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Calgary Buildings Lost to History

Mountain Man said:
There was a post on SSP a few years back that showed what replaced a lot of these demolished buildings, was not pretty...
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I think the biggest regret fro Calgary was the strip of hotels on 9th and 8th ave and the Southam and Herald blocks. Had they remained we would have a really cohesive historic district in the core but alas! We have a bunch of lifeless office buildings and a massive blue wedge.
Calgary-historic-postcard-2.jpg
 
I am particularly interested in #38, the Old Police Building for a book I am writing. Do you happen to know the street address of the building and roughly what year that photo was taken?
 
I remember talking to my grandfather many, many years ago (he died in 1996) about the loss of heritage buildings. Although he wasn't from Calgary (he had been a laborer on the Glenmore Dam), he had great insight into the mindset of the 1950's and 1960's. Calgary boomed spectacularly from around 1900 to 1914, when most of these buildings went up. The city then stagnated until around 1950. Many of those buildings fell into substantial disrepair during the Depression. Sandstone is of particularly high maintenance given Calgary's abundant freeze, thaw cycles. All of the western world was more than eager to put bad memories behind it, but Calgary even more so as its downturn was more severe than that suffered by almost any other North American city. The general feeling was that Calgary 1.0 had failed and the 1950's was a chance to start over.

Another old timer I met in BC once told me that the biggest tragedy of Calgary's clean slate approach to redevelopment was that it lost what was probably one of the most unique (albeit small) downtowns in North America, with its railway inspired architecture and sandstone construction.
 
DougB said:
I remember talking to my grandfather many, many years ago (he died in 1996) about the loss of heritage buildings. Although he wasn't from Calgary (he had been a laborer on the Glenmore Dam), he had great insight into the mindset of the 1950's and 1960's. Calgary boomed spectacularly from around 1900 to 1914, when most of these buildings went up. The city then stagnated until around 1950. Many of those buildings fell into substantial disrepair during the Depression. Sandstone is of particularly high maintenance given Calgary's abundant freeze, thaw cycles. All of the western world was more than eager to put bad memories behind it, but Calgary even more so as its downturn was more severe than that suffered by almost any other North American city. The general feeling was that Calgary 1.0 had failed and the 1950's was a chance to start over.

Another old timer I met in BC once told me that the biggest tragedy of Calgary's clean slate approach to redevelopment was that it lost what was probably one of the most unique (albeit small) downtowns in North America, with its railway inspired architecture and sandstone construction.
Click to expand...
That explains why a lot of those old buildings were taken down. There would have been no money to put into fixing them up. Look at how much old City Hall cost to refurbish. As most of them were under 5 stories, what would you repurpose them to? The space would have been inadequate for the high rise office boom we saw from the 1960's on.
 
Love seeing that stately Provincial Institute of Technology building in the background. Imagine the impact that would have had on the city when it was first built up on that hill.

In my alternative reality Calgary, U of C's campus develops around the Institute, expanding northward to Confederation park. 16 Ave NW becomes a grand urban boulevard running through the centre of campus. 10 St NW becomes the commercial heart of a student ghetto in Mount Pleasant. 14 St crosses 16 Ave at grade and North Hill mall thrives due to its proximity to campus.

Instead, we ended up with an insular commuter campus that's still struggling to become anything other than a random assortment of buildings boxed in by expressways on all sides and totally detached from any of its surrounding neighbourhoods.
 
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Calgary's had a bad habit of demolishing old neighborhoods and turning them into parking lot wastelands. If you look at Eau Claire in the 1979 map from Calgary.ca you'll see it looks very much like what Victoria park looks like today and the sad part is that a some of that land is still parking lots 40+ years later

Screenshot (10).png
 
Silence&Motion said:
Love seeing that stately Provincial Institute of Technology building in the background. Imagine the impact that would have had on the city when it was first built up on that hill.

In my alternative reality Calgary, U of C's campus develops around the Institute, expanding northward to Confederation park. 16 Ave NW becomes a grand urban boulevard running through the centre of campus. 10 St NW becomes the commercial heart of a student ghetto in Mount Pleasant. 14 St crosses 16 Ave at grade and North Hill mall thrives due to its proximity to campus.

Instead, we ended up with an insular commuter campus that's still struggling to become anything other than a random assortment of buildings boxed in by expressways on all sides and totally detached from any of its surrounding neighbourhoods.
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Either that or the campus spread south and was developed along the hillside with buildings at the bottom facing onto Riley Park, and a boulevard along the park between 10th and 14th. I think it would be enough space if the Jube was built somewhere else. The hillside development would be challenging, but a grand staircase down the hill in the middle of the buildings would have been uber cool.
 
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