September 1st, 2010
Vers 1890-2010
Construite vers 1890, cette ancienne église méthodiste fut lourdement endommagé lors d'un incendie aux petites heures du matin de Noël de 1915.
Rénové suite au sinistre, l'édifice fut vendu plusieurs année plus tard, soit en 1965 à un organisme communautaire nommé le Negro Community Center qui occupa les lieux jusqu'en 1994.
Vacant depuis près de 16 ans, l'édifice est aujourd'hui placardé et dans un état de délabrement avancé.
Source : BANQ, albums Massicotte, 1-92-c
*** De la série : Églises converties du Québec
Interact
Rate this post
Loading ...
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• If you've been saving up for a trip to Tokyo's Shimokitazawa neighbourhood, be sure to plan your travels before 2013. The bohemian hotspot is due for revamping and some fear that the very characteristics which make this place a favourite (twisting alleyways, discount shops, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, open air urinals) will be lost. The Globe and Mail shares some local gems.
• Worldchanging shares a recent study from a team of economists at the University of Munich examining the effects of mandatory parking minimums on development in urban and suburban Los Angeles. The study found that parking minimums "significantly increase" the amount of land devoted to parking, to the detriment of water quality, pedestrian safety and non-automotive modes of transportation. The authors suggest that these mandatory minimums often exceed market demand for parking space.
• For the Love of Biking shares some creative bike post designs from Minneapolis's DERO.
• Trust Copenhagen to find an unexpected solution to the problem of illegal bike parking. Copenhangenize reports that the City has started a program to move illegally parked bikes near Metro stations to designated bike racks. The team of "bike butlers" will then oil your chain, pump your tires and leave a little note on your bicycle asking to kindly use the bike racks in the future. The positive reinforcement appears to be working - "when the project started in April they were moving around 150 bicycles a day. Today that number has dropped to between 30 and 50."
Photo by ajari
Interact
Rate this post
Loading ...
August 31st, 2010
Devimco, the embattled developer with big plans for the forlorn neighbourhood of Griffintown, south of Downtown, have finally unveiled their new, albeit considerably scaled-down plan for four new high-rise residential buildings, which they are now calling "District Griffin".
The four buildings will be primarily residential with three condo buildings and one mixed 150 room, 3 star hotel/office building. Stores will be located on the bottom floor but potential tenants and sizes remain to be seen. The buildings will front rue Smith and will be bordered by Wellington to the north and west, and Shannon to the east. Currently, this area is mostly parking lots and warehouse buildings so this phase will see limited demolition which was one of the biggest concerns with the previous plans which encompassed a much larger portion of the neighbourhood.
Building heights won't differ too much from previous plans with the hotel slated for 12 storeys and the residential buildings to be built as tall as 19 storeys. Condos will come with 1 to 3 bedrooms at prices ranging from $250 000 to $750 000 per unit.
Information on the actual design of the buildings has been scant with a couple generic night-time mockups on their website and the vague map above being pretty much all that has been presented by the developer. As was the case with Devimco's previous plans, it is unlikely that they intend for the final product to correspond with any of their preliminary marketing or mock-ups.
However, Devimco's greenwashing tactics and pandering to opponents seem to have been sharpened since 2007 when they came into Griffintown, guns blazing, not expecting citizen opposition or, as it seemed, the fact that there were actually residents living in the area. They now plan to build 275 social housing units and another 206 affordable units (8% more than is required by the Sud-Ouest borough) which will be built off-site and sometime in the future, while also planning to give $25 000 to maison Saint-Gabriel, a history museum in Pointe-St-Charles. Hopes to get condo buyers out of their cars apparently comes with their plan to give free bicycles to condo buyers and providing parking spaces for Communauto (a now standard practice for any new development in the city). Devimico is also still pushing hard for the tramway, taunting Richard Bergeron about it at yesterday's announcement of the project (nothing has been said of Devimco's previous pledge of $10 million to the city to help build the tramway).
Construction is expected to begin in the next three to four months costing $475 million. Any additional phases planned for the future have not been announced as of yet.
Interact
Rate this post
Loading ...
August 26th, 2010
2003-2010
Cette église construite en 1930 dans le quartier Ville-Émard est occupé depuis 2007 par l'organisme communautaire : L'arche de Montréal.
*** De la série : Églises converties du Québec
Source : Conseil du patrimoine religieux du Québec
Interact
Rate this post
Loading ...
August 25th, 2010
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• NPR chronicles a growing trend for start up chefs who use trucks, trailers and mobile homes to sell their food to the masses. The overwhelming expense of starting a restaurant isn't stopping these gastro-preneurs from practicing their art.
• The Globe and Mail reports that for $148 U.S., Japanese Prius owners can now install noise makers into their hybrid cars. The devices make a whirring sound equivalent to the noise of a regular car engine; regulators and automakers hope the move will reduce the number of pedestrian-hybrid crashes which are twice as likely than with conventional engines. The device may soon be made available in other markets.
• New Yorkers are fighting a contentious battle between preserving their iconic skyline and increasing density near the Penn Station transit hub. The New York Times reports on a 1,216 feet tower proposed for 34th Street, two avenues west of the Empire State Building. While the City Planning Commission has approved the tower, Community Board 5 has not - citing an unusually large zoning bonus for the development.
• The New Yorker has a delightful video teaser this week for an article on the relentless traffic of Moscow. Author Keith Gessin identifies the city's limited access points and wide roads as major problems and notes the creative solutions proposed by Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. Gessin wonders if it isn't Russians' habituation to waiting in soviet-style lines that keeps them in their cars in spite of the interminable waiting this entails.
Interact
Rate this post
Loading ...
