Central Waterfront 1950s-70s

[interchange42]

DECLINED!!!!! You must be blinded by your hate. We do not have any budget problems, we have large reserve fund, the building is very desirable to live in despite your opinion. Your comment will be something to laugh about at the annual Canada day BBQ at our large roof garden.

I hope you're being facetious. "It can't happen here" statements always put ice down my spine. :/

In what way would Zeiss be facetious here? He's simply stating that by all rational means of assessing it, Harbour Square will continue on just fine.

42

 

[adma]

I think Zeiss is being hyperdefensive, though--look: nobody other than die-condo-yuppie-scum extremists is suggesting slumlording/expropriation/demolition. But we're still dealing w/a circumstance where ideally, this kind of building should not have taken this kind of form in this kind of location. And even those who *live* there, or even enjoy it there, should have to live with and accept the fact that Harbour Square has accrued a bad rep in terms of urban form. But because the practical logistics of mitigating its flaws are so overwhelming, maybe it's better to sit back and allow Brutalist-chic to redeem whatever exists.

In the end, measuring out whatever is or isn't practical, the only part of the whole complex I'd deem "replaceable" is the convention centre bunker N of Queen's Quay...

 

[Zeiss]

How do you expect me to react when people are anticipating decline and demolition of the building, destruction not only of my investment, but destruction of my HOME, I have invested a lot , money and love, to design and modernize my home, I have managed to realize many of my ideas, regardless of the cost. I am happy how everything is now. And then some of you tell me that you are hopping that the building /my home/ declines and gets demolished, I'm sure that if someone declares that wants to destroy your homes you will react the same way. And despite my explanation of the situation with the state of repairs, instead of sharing ideas how to fix the problem some people every few months start talk about the same problem.

 

[DSC]

We don't expect you to like it, as I mentioned few times we want the north side of the property to be improved more than you do. But you have to face the fact that the building exist and will exist at the the same place. Your hopes for decline and demolition of the building are baseless. If you have any good idea how to fix the problem with the retail area you are welcome to share it.

You do seem unreasonably sensitive. Nobody said the building was in decline and I think S&M is correct in saying that if the building was proposed today it would not be built exactly as it was in the days before Torontonians 'discovered' the lake. There would be a better arrangement for the Lake Ontario promenade and for the retail. Hope you have some success in improving the existing retail frontage but it is not unlike the kind of small stores still being squeezed into condo buildings - a mixture of small convenience stores, small fast food restaurants and the inevitable dry cleaners.

 

[adma]

How do you expect me to react when people are anticipating decline and demolition of the building, destruction not only of my investment, but destruction of my HOME, I have invested a lot , money and love, to design and modernize my home, I have managed to realize many of my ideas, regardless of the cost. I am happy how everything is now. And then some of you tell me that you are hopping that the building /my home/ declines and gets demolished, I'm sure that if someone declares that wants to destroy your homes you will react the same way. And despite my explanation of the situation with the state of repairs, instead of sharing ideas how to fix the problem some people every few months start talk about the same problem.

I think you're overreading into the "anticipation" here. In fact, it's *exactly* the fact that it's a "home"--and a sizable home at that, and one which'd involve an awful lot of wasted-embodied-energy to remove--that renders Harbour Square's wholesale removal impractical except as retrospective wishful-think. And it's more or less the same kind of wishful-think that many a conoisseur of Rome's urban form have applied to the Victor Emmanuel over time--or, pre-2001, New Yorkers to the World Trade Center.

And in fact, I'd offer that one mitigating factor re this "home" is that it's a high-rise multiple dwelling; something which has a way of "democratizing" faulty urbanism--that is, we're less prone to reading the hard-wired values of the inhabitant into its architecture than if it were a single-family McMansion...