Raise the Hammer

Mahesh, do you have more info/links you can provide for the School of Liberal Arts? I did a quick search around and I am not sure what institution you are referring to? It does sound like something that would breath more life into downtown than a school board that doesn't want to be there.

Following Twitter, I find that although it's not all the younger generation, but a large number of our youth are promoting the heck out of Hamilton and how much they love it here. Many more are moving here from Toronto way and encouraging their friends to come here too - especially the Arts community.

We should be encouraging people who we know want to be in a downtown and who would help us transform it into the place many already feel it is.

I believe a Royal Connaught reno will go a long way. It should have never been allowed to sit boarded up this long. The overhangs are falling apart and who knows what is leaking out of them. The painted particle board over the windows has this awefull stench to it. Why HSR put a bus stop where the old Last Minute Larry's used to be during John construction is beyond me. It stinks to high heaven and there is very little foot traffic. That building brings down our core so substantially.

We should be keeping a closer eye on buildings and being very forceful towards not letting them degrade the way some downtown buildings have been allowed to do. At some point it should either be fix it up or we are taking it over.

With the Connaught, all those windows should have been left open and lighted this entire time, with art displays in them so downtown didn't look so dark and abandoned at night. Boarded up buildings in general should not exist except for maybe a brief three month construction period although I even question that. The King Entrance next to the Honest Lawyer into Jackson Square looks terrible. There must be an alternative to boarding up? Even a mural on the board or something? Art is always a good way to dress up anything that looks bad.

Downtown can't wait for people to get their stuff together anymore, and something has to be done in the meantime to clean it up.

Comment edited by lawrence on 2011-11-16 10:24:28