)

Picture: IMtl.org

Appartements Pine Court (1929)

Picture: IMtl.org

Appartements Laurette (1930)

My pic.

1251 - 1225 St Marc - Appartements Claridge (1913)

Westmount near Sherbrooke street

My pic.

My pic.

Chequers Court (1928)

My pic.

My pic.

Appartements Stonehurst and Stonehenge (1929)

My Pic

Picture: IMtl.org

Picture: IMtl.org

1700 avenue Penfield (1928)

Source

Source: Répertoire du patrimoine culturel du Québec

FrAnKs · #2 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 1:55 AM**

awesome

Drybrain · #3 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 2:12 AM**

Curious to see what people post, but Montreal will win, of course.

lio45 · #4 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 2:14 AM**

Will anyone dare post anything from their city after this fine little sample you've posted?

lio45 · #5 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 2:15 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Curious to see what people post, but Montreal will win, of course.

Lol, I was typing while you posted -- you kinda took the words out of my mouth.

niwell · #6 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 2:20 AM**

Montreal wins obviously, great post.

Toronto has some post-war apartments, but not many. The city was intensely puritanical and did not allow apartment blocks within city limits for a long time. The few that were built early on were for "troubled women" (no joke) or similar such things. Clusters of pre-war apartments did appear outside of city limits however. These were generally higher-end and meant for well-to-do bachelors. The biggest is probably at St. Clair and Bathurst. Some on Avenue Rd. as well. Monkeyronin posted some excellent Art Deco examples in the other thread too.

Example:http://goo.gl/maps/OqL5O

http://goo.gl/maps/0QF2l

Architype · #7 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 3:13 AM**

Vancouver has quite a few good examples, but here is one of the typical ones which I happen to have photos of; Banffshire Apartments, Jervis Street, Vancouver, built in 1911, so pre-WWI.

source - my photos

Nathan · #8 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 7:05 AM**

I'll bite the bullet and give it a go. The buildings definitely don't match up to the grandeur that the larger cities can offer (as one can see with the first post), but there is a certain charm to some of Regina's entries nonetheless. Some of the earlier one's listed aren't overly impressive, but I included them to give them a comparison to how things developed. Regina was quite young and so there wouldn't have been much in the way of grand buildings when the Regina Cyclone hit in 1912, but very little remains that would have pre-dated that year as the Tornado went right through the core of the city.

Aftermath of the Cyclone:

Source

So, it was a pretty big rebuild that occurred in the aftermath, and here are some apartments (some now are condos) that have survived through to now:

Henderson Terrace (1913)

Source & Some info

Eddy Apartments (1914)

Source & Some info

Bartleman Apartments (1914)

Source & Some info

Qu'Appelle Apartments (1923)

Source & Some info

The Madrid Apartments (1927)

Source & Some info

Kenora Apartments (1928) - Designed to have a Medieval feel

Source & Some info

Mayfair Apartments (1929)

Source & Some info

Balfour Apartments (1930)

Source & Some info

Frontenac Apartments (1930)

Source

Source & Some info

SignalHillHiker · #9 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 1:02 PM**

This is my new favourite thread.

So, I'm going to start with Winnipeg. One of my favourite things about the city was all of the cool apartment buildings. There were two main styles that pulled at my heart-strings - one because it was familiar (but grander) and the other because it was a completely foreign to me.

This is the familiar one - St. John's has no buildings of this specific style but the bricks, windows, and atmosphere were nothing new to me.

Winnipeg has many of this style, with varying degrees of ornamentation. A friend of mine lived in this one that I spent some time there:

The style that was completely foreign to me featured a large sunroom for each unit. Once again, there are many examples of this style in Winnipeg - some are even made of stone. I find this style of apartment building exceptionally beautiful, enticing, attractive, romantic. This is about as perfect as apartment buildings can get for my tastes. I wish we had some of this style here:

One example from St. John's is the Imperial, which was built in 1909 - initially as a tobacco factory but very quickly converted into apartments:

St. John's has very few purpose built apartment buildings. There are many dozens of pre-war buildings that have been converted into apartment buildings but this was very much a city of the boarding house. People tend not to give it much thought these days but prior to Confederation, wealth inequality in Newfoundland was extreme - we were a country of most children wearing potato sacks and some studying at boarding schools in London. The class of people that would live in something like a proper apartment building simply didn't exist. When he was asked years later if Confederation was worth it, Joey Smallwood famously said, "Since we joined Canada, I haven't seen a child who wasn't properly dressed. Yes, it was worth it."

Boarding houses are even in folk songs:

• Video Link

An example of a typical St. John's boarding house would be the Carriagehouse:

It has been renovated to add the balconies and the signage on the exterior is far grander than it would have been before. But otherwise, this is a good example.

kwoldtimer · #10 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 1:29 PM**

Unlike larger places, (then) small town Kitchener didn't have large numbers of apartment buildings. One of my favourites, however, is the York Apartments, which date from the 1920s and would have been one of the tallest buildings in town back at the time.

One particularly unique apartment building, which was allowed to become derelict and was torn down several years ago, was the Barra Castle

Andy6 · #11 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 3:35 PM**

Winnipeg
Winnipeg has scores if not hundreds: apartment buildings were extremely popular prior to the First World War. They are one of the signature building forms of the city. Only a few surviving buildings are of the grandiose size that is more common in Montreal though. Most are 3 or 4 storeys. All photos by me or from my postcard collection. I took a lot of these when on a mission to document signs and entrances so I don't have a lot that show entire buildings, unfortunately.

The Eugene, 834 Grosvenor:

Wellington Arms, 277 Wellington Crescent:

c. 1912, postcard:

The Rochester, 66 Edmonton:

The Brussels, 156 Lilac:

The Royal Crest, 271 Wellington Crescent:

The Warwick, 366 Qu'Appelle on Central Park (still looks the same):

The Ambassador (originally the Breadalbane), Cumberland at Hargrave:

Tremblay Apts., 55 Hargrave:

The Palliser, 370 Stradbrook:

The Congress, 300 River Av.:

The Lyndhurst, 181 Balmoral:

The Kingsley, 275 Balmoral:

Chateau Apartments, 74 Spence:

The Wiltshire, 30 Spence:

The Sheridan, 33 Balmoral:

The Scarsdale, 71 Kennedy:

The Devon Court, Broadway at Edmonton (demolished):

The Carlyle, 580 Broadway:

The Royal Oak Court, 277 River Av.:

The Princeton (originally the Kenmore), 314 Broadway:

Advertisement, 1910:

With its neighbour, the Atholl:

The Victoria Court, 471 William:

The Conway Court, 165 Kennedy - as the business district displaced former residential areas in the 50s and 60s, a few of these things somehow escaped and are now awkwardly stranded in the midst of blocks of modern office and commercial buildings:

A page from a prewar viewbook stating that nearly $10,000,000 of buildings had been built to that point. The buildings illustrated are, clockwise from upper left, the Warwick, the Devon Court, the Lee Court and a smaller one I don't recognize:

The best known of them all, the Queen Anne Revival style Roslyn at 105 Roslyn Road, a very prominent location:

As a reminder of what firetraps these places could be, a memorial notice I happened to see while out and about a few years ago, which turned out to have been placed by the forum's "Mr. Christian" aka local history blogger Christian Cassidy:

SignalHillHiker · #12 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 3:37 PM**

The Ambassador is gorgeous. We have something vaguely reminiscent of it proposed here right now.

Martin Mtl · #13 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 3:52 PM**

Amazing stuff. Keep them coming (with the date of construction, even better, if you know it).

SignalHillHiker · #14 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 4:00 PM**

So, there are lots in other cities with bay windows... does anyone know of an example from any city other than Winnipeg of those complete, square sun rooms for each unit?

I love it so much, and I've not noticed it anywhere else yet.

Drybrain · #15 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 4:02 PM**

I`m actually surprised by Regina. It`s got more going on there than Calgary or Edmonton do, in my remembering, anyway, and those were bigger cities in pre-war years. Winnipeg is great, of course—it`s lucky it went through a pre-Depression building boom, leaving it with some great Edwardian building stock.

Halifax doesn't have a lot of older apartent structures—even Vancouver, a much younger city, out-performs us in apartment buildings. (We do a lot better in terms of houses and rowhouses, however.)

\What it does have tends to be wooden, and less grand. Many could use some renovation—replacing vinyl siding with wooden siding and replacing some decorative trim would do wonders. There are several below that illustrate how night-and-day some of these buildings look with restoration.

This one was reno`d a few years ago.

It used to look like this.

Another restoration, by the same company who did the above. A bit of an San Fran feel here.

Again, the before.

Here`s another that was restored, with a more contemporary touch.

It used to look like this.

Here`s a handsome Edwardian-era number, pretty much the only thing like it in town (or the province, as far as I`m aware.)

A not totally dissimilar and more run-down one in the North End.

And wedged in among a bunch of detached houses in the West End. This and the previous two are pretty common and distinct styles in other cities, but are the only examples to be found here.

Not technically an apartment building, but I`ll include it anyway--this is Shirreff Hall, the first Dalhousie University residence. It`s an multi-unit building anyway, so it counts well enough...

This one is the Garden Crest Apartments, and I`m not totally sure of the history here: The original building burned down and was rebuilt in 2002, from what I understand. (Maybe someone else knows a little more of the backstory.) This reconstruction looks a lot more like faux-heritage than an actual historical building, however--mimicry more than reconstruction.

A big old vinyl-clad pile that could use some of the above restoration.

Ditto.

In better shape, across the street.

Great building, crap landscaping and bad verandah.

A plain Georgian building. Again, could use some refreshing.

Victoria Hall. This is vacant—until last year it was a retirement facility, but the upkeep was too much. It's in perfectly fine shape, and in a rapidly gentrifying area, so hopefully it doesn't sit empty and depreciating for years. It'd be great for a developer to come and turn it into condos and put some new development on the large empty lot behind it.

MonkeyRonin · #16 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 4:25 PM**

Fairmount Court looks like something straight out London. Some of the others would fit in perfectly with Chicago's vernacular too. Montreal's collection of pre-war apartment buildings is unparalleled in Canada. After New York and Chicago, probably in North America too.

In Toronto, my favourite collection of pre-war apartments is around Avenue Rd. & St. Clair, the best of which being: (along with some of those seen in the art deco thread)

The Balmoral (1928)

TORONTO 2007- balmoral apartments by ettml, on Flickr

The Clarendon (1927)

http://heritagetoronto.org/avenue-ro...nd-apartments/

The Claridge (1928)

TORONTO 2007- claridge apartments by ettml, on Flickr

http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2011/07/...-watch-company

Martin Mtl · #17 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 4:29 PM**

The Balmoral is amazing. And yes, Winnipeg and Regina are really surprising. I really love old apartment buildings. I think they are romantic and very urban.

SignalHillHiker · #18 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 4:38 PM**

A few more examples of pre-war apartment buildings from St. John's. Some of these were boarding houses or inns initially and three examples were something else entirely.

The former American military base Fort Pepperell in Pleasantville has been converted into colourful apartment buildings. These buildings all date to the Second World War. The are fantastic apartments. The walls are very thick brick (it's a foot or more from the window to the interior wall, massive window ledges. Generally, they have the same interesting layout: two doors per apartment (the soldiers had to be able to scramble), one in the kitchen, one in the bedroom - which are located on opposite ends of the apartment. Two corridors along the exterior walls link both together, and in between them. is a bathroom. Shitty MS paint following the picture:

Blue lines are doors, red lines are windows:

Some examples of former boarding houses-turned-apartment buildings:

Yes, in the above picture, those are stones painted onto the asphalt. I love this city.

A former factory:

If I recall correctly, much of this building pre-dates the war and it was only the lower levels renovated since to create a proper lobby and parking:

And a little example of some of the pre-war residential buildings that have been converted into apartments/condos. On the left is St. Patrick's Hall (the hill is so steep here that on the back it is only one floor high) and on the right is O'Donnell Hall.

MonkeyRonin · #19 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 4:55 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Halifax doesn't have a lot of older apartent structures—even Vancouver, a much younger city, out-performs us in apartment buildings. (We do a lot better in terms of houses and rowhouses, however.)

It's a weird British thing. Whether in the UK, their Canadian colonies (i.e. the Atlantic and Ontario, not so much Quebec or the West), Australia, or even their early colonies in New England, there's an obvious historical aversion to large apartment buildings. Most of the old apartment stock is, at street level, indistinguishable from single-family homes.

In any of these cases, betcha most of these are (or at least once were) apartments:

My photo

Historic Homes (143/365) by EPDave, on Flickr

In the case of the actual UK, London is the only place that seems to have a significant historic stock of large buildings - something that probably came about out of necessity, what with being the largest city and the world and all that. But even then, I would wager that most of its old apartment stock are within its rowhouses.

Andy6 · #20 Posted **Apr 12, 2014, 4:59 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Mtl

Amazing stuff. Keep them coming (with the date of construction, even better, if you know it).

The majority of Winnipeg's were built between 1905 and 1913. I can't actually think of any that are older than that and, while they continued building blocks through the 20s and 30s, there wasn't another apartment block boom until the 50s, when the same 3-4 storey style was maintained but in a modern, plainer, form. Then in the 60s, of course, they started to build the towers, culminating with 55 Nassau at 38 storeys in 1970. Since the mid 1970s relatively little has been built.

The Regina buildings are mostly almost identical in style to what we have in Winnipeg and would likely have been built by builders from Winnipeg looking for new markets.