wyliepoon
Senior Member
Photos from March 22 2009
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Downtown Brantford
- Thread starter wyliepoon
- Start date
chriskayTO
Active Member
Great catch with that covered up "EATON" sign - was it previously called the Eaton Centre or some such name?
ShonTron
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Eaton Market Place. The store was one of the first to close as Eaton's tried to restructure in 1997, and stores like this were one of the reasons the store chain failed.
Brantford looks a tad better lately - I visited before and it looked a lot worse - more plywood and the sad silhouettes. I think they demolished some of the buildings and built the new red-bricked buildings. It also seems that the mini Laurier and Nippissing campuses have helped as well.
Brantford looks a tad better lately - I visited before and it looked a lot worse - more plywood and the sad silhouettes. I think they demolished some of the buildings and built the new red-bricked buildings. It also seems that the mini Laurier and Nippissing campuses have helped as well.
Tuscani01
Senior Member
My studio group last year decided to use Brantford for our redevelopment project. There is so much potential there, and from talking to locals, things are really starting to improve. (Laurier and Nippissing seem to be getting a lot of credit) We had breakfast at a restaurant on the square with the skating rink, and we were the only people in the place. By time we finished, there was a little event going on in the square and it started getting busier.
Icomm Drive really annoys me. Could they have picked a worse name?
I have a few pictures I took during the site visit that I will put up if wyliepoon is cool with it.
PS. Downtown Brantford was the set for Silent Hill. The area was actually turned into Silent Hill while the movie was being filmed. Funny how it still resembles it.
Icomm Drive really annoys me. Could they have picked a worse name?
I have a few pictures I took during the site visit that I will put up if wyliepoon is cool with it.
PS. Downtown Brantford was the set for Silent Hill. The area was actually turned into Silent Hill while the movie was being filmed. Funny how it still resembles it.
brewster
Active Member
Brantford has a lot of historic buildings and history. Too bad the economy is in tatters. I travel to a lot of small towns and always check out the local historic buildings. The Sanderson theatre in Brantford is one of the best in Ontario.
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ShonTron
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You'd think that because downtown Brantford looks so bad the whole city was a mess. It really isn't. It did hit rock bottom when Conrad Black's Massey-Ferguson was gutted out and free trade destroyed the Canadian farm implement industry (of which M-F and Cockshutt were huge employers - there's some remnants of their plants south of downtown).
But it has gained jobs in the food production and services industry and warehousing, largely because of the completion of the 403. Just no one goes downtown, especially after Eaton's went bust. Sarnia's downtown isn't much better (also with a dead Eaton's mall), in a city that still has lots of well-paid jobs in the chemical industry.
wyliepoon
Senior Member
I'm cool.
DavidJamesTO
Active Member
Who designed the Brantford Public Library building? Damned depressing 
As for Icomm Drive, I think everyone who's driven on Can-Amera Parkway in Cambridge (a road named after a cross-border sports tournament that folded before the road was finished) will agree that it's a rather inoffensive name by comparison...
As for Icomm Drive, I think everyone who's driven on Can-Amera Parkway in Cambridge (a road named after a cross-border sports tournament that folded before the road was finished) will agree that it's a rather inoffensive name by comparison...
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adma
Superstar
The library almost looks like a temporary location. Oh, and "icomm" (AFAIK it was originally all lower-case spelling) was a failed science centre meant to spark the tourist economy back in the early 90s--the casino occupies its corpse today...
ShonTron
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That's the rear of the library. The front is on Colbourne Street and looks a lot better.
The library is a an old Woolco store that closed and the city took over, and did a lot of renovations with.
The library is a an old Woolco store that closed and the city took over, and did a lot of renovations with.
MisterF
Senior Member
Nice pictures wylie. Looks like some parts of downtown have started to revitalize.
flar
Active Member
Colbourn St is still pretty empty, though they have built a couple new buildings in the last few years. Dalhousie was always a bit nicer. (Dalhousie and Colbourne being the main one way twin streets)
jaborandi
Active Member
I seem to recall seeing a lot of gorgeous yellow brick Victorians and some very sumptuous mansions in the area near the school for the deaf. Here's hoping for a brighter future for a down-but-not-out city. Thanks for the pix wylie.
wyliepoon
Senior Member
Front of the Library:
Long Island Mike
Senior Member
Good Brantford,Ontario pics!
Wylie: Good Brantford pics-I remember visiting Brantford on my September 1985 trip-I did not know that the city center today is a little rough around the edges but interesting nuntheless...is there anything there mentioning Wayne Gretzky-perhaps Brantford's most well-known native son of our lifetimes?
LI MIKE
Wylie: Good Brantford pics-I remember visiting Brantford on my September 1985 trip-I did not know that the city center today is a little rough around the edges but interesting nuntheless...is there anything there mentioning Wayne Gretzky-perhaps Brantford's most well-known native son of our lifetimes?
LI MIKE