Raise the Hammer

out out out with liuna.

I wish Mr. Stinson well. But he was quoted as saying that he was bankrupt, but 'so is the United States'. I don't know if Hamilton needs any more bankrupt developers with big dreams and no money!
I liked his moxy on radio, though.

Stinson will like it in Hamilton. He can join those activists with big dreams and no money...and we've already named a neighbourhood after him.

As least you got to give this guy Stinson credit for even looking at Hamilton. Donald Trump was also bankrupt a few years ago and look at him now. New partners ; new money; new opportunities. About time the Outsiders started seeing the potential here.All we need is a few good projects whether downtown , the east end or the Mountain.
I wish these type of entrepreneurs well.

liveD...don't you mean, "he can join the 1/3 of the city with no money"?? Apparently all the 'business-first' wonks in town have done a great job at one thing over the past decades - ensuring that there is NO business and NO jobs in this town. Congrats!

Ancastertoo...I agree with you wholeheartedly. It's funny to hear all the self-proclaimed 'big business' crew in town rail on Stinson because he hit hard times. Almost like they don't want him to succeed in the Hammer because that might actually help turn things around. I wish him all the best and hope upon hope that he can do a few good projects downtown...help Hamilton get back on it's feet while he also gets back on his feet. With each passing day, and each passing blog entry it becoms very clear who the real 'pro-development and pro-business' folks are in the Hammer. Cheers to Harry!

I hope you are right Jason. We'll see.

right about what?? I merely wished Stinson the best of luck. Are you hoping he fails??

Of course not, but Hamilton deserves better than bankrupt dreamers is all. We have had too many of them in our history.

Guess what folks, Canada is bankrupt too! Yet "Canada" and "US" are still in existence. Hamilton needs a chance just like everywhere else. We need to restore rather than tear down. Let's give us a chance. Trump, the Reichman's and may more have made huge combebacks so give the guy a chance. Goodbye Liuna who is relying on the city to pay for it all with "rent", hence WE pay for it all! Wake up folks!

Jason very good comment about "who is really pro/anti development in the Hammer".

I support Stinson and hope he succeeds in developing the Hammer. I guess I'm pro-development.

Bankruptcy does not mean he doesn't have money. It means he's protecting the money he has. Do you think he just likes to waste his time and other people's time?

Appears some folks will take pot-shots at anything that doesn't fit the "OLD " Hamilton mold. Stinson is not bankrupt but in bankrupcty protection. Seems the Reichmans and Trump and many other companies have taken the same route while they reorganize ( even some steel companies have done the same ). And to LiveD, who are these dreamers you refer to ?? The ""Doers"" and politicos are NOT creating opportunities.
We really have to get POSITIVE about ourselves.. Hamilton IS a great place but for some reason WE tend to revert to the "those outsiders aren't good enough for us " syndrome.
Look what's happening in the Golden Horseshoe insofar as growth ,jobs, housing intensification, transportation... it's happening all around us.Mississauga has tripled in twenty years as has Burlington and Oakville Maybe the key point is "all around us"
The sooner we get on the bandwagon , the better.If any of you want some good bedtime reading, try the new provincial Smart growth or Places to grow documents. The Province has targeted Hamilton for help as the Province / golden horseshoe absorbs some 150 / 200,000 new residents per year. We need to get our share of that housing, urban renewal and the jobs and economic benefits that go with it.
As an aside, I was over to a Christmas party on the west Mountain ( Scenic Drive )and I see the locals have vandalized the City's/ developer information proposal sign. Here is another out of town builder we are giving the Royal Hamilton welcome too. Maybe he is a dreamer, too.
Sorry to get emotional, but after nearly forty years in the Hamilton area,I am tired of being one of the silent majority who does nothing but complain.
One of my New Year resolutions,,, get involved and speak my mind.. Hey, maybe my 3 kids will want to come back here to live and work instead of those communities east of us.

Well said ancastertoo, and surprisingly positive coming from someone with that handle. I'm happy to hear about your new years resolution. RTH was born from similar circumstances that you're talking about. Personally for me I/Hamilton has 15-20 years before it turns itself around and then my children will be leaving this city too. Sorry to hear that has happened to you and it's a story that is too common for Hamilton. We're losing an entire generation and missing out on the longest period of economic growth since WW2.

You mention Burlington and Mississauga growth, some of that has to do with pure geography and dumb luck, their growth is unsustainable and those suburbs will crash hard when their entire cities have to be rebuilt over 10 years without having the same sprawl/build model in place that the Places To Act legislates. But you're right that Hamilton has missed a large portion of the GTA growth. And them some of GTA builders come looking to build in Hamilton better developments (like the Scenic proposal) then we've been getting from the Meadowlands and Summit Park sprawl and people complain about it. Then they later say that Hamilton is rusting out and lacks any outside investment. Well folks Stinson and the Scenic Developers are the people that we need to get things going in the Hammer. Proper infill, density, downtown, walkable neighbourhood focus, the things missing from the faceless sprawl between Hamilton and Toronto. The future is not the status quo, but the future is to change or die.

To say "we can't seem to figure out in Hamilton that the lack of surface parking in Toronto is the reason why its downtown is successful and home to the most valuable real estate in the country" is complete bollocks. Anyone who knew Toronto in the 70's, 80's, and 90's can recall that the city, during those decades of unprecedented growth, was absolutely rife with surface parking lots. Of course they disappeared as the city densified. But the success of this densification process in no way relied on their presence/absence. Classic post-hoc fallacy.

Further, I know how beloved the Lister Block is in this city, but is it really worth it? It is absolutely mediocre (maybe submediocre) pre-war small city North American commerical architecture. Hardly anything to distinguish it at all from the countless hordes of such buildings which have been torn down without tears in cities like Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, etc. over the decades (yes, indoor shopping arcades did exist before the Lister). Give us a bit of decoish terracotta detailing and suddenly we think we're in possession of the Chrysler Building or Selfridges.

The truth of the matter is that Hamilton, given its relative size and wealth, should start taking cues from cities like Manchester and Liverpool, where decaying Victorian hulks in the city centre have been pulled down to allow for the erection of exciting pieces of contemporary architecture which make a genuine contribution to the cityscape. Mind you, I would rather have the crumbling shell of the Lister than another parking lot, but if preservationist tactics prevented something serious from taking the Lister's place, that would surely be an injustice to the city.

FYI... Lister was the first indoor shopping arcade in Canada. Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Buffalo are in the United States - that's a different country.

I guess some people like the wonderful warmth, urbanism and vibrancy that can be found in downtown Mississuaga - aka - Square One.

"Today's "exciting pieces of contemporary architecture" are tomorrow's awkward modernist / postmodernist / Internationalist / Brutalist eyesores. For the most part, the only buildings downtown still worth caring about are the ones that the preservationists you decry managed to save from the wrecking ball."

I love the progressive spirit here. This has been the problem with Hamilton's urbanism for decades: an inability to distinguish between "good new" and "bad new". Admittedly, almost all of Hamilton's attempts in the past to catch up with the zeitgeist have been wretched failures. This doesn't have to be the case in the future. The problem is that so much of the "new" architecture in Hamilton's core originated during the period of "urban renewal" which saw vast, usually government-funded, projects replace whole neighbourhoods with inhuman concrete/brick/glass facades. New architecture doesn't always have to be like that. Look at the Urbis building or Beetham Tower in Manchester - could anyone seriously argue that that city would have been better off with the heavy old brick and masonry junk they replaced?

I despise the chintzy glass and stucco condo architecture of Mississauga's "core". I would never suggest that Hamilton embrace such mediocrity. Rather, a city of Hamilton's size should be able to summon up some serious architectural talent, whether local or international, to make a serious, aesthetically legitimate contribution to the cityscape.

Admittedly, Hamilton, is in possession of a few legitimate architectural gems (although, by international standards, even many of these barely rise above the level of mediocrity): the GO Station (probably the best building in the city); the Bank of Montreal (Gowlings); Landed Banking and Loan; the Piggot; the Customs House; the Port Authority building; LIUNA station; possibly also City Hall (although that is just Internationalist pastiche); and obviously a few others (I'm considering only non-residential architecture). I really don't think the Lister deserves to be catalogued along with the edifices listed above. It was basically just functionalist commercial architecture when it was built, and that is all, I think, that it remains (albeit in probably hopelessly decayed state.

Oh, and FYI - the first indoor shopping arcade in Canada was the Lister Chambers building, which the Lister Block replaced after the former was destroyed by fire.

At any rate, being the first precursor to the modern shopping mall is a rather dubious distinction, wouldn't you say?

just to keep the facts on the table. Lister is not in a "hopelessly decayed state". Multiple engineering/architectural firms inspected the building and found that not only is it fixable, but suggested that it is so structurally sound that if we were to tear it down and build a new building, that new building would run it's course and need major retrofitting before a refurbished Lister. Photos of ripped wallpaper and broken windows might sell newspapers, but don't mean a thing factually. Lister is now being saved, not because some bleeding hearts intervened, but because common sense intervened. Now THAT is front-page news in Hamilton.

Righto. The old "they sure don't build 'em like they used to" argument.

In truth, to say that the Lister "is so structurally sound that if we were to tear it down and build a new building, that new building would run it's course and need major retrofitting before a refurbished Lister" is simply untrue. This depends obviously on the quality of the structural engineering which would go into the new building. We can, quite simply, build stronger, longer lasting buildings today than could have been built in 1924. It's all a question of how much money you want to put into design and construction.

Now, considering that this is Hamilton, it is unlikely that such an investment will ever be made in the core again (at least within the near future) so your point is well taken that it is more practical to refurbish the Lister than to build anew (especially given the extraordinarily low architectural value of all of the published proposals for the site). I am basically just lamenting the fact that such investment probably will not be made. But if it were to be made, I just don't think the Lister should be allowed to stand in its place.

Righto. The old "they sure don't build 'em like they used to" argument.

In truth, to say that the Lister "is so structurally sound that if we were to tear it down and build a new building, that new building would run it's course and need major retrofitting before a refurbished Lister" is simply untrue. This depends obviously on the quality of the structural engineering which would go into the new building. We can, quite simply, build stronger, longer lasting buildings today than could have been built in 1924. It's all a question of how much money you want to put into design and construction.

Now, considering that this is Hamilton, it is unlikely that such an investment will ever be made in the core again (at least within the near future) so your point is well taken that it is more practical to refurbish the Lister than to build anew (especially given the extraordinarily low architectural value of all of the published proposals for the site). I am basically just lamenting the fact that such investment probably will not be made. But if it were to be made, I just don't think the Lister should be allowed to stand in its place.

It's true that if the buildings replacing the torn down buildings were more appealing then we wouldn't lament that fact that another piece of history was gone. We can't trust builders today (in Hamilton anyway) to build an architecturally significant building. We just know that what will replace the Lister will be a cheap, profit motivated building. It does say something about how we used to care and how we today care about the environment we live in.

I apologize Statius. I didn't realize you were an engineer who has spent more hours and done more research on Lister than the folks hired by LIUNA, the province and the city. Thanks for bringing the truth into the light.

I was really hoping the lister would be saved; now I just want it improved and I don't care how they do it. It is a festering eyesore and I don't care whose fault it is. As a downtowner something has to be done....anything will do because it will be better than what's there....restore it, remove it...who cares. Act is all we want.

I share the same feelings as Baystreeter on the Lister Block. If McHattie hadn't interfered with that Hertiage Site nonsense the redevelopment of this building would probably be underway. As it now stands, the same thing will happen to the Lister Block as what happened to the Tivoli - collapse.

The sooner we rid the city of this eyesore the better.

"The sooner we rid the city of this eyesore the better."

Famous last words that have been uttered over and over in Hamilton. Take a nice stroll in the John/Rebecca area to see how much 'better' off we are having gotten rid of all the 'eyesores' that previously occupied that land. Or go check out Bay/King, Jackson/Catharine, King William/Mary, Hughson/Augusta etc......

Jason, I think that you are missing my point.

I like to see classic old buildings being preserved as much as it is possible economically. Yet in the case of the Lister Block, efforts and time involved to preserve the building may be working against us as the building begins to deteriorate even more and the downtown spin-off impacts of a revitalized Lister Block keep being delayed.

Tearing the old building down and replacing it with a modern replica would have been in the city's best interests.

Regarding Ryan's thoughtful comments above, I think I should offer some response.

Firstly, you write "I don't support new ideas or methods merely because they're new: they have to be better that existing ideas or methods. "

How could anyone sanely disagree with this? I embrace the statement wholeheartedly, and would refer to my comments above to dispell any suggestion to the contrary. Of course where we must disagree - although I'm not necessarily sure that we must disagree - is on the topic of what constitutes the "better" as opposed to simply the new.

As for some of your other remarks, I find them a little more difficult to stomach.

You write of the Urbis building in Manchester: "It offers no sense of scale to the pedestrian - just a smooth steel-and-glass facade that offers curves and diagonals for their own sake and squanders a wedge-shaped slice of land beside it that is overshadowed and fails to operate as a public space. At a similar scale of height, Haussman's Paris is much more convivial. "

Your remarks on the building's lack of "scale" are typical architectural conservancy anti-modernist rhetoric. Such rhetoric is problematic because there is often a general lack of agreement on what constitutes an appropriate "sense of scale" for any given city. Haussman's Paris, as you note, is often cited as an example of liveable scale, but we forget that in the 19th and early 20th century, before Parisians became completely acclimated to the comprehensive redesign of their city, the "street walls" and unnecessarily broad boulevards imposed by Haussman were commonly thought to be inhuman and imposing. To that end, it is no surprise that Paris, in high Modernist art and literature, often figures as a faceless, grinding machine city alongside London, Berlin, New York, Chicago, etc. The truly humanly-scaled Paris was pre-Haussman. Further, it is worth noting that urban North Americans (particularly New Yorkers) are often decidedly disappointed with the "groundscraping" architectural scale of Paris. Manhattanites, despite living in an urban environment which Gallic snobs (and their sycophants) would decry as inhumanly scaled, have managed nevertheless to forge the most vital and successful urbanism in the history of Western civilization (at least arguably). I would thus humbly suggest that the conservative fetishization of scale is largely fallacious.

I would raise similar points about the Beetham tower. It is not sufficient simply to say, when a building is "out of scale" with its surrounding neighbourhood, that it lacks a "sense of scale" altogether. I think scale was very much contemplated by the architects of the Beetham. Their intention was to create a juxtaposition with the two and three story brick and masonry shops in the vicinity. They wanted something visibly and indisputably to rise above the tired, downtrodden old Manchester and I think they succeeded without causing too much offense (really, I think without causing any offense at all). In other words, a more moderate, tasteful incarnation of the Dubai effect. As for your remarks about the building causing alarm amongst pedestrians because of its unconventional design, the cantilevered upper half of the tower does not hang out over the street as you suggest. Nor does it cast any sort of imposing shadow, etc. In fact, while I tend to agree with you that it is not "great" architecture per se, the building is decidedly elegant and does not in any way look chintzy or disposable (at 150 million pounds to build, how could it?).

At any rate, I think your aesthetic critique of these two buildings, while undoubtedly valid in some respects, largely misses the point. These buildings were proferred not as examples of "great" architecture qua architecture but rather as proof of the ability of a midsized regional industrial city to break out of the bonds of its stereotypes and embrace a new urban identity and aesthetic. Just think, Manchester, twenty years ago, was a city far worse off than Hamilton, plagued by rampant unemployment, decaying infrastructure (to an almost third world scale), and depressingly mediocre architecture. Today, the city's economy is characterized more by graphic design and financial services firms than the textile works of yore. Young professionals flock to the city and its environs, even though condo flats regularly sell for well in excess of a million pounds. Much of this rebirth is credited to the architectural renaissance which occurred in the city's core following a major IRA bombing in 1996 (I wouldn't be so daft as to suggest that this was the only factor, but it certainly was one). I dearly hope Hamilton doesn't have to wait for someone to set off a bomb in the core before we start building too.

The fact of the matter is that young, educated people want to live amongst current, interesting architecture (as a young educated person, I can attest to this fact). They want to feel as though they are part of something more important than a blue collar regional city and new, thoughtfully designed buildings are a very eloquent way of communicating to them that indeed they are.

Hamilton is clearly no longer a manufacturing town either. It's future, like Manchester's, lies in education, research, health care, and hopefully the creative and professional industries as well. Naturally, the city certainly oughtn't to eschew its heritage altogether; but it mustn't be allowed to wallow in its past glory and prosperity either. Some buildings are important, still relevant windows onto Hamilton's past. Others are not. I know that for myself, and - I would conjecture - for many others of my generation, the Lister Block barely speaks at all. Having been more or less abandoned for so long, and being of such unremarkable architectural merits, it stands more as a blight than a valuable bequest from an earlier generation. While I do not harbour any particluar dislike for the building, I maintain that it would be an injustice if its preservation in any way hampered or compromised the regeneration (and, I might as well say it, gentrifaction) of the core.

I would thus suggest that your sustainability argument is not really apropos given the almost complete lack of development in Hamilton's core over the last quarter century, the almost complete lack of fashionable architecture in the city, the almost complete lack of anything suggesting a rich and faddish society in this city. The sustainability argument is a standard knee-jerk reaction of conservative urbanists and I'm not surprised to find it here. But it just isn't relevant, not yet at least. If the doctrine of sustainability strangles the society its ultimately supposed to protect, then it's really self-defeating. Suggesting that a city like Hamilton (finally reversing a long trend of decline) ought to be held to the same standards of sustainability in its urban development as cities like Toronto, New York, London, etc. is like suggesting that India and China should be held to the same environmental standards as the first world: it is untimely, inequitable and unfair.

Just because a building is "imposing" doesn't mean the building can't be magnificent. Stinson is proposing an imposing building no doubt, but I thing no less imposing and grand as the Grand Central Station in NYC.

Many great historical and important buildings were criticised for being TOO IMPOSING. and today we celebrate them as architectural achievements and significant landmarks. In fact they often identify the place which they occupy by their existence.

Stinson's vision tower for Hamilton is the greatest thing to happen to Hamilton since The Steel Company of Canada (Stelco) chose to locate in Hamilton 100 years ago (every major city in Canada was bidding for the steel plant). I sincerely hope the best for Stinson.... I am 80% decided in purchasing a unit in his building. Not because I believe in him and his development but because I believe it will be a good investment. An investment that has not been realized for a long while... that is an investment in Hamilton realizing its potential.

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