819 replies to this topic

[aastra]

 

"And the people who want to create a Beacon Hill Park on the waterfront don't understand that a city's economic, cultural and historic demands can't be met by a Beacon Hill Park," he said.

 

Imagine that. People were pushing for new park space on the old town's waterfront.

 

Seriously though, maybe this is why the Northern Junk project has met such staunch opposition? Because somebody is still hoping those old buildings will get the boot for new park space, just like the old buildings beside them got the boot for new park space circa the late 1970s? That's how you preserve and celebrate the historic old town waterfront, by wiping out the old buildings and replacing them with new park space?

 

Just speculating, of course. But let's just say I wouldn't be shocked off my feet if it were true. My jaw wouldn't be in any danger of striking the floor.

[aastra]

It's funny, the people who want a park on every downtown corner today claim it's because downtown is now such a dense and overbuilt urban environment. The parks are desperately needed.

 

Sooooo.... how about in the 1970s? Why were people back then pushing for a park on every downtown corner?*

 

*because downtown was such a blighted and underbuilt urban environment. The parks were desperately needed.

[aastra]

This article is from 1975. Context: Victorians have already been consuming 20+ years of housing crisis news coverage by now, and they've been reminded repeatedly that the days of ordinary working people owning homes in Victoria are rapidly drawing to a close, etc.:

 

 

Daily Colonist
December 30, 1975

Begging just flash in pan

...Francis Paul, 26, six months out of Charlottetown, PEI wants to thank all those Victorians who listened to his tale of woe and then dug into their pockets for his Christmas turkey fund.

Paul, unemployed and a welfare recipient, along with a friend in similar circumstances, collected about $100 in two days of pre-Christmas panhandling around Yates and Douglas.

It all went toward a Christmas dinner for Paul and three other "down-and-out" friends and ended with carolling to a mouth-organ.

"We wanted to let everyone know we had a good Christmas and we appreciate it very much,"

...Paul told it like it was -- he was relatively new to the city, had been unsuccessfully looking for work, had been "ripped off" on his last welfare cheque and faced the "worst Christmas" of his life.

He thinks he has a job starting next month although he was too late to apply for a post office Christmas job.

"I've been looking for the right kind of job," said Paul, a longtime artisan, who held one foundry job for a couple of days in Victoria but just wasn't strong enough to do the work.

"This $2.50 an hour stuff is b.s. when you are trying to get a piece of land -- I'm an artist and I have my integrity which was low when panhandling," he said.

Paul said he and his friends will take any job as long as the pay is reasonable for the hours.

And while he now has some good job leads for the new year, they weren't "going to get us Christmas dinner."

Edited by aastra, 12 June 2019 - 09:25 AM.

[Jackerbie]

^ According to the Bank of Canada inflation calculator, Mr. Paul here was earning a wage of... $12/hour. He managed to panhandle the equivalent of $480, though. Not bad for two days' effort!

[aastra]

It's a feel-good piece that seems to be meant to make the reader feel lousy and jaded (even decades later). Raising $100 in two days... in 1975? Then blowing it all on one celebratory feast? What was the most expensive restaurant meal in Victoria in 1975? (FYI: In the very same newspaper there's an ad for $1.75 entrees at the James Bay Inn.) Then deriding a working person's salary, even though we're told it was the charity of working people that paid for the feast?

 

For coincidence theorists, this very same edition contains an item titled "Uproar over a $4,000 dinner". The food editor of the New York Times won a meal of his choice anywhere in the world, so he chose a $4,000 meal in Paris (two people, 31 dishes and 9 fine wines).

Edited by aastra, 12 June 2019 - 10:44 AM.

[aastra]

Just thought it was interesting to see an article about the new Y...

 

 

Daily Colonist
April 1, 1964

Workmen start on new Y

...work began on the new $1,347,000 YM-YWCA building on Quadra Street opposite Pioneer Square, even though the fundraising campaign is $237,000 short of its objective.

The concrete building will front on Courtney Street and will contain a gymnasium, swimming pool, restaurant, youth centre, main lounge, various meeting and club rooms, health clubs for mean and women, and 40 rooms for YWCA permanent residents.

Track On Roof

An unusual feature will be a track on the roof of the main section of the building.

The present YMCA and YWCA buildings have not yet been sold but Mr. Stephen said he was confident their sales would bring the planned $140,000.

Edited by aastra, 14 June 2019 - 08:03 PM.

[aastra]

Opening of Oak Bay Marina...

 

 

Daily Colonist
April 16, 1964

Bob Wright... says his most nerve-wracking experience in bringing his idea to reality was waiting for the result of the ratepayers' vote on the plan two years ago.

Wright, aware of the jealous guardianship Oak Bay residents wrap around the aesthetics of their municipality, was in a state of nerves all that voting day...

Aerial View:
Parking area has been blacktopped and planted with trees and shrubs so marina will fit in with jealously guarded park-like appearance of Oak Bay waterfront. Low profile helps it blend in.

 

It's actually kind of funny that stodgy and never-changing Oak Bay would have been almost 60 years ahead of Victoria with its marina project, you think?

 

April 1, 1964 - Oak Bay Boathouse Begins to Vanish - Wreckers Move In

 

Daily Colonist
April 15, 1964

Needle Atop Restaurant New "Mark"

Plans to save the cupola of the old Oak Bay Boathouse landmark of the Turkey Head shoreline for half a century fell through.

However, the 10-foot, five-sided needle atop the umbrella-roofed restaurant and administration building will rapidly become a new landmark. It will be illuminated at night.

Edited by aastra, 14 June 2019 - 07:12 PM.

[aastra]

"Victoria: Then and Now" comment in the TC (June 11, 2019). Is the writer reminiscing about five years ago, 15 years ago, 25 years ago, or 55 years ago? How many times have we seen this same message?

 

 

Where did our sleepy little town go?

We woke up to discover the real world on our doorstep, It is our new world.

With limited land options, we can’t grow out so we must grow up and the high prices reflect that.

Many are moving in with no memory of how it used to be.

 

I agree with that last line. The past news items in this thread prove it: we've been through all of this before, many times. Victoria has been stuck in a causality loop* since 1965, at least.

 

*Star Trek nonsense reference

Edited by aastra, 17 June 2019 - 05:28 PM.

[Nparker]

...Star Trek nonsense reference

https://en.wikipedia...ext_Generation)

[aastra]

It's 2019 so let's all look back and laugh at Victorians in 1971 who were looking back and laughing at Victorians in 1912:

 

 

Daily Colonist
September 19, 1971

Skyscrapers were ruining Victoria in 1912

...and they continue to blot out view of the mountains

It was 1912 in Victoria.

This fair capital city was booming. Old landmarks were being torn away, and this upset everyone but the real estate salesman and the City Fathers, who were happy to have more tax money.

Victoria was becoming just like any other city in North America. Disgraceful!

There's a story that two prominent citizens had their eyes on a certain house near the corner of Fort and Vancouver.

They rang the doorbell and offered the lady of the house $50,000 cash.

She hesitated, tempted, asked if they'd like to see the inside.

No, said the real estate man, the house was nothing but junk, it was the property they were after.

I find that pollution is nothing new. Nothing, really, ever is.

The Week flew into a gentlemanly rage in 1912: "Spoiling the harbor -- many complaints are being made about the indiscriminate dumping of garbage from vessels in the Inner Harbor."

"But now a worse nuisance threatens, one which the authorities must surely have the right to suppress."

"We refer to the discharge of surplus crude oil from vessels which have been equipped with oil burners."

"As far as one can judge it will not be long before many of the large boats entering Victoria harbor adopt oil for fuel."

"...we may expect our beautiful Inner Harbor to become something little better than a foul cess pool."

"...the time has arrived when someone should interfere, in the interest of a clean harbor, and sanitariness."

Nothing was done then, anymore than it is done now, and our beautiful Inner Harbor is a mess, while our City Fathers talk and talk and talk about it, getting nowhere.

Victorians in 1912 were grumbling mightily about high costs of living. Terrible, said everyone. Prices going up right and left, and absolutely no controls.
 

Edited by aastra, 02 July 2019 - 08:49 PM.

[aastra]

More stuff:

 

 

Daily Colonist
July 1, 1908

New York is to build a skyscraper 909 feet in height. It will probably be a considerable time before Victoria embarks upon a similar enterprise, and we are disposed to be pleased that such is the case. A skyscraper is an unsightly thing and a blot on the landscape.

Owing to congestion in the business section of New York, economy of ground space is, of course, imperative, but it is somewhat remarkable that in London, a fair-sized town, no such freak buildings have been thought necessary.

*****

 

Daily Colonist
March 4, 1911

Now that a period of rapid building has set in and much attention is being directed to business blocks, we hope no one will contemplate the erection of skyscrapers. There is plenty of room in Victoria for expansion laterally, and it is not necessary to go out perpendicularly to extreme heights. Such buildings as the Pemberton, Times, and Sayward blocks are high enough for the business streets. (aastra says: until that time in the distant future when people start thinking such "high enough" buildings might also be too tall)

*****

 

Daily Colonist
May 2, 1912

Preparing To Build -- The old shacks of a former Victoria are disappearing almost daily. The latest to go are the buildings at the corner of Johnson and Douglas streets, on which the contractors are already hard at work in the process of demolition. In their place will presently ascend a structure ten storeys in height, of the most modern fire-proof construction, owned and to be in part occupied by the B.C. Permanent Loan company. The lot measures 60x60 feet and will bear on it the first skyscraper to be erected in Victoria.

*****

Daily Colonist
February 27, 1913

Mayor-elect Morley, in a brief address put in a plea for healthy progress. He desired that it should be tempered by a certain amount of conservatism. In building, for instance, he stated that an effort should be made to combat the passion for skyscrapers. It was better that they should have four ten-storey buildings than one forty-storey building. A limit to the size would not in any way act as a detriment to the building.

He had made up his mind that one of the things he was going to fight for was the conservation of the light and the air for the people of the city. The one thing he abhorred was a congested city. That was the horror which a number of other cities were faced with today, and he hoped sincerely that Victoria would never allow itself to degenerate into such a condition.

 

*****

 

 

Daily Colonist
April 9, 1913

Ten Storeys is Limit

By an amendment to the building by-law passed by the City Council last night, the limit of buildings in the city was put at ten storeys. Alderman Dilworth objected, claiming that a person owning a valuable piece of real estate ought to be allowed to erect a structure of greater height...

...the concensus of opinion of the aldermen was to the effect that there is no necessity in Victoria of buildings of greater height than ten storeys.

Edited by aastra, 05 March 2021 - 09:50 AM.

[G-Man]

Nice work Aastra. That is an amazing collection. I had no idea that this was so entrenched!

[aastra]

 

...better that they should have four ten-storey buildings than one forty-storey building.

 

I agree with the spirit of this. More buildings = more variety, more texture, and spreading the good stuff over a larger area.

[aastra]

Not saying I'd want all buildings to be the same height, FYI. I always prefer staggered heights.

 

Just putting that out there in case Mike K.'s e-goons come calling.

[todd]

Opening of Oak Bay Marina...



It's actually kind of funny that stodgy and never-changing Oak Bay would have been almost 60 years ahead of Victoria with its marina project, you think?

April 1, 1964 - Oak Bay Boathouse Begins to Vanish - Wreckers Move In

How they managed to develop all of oak bay while maintaining an anti-development reputation i’ll never know.

Edited by todd, 17 June 2019 - 09:45 PM.

[aastra]

 

How they managed to develop all of oak bay while maintaining an anti-development reputation i’ll never know.

 

They did it in a stodgy and never-changing manner.

[todd]

They did it in a stodgy and never-changing manner.

you ignorant lout

[aastra]

In the writer's defense, he does go on to make a strong point about downtown's economic health and its relevance to all Victorians:

 

 

Daily Colonist
August 18, 1977

Civic Scene

...the pro-development faction of Saanich council has been trying to tell residents they will get tax relief if the municipality's tax base could only be broadened.

Thus the campaign for an industrial park, for shopping centres, for large subdivisions.

Saanich wants a shopping centre at Broadmead. The residents are opposed.

On economic grounds, too, the plan would be a folly. The municipality collects $350,000 in taxes from the shopping centre, but within a few years the cost of absorbing the shopping centre into the municipal fabric would outstrip the benefits.

More policemen would be needed, because more commercial enterprises would bring an increase in crime.

More firemen would be required to bring the force to a strength required by the increased potential for fire.

More staff will be needed at the municipal hall to administer the affairs of a municipality that's no longer a bedroom community.

The cost of servicing a large shopping centre will be enormous and will wipe out any tax benefit derived from it.

But Saanich goes on, blind to the disastrous experiences of other cities.

[aastra]

...

 

 

Daily Colonist
March 19, 1980

Traffic ban proposed for street mall

Problem of success -- Too many people, too many cars

A plan to ban through traffic on the Government Street mall for a trial period this year will be recommended to Victoria city council.

...it would see all northbound traffic except buses banned from entering Government at the Wharf-Humboldt-Government intersection.

Vehicles would still be able to enter the mall by turning right off Humboldt or from the side streets... and travel north on the one-way section stretching up to Yates.

It also involves making two lanes of Wharf northbound and one southbound to carry commuters and through traffic around the mall, instead of the present configuration of two southbound and one northbound.

And no longer would drivers going south on Wharf be able to proceed through the intersection east onto Humboldt.

...problems encountered last summer on the mall were "problems of success -- too many people and too many cars."

Downtown Business Association... had unanimously rejected the scheme, called for synchronization of lights on Government to keep cars moving steadily, and to increase the volume of cars moving along the mall.

"People now are damn well confused by downtown traffic patterns. We don't want to make it any worse,"

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained,"

"The vitality of Government Street has been improved over the years and we should at least give this idea a trial run."

[Nparker]

 

"People now are damn well confused by downtown traffic patterns. We don't want to make it any worse,"

The CoV: Confusing people for 39 years and counting!