Toronto Ïce Condominiums at York Centre | 234.07m | 67s | Lanterra | a—A

I kept thinking how much nicer waterfront would be without these five buildings? But seems we are stuck with them.
 
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vegeta_skyline said:
Why is it that the western Harbour Square tower has two addresses? (55 & 65)
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33 HS is one building with two entrances, south /main/ with concierge and security desk and north /back/ entrance on QQ, 55-65 HS is divided into two entities and they have two separate entrances, each with security desk. 77-99 has one main entrance for the two buildings.
 
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Great updates on Ice. I must be one of the few people here who also actually like Infinity, although I would rather not have seen an exact copy.

I am also glad there are some older, even though less attractive, condos on the waterfront, from different eras. If Harbour Square etc were not there, it would just be wall to wall glass.
 
scrapergeek said:
I am also glad there are some older, even though less attractive, condos on the waterfront, from different eras. If Harbour Square etc were not there, it would just be wall to wall glass.
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The only problem I have with these buildings is that they were built on the south side of Queens Quay instead of the north. But who could have known back in the late 70's what would become of this area when they started developing it.
Great pic Zeiss, thank you
 
dt_toronto_geek said:
The only problem I have with these buildings is that they were built on the south side of Queens Quay instead of the north. But who could have known back in the late 70's what would become of this area when they started developing it.
Great pic Zeiss, thank you
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Honestly as city planners, if they didn't see the potential of the lakefront area, it only means they are stupid and incompetent.
Any major cities sitting by the lake/river should know the value of waterfront land. There is no excuse whatsoever. Even in the 1970s Toronto was not exactly an insignificant city.
 
if you look at the original plans, they planned to build something like 10 of those harbourfront buildings all on the south side of queens quay. all the exact same. think infinity, times 5. horrid. thank god they only got 2 of them built.
 
figaro said:
Honestly as city planners, if they didn't see the potential of the lakefront area, it only means they are stupid and incompetent.
Any major cities sitting by the lake/river should know the value of waterfront land. There is no excuse whatsoever. Even in the 1970s Toronto was not exactly an insignificant city.
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That's wrong on many levels. It's very difficult to foresee the future and generations of people across many different industries have made what they believed were bright assumptions about the future that have turned out to be wrong. Sure there are enlightened people who go against the grain and make correct predictions that often revolutionize their environment, but the average person (whether it's a planner or a biologist or a business owner) won't see it. Given that the central waterfront was a heavily industrialized area and had been for much of the city's history, and given that Toronto and the GTA has been an industrial centre for the province and the country, it would be difficult to imagine that people would want to live there, especially during an era when people were moving away from urban centres.

To imagine that Toronto would have the building boom it has had recently, you'd have to have foresight into the growth of immigration, Toronto and Canada's economy in comparison to other places both nationally and internationally, the economic transition of southern Ontario from a manufacturing to service based economy, a reversal of "white flight" to the suburbs... and hell, even Toronto getting an MLB team and building a 50,000 seat retractable stadium mere metres from the water. There are a lot of layers here, and you just have to look at Buffalo or Detroit or any of the other rust-belt cities to see the various paths that this could have taken.
 
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if you look at the original plans, they planned to build something like 10 of those harbourfront buildings all on the south side of queens quay. all the exact same. think infinity, times 5. horrid. thank god they only got 2 of them built.
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Toronto70surbanisticplan002.jpg


Ack! Very Moonbase Alpha.
As someone once said, "Nothing says yesterday like the thing that said tomorrow".

Sorry this is rather off-topic.
 
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We look back in horror at some of this retro-futuristic brutalism now, but something tells me the UT members of 2050 will be having the same conversation about some of the condos built in this current boom!
 
^^ OMG, that sends chills down my spine. I usually hate when projects get cut back but in this case, it was a blessing. I can't think of anything worse for this city.
 
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