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Housing York’s affordable housing redevelopment at 275 Woodbridge Avenue in the City of Vaughan
york.ca/woodbridgelane
So, 35 years after destroying dozens of beautiful 18th and 19th-century cottages, what do they do but put up fake versions in their place. The whole excercise is quite unnecessary but lots of people make money out of it. Demolition contractors, hauliers and waste disposal firms make a packet from the demolition and clearance; property developers, architects, construction firms and the building trade make their money from the redevelopment. Our elected representatives, of course, do alright from the back-handers. You used to be able to buy your way in with £10,000, after which you were assured of lots of lucrative council contracts.
They have tried to sugar-coat this little development by using reclaimed materials, but they've got it all wrong. The stone looks to be at least partly pennant ...that curry powder colour visible on the left is characterisitic... but they haven't laid the stones correctly in courses. Instead we have a kind of vertical crazy paving, pointed with entirely inappropriate Portland cement. The window dressings are of mass-produced modern bricks. Windows of this sort, in "natural wood" with those twee little radiused tops, are a particular bête noire of mine.
The flats have been altered by the addition of balconies.
Housing York’s affordable housing redevelopment at 275 Woodbridge Avenue in the City of Vaughan
york.ca/woodbridgelane
Housing York’s affordable housing redevelopment at 275 Woodbridge Avenue in the City of Vaughan
york.ca/woodbridgelane
I've gone to this location several times in the last few months. They tore down half of a strip mall and are rebuilding it from scratch and the back walls finally went up last week. There is another shot coming soon that I took inside, but with people driving by and looking in, I decided to stay out of the direct line of sight since it is probably a "closed" site.
I was drawn to this angle when I saw what I expect to be loading docks and back entry doors on this angled section in the back of the building. The lights coming out of them looked like wings and the building had a very industrial or fortress-like feeling to it.
This was also one of my first attempts at star trails in a more populated setting. Surprisingly they were brighter than I expected but there was a lot of light pollution.
Technical info:
Building and grounds: 4 exposures, from 240 to 30 seconds @ f8, ISO 100, combined with Nik HDR Efex Pro.
Stars and sky: 10 exposures of 240 seconds each @ f5.6, ISO 400.
During the 90s came gentrified housing for young professionals, offering accomodation that would seem cramped by the standards of a 19th-century miner's cottage ...but then, we mustn't grumble, because life is so much better now, isn't it, and of course a developer needs to optimise the profitability of the land at his disposal. A silly footbridge now spans the neck of Bathurst Basin. I seem to remember that you used to cross by walking over the top of one of the locks ...or perhaps there was a primitive footbridge which could be raised to allow the passage of shipping. The "regeneration" of Bristol's harbour proceeds, and now cranes are at work over in Canon's Marsh where building seems to have been going on for about 20 years.
Title: Washington Park: Rehabilitation and Relocation
Creator: Boston Redevelopment Authority
Date: 1965 October 14
Source: Boston Redevelopment Authority photographs, Collection #4010.001
File name: 4010_001_A274_013
Rights: In Copyright - Non commercial use permitted
Citation: Boston Redevelopment Authority photographs, Collection #4010.001, City of Boston Archives, Boston
An attempt to fit the vanished 1960s buildings into the present-day landscape. Works reasonably well.
Red Square.
A double exposure (film camera) that my sister inadvertently got of a goose at Lake Padden and Fairhaven College dorms.
Fairhaven College Court Yard.
View from Music Building plaza out over Bellingham and Georgia Pacific Pulp Mill.
When I came to Bellingham for college in the 1970s there was no Boulevard Park. I heard about that space in a Geography of Recreation class. Dreams about what it could become.
It was over a bluff, out of sight and out of mind. I walked down there after hearing about it in the class. It was a grassy, trashy field full of broken glass, concrete blocks and blackberry thorns.
Bellingham's waterfront was mostly industrial, or abandoned industrial sites. The smell of chlorine and the sulphite pulping process filled Bellingham's air much of the time; depending on how the wind was blowing. That was from Georgia Pacific Pulp Mill.
There were, basically, no greenway trails back then.
Bellingham's greenway system didn't get started till the early 1990s when voters approved the first Greenway Levy.
Yes, there was one bike path. It was along Lakeway Drive near the cemetery and the mausoleum. It was full of sharp bumps from cheap pavement and tree root damage.
Downtown was pretty scruffy. There were no street trees. They were planted in the 1980s and have had many years to grow.
As I remember, planting of the street trees was paid for by developers of Bellis Fair Mall. That was part of a compromise, with the city, allowing the mall to be built. There was fear that a mall could kill the downtown. Bellis Fair opened around 1987.
Downtown Bellingham was practical, but maybe not that pretty. Pulp mill employees got free meals at the Horseshoe Café as part of their benefits. Traffic was pretty bad and there were fights at the Flame Tavern.
Bars were smoky as Washington State hadn't outlawed smoking in taverns yet. That came in the early 2000s.
Rent was a lot lower compared to wages, but wages were low as well. Less people were wanting to move to Bellingham.
Western Washington University had two small dorms in the Fairhaven Dorm Complex that were shuttered due to lack of students. Enrollment had dropped since the days when people crowded into college to avoid the draft.
Eventually, a resident aid talked Campus Housing into opening those two empty dorms, so some students could go without roommates. He said, he wanted to have a "community instead of a sardine can."
My parents paid for me to have a single room so I didn't have a roommate anyway.
Residents set up an experimental commune in another one of those little dorms in the complex.
Two more of the little dorms were for senior citizens going back to college. That was a program called The Bridge Project.
Having a big stereo system was a status symbol.
TVs were fairly rare and mostly black and white. Dorm lounges sometimes had color, if the TV wasn't stolen. There was very little choice in TV channels.
I was into radio, back then. I thought that being able to get both Seattle and Vancouver AM radio was a big feature of Bellingham.
FM, from Seattle, was scratchy at best. AM was better and (back then) there wasn't static from computers in the residence. FM, from Vancouver was good.
I spent much of my youthful years fiddling with antennas.
Needless to say there was no internet, or smartphones.
People were starting to be able to use computer terminals in Bond Hall. Alphanumeric characters on monochrome screens.
Dorm rooms had landline phones as I remember. Students got billed if they made long distance calls.
When I moved to a rooming house off campus, there was one shared phone in the entry hall. It was for incoming calls only. There was the fear that someone would run up a huge bill making long distance calls. The rotary dial had a lock to prevent outgoing calls.
Rent for my room was below Bellingham market then and would really be below market now. $55 per month.
Some folks remember the past through rose tinted glasses.
My memories are more mixed as a lot of things were more spartan back then.
In some ways, we live in very rich and colorful times, these days.
Brighter, more colorful lights than before, due, in part, to LED technology. I've heard that the average supermarket had around 4 or 5 thousand items during my high school years. Now it's more like 30 thousand items.
Today's expectations are higher so we often feel just as deprived as ever.
We also suffer more "choice anxiety."
Seems like more people fall off into homelessness now as one big factor is the increased price of certain basics such as housing, healthcare and tuition at college.
Building A completed. South east corner Arbutus Street at laneway
Note the complete absence of fences or construction equipment.
The Willis Faber building viewed from the north with a reflection of the adjacent Unitarian Meeting House clearly visible. This building is also Grade 1 listed and was constructed in the early 1700s. The other reflection is of St Vincent House. This Collection was donated by Dr Steeds.
n 1939 Dr Roger Steeds, general practitioner joined the three Staddon brothers who were in practice at 6 Silent Street. Just before the war, the building was threatened with demolition because of road widening. The practice moved to 18 Silent Street. It was said to be a purpose built building with three consulting rooms, dispensary, reception area and waiting room and caretaker’s flat. However, the building was wrecked by a bomb during the war but re-erected in 1946. After the war as each of the Staddon brothers retired, they were replaced in turn by Dr Roy Webb, Dr Sheila Hines and Dr Bunt Drabble. Dr Steeds retired In 1966.
The newly completed glass clad building by Norman Foster viewed in a northerly direction from the corner of Princes St and Franciscan Way. Within 20 years of its construction, this 21,000 m2 building was given Grade 1 listing. The buildings in the right background are on the east side of St Nicholas St. This Collection was donated by Dr Steeds.
n 1939 Dr Roger Steeds, general practitioner joined the three Staddon brothers who were in practice at 6 Silent Street. Just before the war, the building was threatened with demolition because of road widening. The practice moved to 18 Silent Street. It was said to be a purpose built building with three consulting rooms, dispensary, reception area and waiting room and caretaker’s flat. However, the building was wrecked by a bomb during the war but re-erected in 1946. After the war as each of the Staddon brothers retired, they were replaced in turn by Dr Roy Webb, Dr Sheila Hines and Dr Bunt Drabble. Dr Steeds retired In 1966.
Continuing construction work on what was the Westralia Swamp. Note that they've torn the backs off the Royal Insurance and WA Trustee Buildings to integrate them into the new structure.
By the summer of 2006 the Sports Centre, much rebuilt and enlarged, had been reborn as Easton Leisure Centre ...wheelchair accessible, with CCTV cameras, bicycle racks, grafitti and ample provision of "disabled" parking. The factory has gone from the left-hand side of the road, and trees have flourished to attain a height of 50ft or so during the 25 years since the previous photograph.
Demolishing one of the former blocks.
On 21 July 2013 work was underway to demolish and redevelop the southern part of Lawrence Road.
Bellway's development will transform the southern end of Lawrence Road. It will no longer be the decayed rubbish-strewn eyesore which Haringey Council has tolerated for too many years.
But will Bellway succeed in making Lawrence Road into a lively, inviting or even beautiful place?
In previous years I frequently reported dumped rubbish on the pavements and behind empty buildings in Lawrence Road. I also tried to visualise how it might look if imaginatively developed. In my mind's eye I saw potential for an attractive, wide, tree-lined boulevard, with new homes and business premises to complement the successful small media businesses at Studio 28. (Scroll down the page to view two of my photos.)
The potential was there. And unlike other redevelopment in Tottenham, at the time there were no residents in the southern part of Lawrence Road to evict; no homes to tear down, community to destroy and disperse. Nor existing businesses to displace or shut.
Links
§ Aerial view of where I took this photo.
§ Photos from 2010 and 2011 showing problems at this location.
§ I missed the 2013 exhibition at the Royal Academy celebrating the life of starchitect Richard Rogers. Edwin Heathcote in the Financial Times writes that Rogers is an "Urban Warrior" and a "genius"; as well as a tireless advocate for "a liveable, civilised city".
Heathcote quotes Richard Rogers speaking at a meeting in the House of Commons, explaining that: “The Athenians had an oath for someone who was about to become a citizen. They had to swear that ‘I shall leave the city not less but more beautiful than I found it'. ”
Not a bad idea for local councillors, planners, and even property developers. Although of course "beauty" is usually in the eye of the freeholder and it often means making the largest possible profit.
The Wikipedia entry suggests that Richard Rogers may have misquoted the Athenian Ephebic Oath. Well, it's always handy to have Classical Greek culture and civilisation on your side.
This is a view from the upper floor of the old train crew depot building at Dundee (latterly the Network Rail offices), just before demolition.
Down below, we see the cleared site of the travel centre block and the remains of the footbridge (188J) crossing the Down lines. This was meant to be demolished over the 2013 Christmas holiday, but bad weather put paid to that. A successful renewed attempt was made over Christmas 2014.
Looks old warehouse/garage-y; in reality it's about 10 years old. It took a long time to convince a major supermarket chain to invest in downtown SD, now there are two. This, and an Albertson's which occupies the ground floor of an apartment building on Market Street in East Village.
13X18 (5X7), iodine intensification, redevoloped with pyro.
Top: the plate in reflexed light: a bad ambrotype, dull and without contrast.
Middle: the same shot in transmitted light: density can be better appreciated in the highlights. Bottom, the transparence, inverted in Photoshop. Still far for a real print, but useful to perceive the overall contrast and middle tone separation.
Continuing construction work on what was the Westralia Swamp. Note that they've torn the backs off the Royal Insurance (right) and WA Trustee (left) Buildings to integrate them into the new structure.
More of the changing landscape in Evesham - the beginning of the demolition of the 3000, 4000 and 5000 series office buildings in the Greentree Executive Campus between Route 73 and West Lincoln Drive. This section of the office park will be redeveloped into a mixed-use area called The View at Marlton, with a fitness center, restaurant, offices and a small retail strip. It was built in 1978-79.
The modern counterpart of the previous photo. The Victorian buildings were finally demolished in about the early 90s I think. New buildings have also appeared on the far corner, replacing 1950s properties erected on bombsites. Architecturally these structures are utterly undistinguished. You can't altogether blame the architects who, presumably, have to work within a budget, against their own inclinations and according to certain constraints imposed by the authorities. But you can't help wondering what the future compilers of architectural guides will find to say about the commercial buildings of the late 20th century. As more and more of these identikit structures go up, so British cities come to look more and more alike. New housing on the outskirts, all built to a pattern, has the same effect. Gradually the whole country is homogenised and takes on the blandness of a blancmange.
Wilder Street in the autumn of 2006. Since 1981 low-rise housing has been erected on both sides of the street, which has been doubled in width. A few older buildings remain at the far end of the street. A peculiarity of the district is the striking costume and heavy use of cosmetics among the womenfolk; also their easy chatter with motorists who may halt at the kerb.