Image: MB Historical Maps on flickr
I will have to update my post "Upper Fort Garry Notes" post in which I trace the numerous tenants on, and plans for, the site through the decades.
Now, the Friends of Upper Fort Garry's plan for a park on the site has been approved. It includes the gas station land at the north-east corner of Broadway and Main that has been in operation since 1925.
Looking back through Upper Fort Garry Notes, I am reminded of David Asper's speech last week in which he accused the city of being all about "too much planning and not enough execution".
The city began discussing the expansion of the park around the gate area in the 1930s. It was at one time touted as the site of a new city hall. A 1972 plan to remove of the buildings around it and make it a national historic was the city's candidate for their Manitoba Centennial project but the Centennial Library project beat it out at the last minute.
For someone who is both a heritage AND downtown advocate, this 'victory' is bittersweet. It required the scuttling of the first hi-rise apartment to be built in the downtown in three decades to preserve a piece of land we've been humming and hawing over for eight decades.
3 comments:
1925? That gas station should be a historical site! Who wants to join me as a Friend of Gas Station? I need to raise money for an interpretive centre.
P.s. I've been drinking. I may have lost my enthusiasm by tomorrow morning.
"It required the scuttling of the first hi-rise apartment built downtown in three decades to preserve a piece of land we've been humming and hawing over for eight decades."
Who do you mean by "we", Kemo Sabe? Not everyone is a Manitoba Club member.
I meant "we" as in the city. Since the 1930's we've been planning to do something with it.
Post a Comment