The Politics of a Building

Gottingen street is a street with a lot of politics. The street has and still does embody the various social, political and partisan movements that have shaped and continue to shape Halifax as a city.

In this series “The Politics of a Street” I will look at the interesting bits of history between some of the street’s political interventions. In an earlier post I examined the impacts of post WWI race riots that affected primarily (though not exclusively) the cities young Chinese population. The following post will look at the politics of a building.

A walk down Gottingen ca. 1875 – Part 2

The installation of the tram tracks on Gottingen Street at Cogswell ca. 1891 – Nova Scotia Archives: Nova Scotia Light and Power Fonds, MG9, vol. 226, pg. 80.

This post continues the previous discussion of the recollections of Laleah M. Hendry (1867-1950) who in 1940 wrote about her memories of Gottingen Street when she was a child in the mid 1870s.

The above picture, showing the laying of the tram tracks by the Nova Scotia Light & Power Company ca. 1891, is important as it is the ONLY picture that I have been able to find that adequately shows the way this important corner looked. In a previous post (Building Blocks: 2-24 Gottingen Street and a follow-up post) I explored the buildings on the West side of Gottingen Street from the intersection of Cogswell and Falkland Streets. One of my biggest problems was that I couldn’t find a photo of this section of the street. As it happened tucked away in the scrap books of the Nova Scotia Light & Power Company (a rich resource btw for photos of Halifax in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries) I was able to locate two such photos that clearly and vibrantly showed this section of the street.

In her recollection Laleah mentions these buildings as standing out for her because they had staircases going from the street level to the front doors which in some cases were located above street level.

Some other grand houses that Laleah talks about, and which would have been literally across the street from her childhood home, were the homes of the Black brothers. Specifically, we have a photo of the house of Martin P. Black which was located on the corner lot at Gottingen and North Streets.

Martin P. Black house at the Corner of Gottingen and North streets (posted originally to Vintage Halifax Facebook page).

This house was torn down sometime in the 1950s and the land sold to make way for the construction of Northwood Manor. The property, at the back, was subdivided and made way for Northwood Terrace.

Finally, one of the other “big” homes of Gottingen Streets “residential” days was Hawthorn Place which was located directly across the street from the Hendry family home. Shown below on the Hopkins Atlas of 1878:

1878 Hopkins Atlas of Halifax showing portion of Plate E and the Harrington Estate Property known as “Hawthorne Place” on Gottingen Street.

Leleah refers to this property as “the old Harrington place” so even in 1875 the property was considered to have been there a long time and by the look of the footprint of the building on the Hopkins Atlas was substantial building. Interestingly she states that the house was replaced by three dwelling houses. It appears that this building existed on the street at least til 1951 as it is represented on the Fire Insurance Map for that year. Today this building has been replaced in the early 1990s by the Westgate Apartments Building.

Adjacent to the Hawthorne Place property were a series of single family houses which had been turned into flats. By the late 1980s with Gottingen Street becoming run down and depressed developers were looking at the cheap land as a potential place to build. In 989 the buildings that face Gottingen Street at the corner of Charles and North along the Western side of the street were torn down to make way for the current Charles Place. Below is a picture of 2518 Gottingen Street which was torn down shortly after this photo was taken in March 1989 to make way for the apartment building that stands today.  This building and its adjacent buildings were only torn down after a neighbour, Miss Ethel Brown, dropped her appeal of the building permits for Charles Place. She was appealing the building of the new 59 unit apartment building due to the increase in cars it would bring to her neighbourhood.

2518 Gottingen Street. Photo taken from The North End News, 9 March 1989

Laleah M. Hendry (1867-1950)

Laleah M. Hendry was the daughter of William A. Hendry and Harriett Sophia Smith. She was born at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada 25 November 1866, she died at Hantsport, Nova Scotia, Canada 11 December 1950 at the age of 84.

Laleah’s father William A. Hendry was a land surveyor and worked throughout Halifax County in the 1870s and 1880s. By the mid 1870s he held the title of Deputy Commissioner of Lands and the family lived at 271 Gottingen Street. The House doesn’t appear on the 1878 Hopkin’s Atlas but does on subsequent Fire Insurance Maps, specifically the 1895 Fire Insurance Map shown below:

Portion of the 1895 Fire Insurance Map of Halifax showing 271 Gottingen Street

Much of this section of Gottingen street has changed as the intersection with North Street has been shaved back to make for easy flow of traffic coming off of Gottingen onto the approach for the bridge. The large building at 277 and 277 1/2 Gottingen still stands today. The property where the Hendry house stood is now a series of row houses.

William A. Hendry purchased the property from the Robinson family in 1852 at which time the property was described as a building lot being formerly land granted to the Deal family. This means that the Henry house was likely the first structure on that property.

William Hendry died in 1908 at the age of 84. Laleah Hendry never married and eventually went to live in Hantsport, Nova Scotia with her sister Harriett Creighton.

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Sources: All images used above have been purchased from and are the copyright of the Nova Scotia Archives, unless otherwise noted, for use in the Map App project of the Gottingen 250 Festival and are being used here on The Old North End blog to help promote the Map App Project. Primary source research has been conducted entirely by myself, Nathaniel Smith, for use in the Map App project as well as for this blog.

A walk down Gottingen ca. 1875 – Part 1

The installation of the tram tracks on Gottingen Street at Cogswell ca. 1891 – Nova Scotia Archives: Nova Scotia Light and Power Fonds, MG9, vol. 226, pg. 65.

Over the last year I have had the privilege to be involved with the organizing committee of the Gottingen 250 Festival from the earliest planning meetings right up to now and it has been extremely fulfilling to see the vision that the committee saw come together.

One of the legacy pieces that the Festival committee has been working on is a web-based Walking History Map App which will allow people to walk down the street and from the convenience of their tablets of cell phones learn about the history of the street and the people who have lived on it.

Today we can combine different media – photos, sound recordings, text – and present it on our crazy technology and walk down the street and learn about our neighbourhoods. However in the past we just had pen and paper. One of the richest historical resources we uncovered in our research for the Map App was a description of the street ca. 1875 written in 1940 by 73 year old Laleah M. Hendry.

So come, let’s take a walk down Gottingen Street in 1875…

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The description of Gottingen Street ca. 1875 written by Hendry was done more than seventy years after she lived on the street and are recollections of when she was about eight years old. That being said this three page typescript (transcribed and presented here with its original notes and formatting) provides us with an amazing look back at a street that was primarily residential but had business and commercial enterprise, as well as a bear and a peacock.

Below is the recollection in its entirety. Immediately following the transcription I will try to identify some of the things she mentions as we walk from the North end of Gottingen Street to the intersection of Gottingen and Cogswell streets ca. 1875:

Old Gottingen Street About 1875

            I sometimes wonder if there is anyone besides myself who remembers old Gottingen Street in the Seventies as I do. I was a small girl of eight years when we left that part of Halifax, but the street as it was then seems most clearly printed in my mind.

To begin at Fort Needham, to which was the longest walk we children ever took, somewhere near there further out I think were the two old Merkel homes, two very interesting old homes, then you came to Young Street running down to Lockman. Kaye Street running same way, on which was a Methodist Church, then St. Joseph’s Church, then Russell Street where was St. Mark’s Church.

To continue on Gottingen, you come now to Wellington Barracks, occupied by British Soldiery, where the high stone wall was only party built at that time, and the blanks filled in with a palisade of split poles through which we children peered in and sometimes, oh wonderful saw a bear tied to a pole. Then Dr. Walker’s beautiful home opposite, at which place I remember seeing peacocks. The fine old Admiralty house on East side, adjoining the barrack property, opposite again the old Bell home occupied by Hon. Hugh Bell, called Bloomfield, and entered by an avenue of trees from Gottingen. Then, on! Two beautiful homes opposite each other, at corners of North and Gottingen, lived in by Martin P. and Charles Black. At southwest corner was a dear old-fashioned house in from street lived in at one time by the Mackinlays, ancestors of Andrew and Williams Mackinlays who for years kept well known stationery shop on Granville Street. Then the old Harrington place, also in from street, and called “Hawthrone Place”, later turned into three dwelling houses, opposite the Hendry house, of which family I was a member.

Then Mrs. Clayton, mother of Clayton and Sons, and a Mr. McInnis next; next the Deaf and Dumb School, of which I remember a Mrs. Vinecove as matron and a Mr. Hutton as Superintendant. On other side of street lived a Mr. Sutcliffe and family, then came three houses alike, in one of which lived the Logan family for many years. Next came a house occupied by a Miss Clarke and her mother. Miss Clarke kept a small private school which I attended. Then came the Old Ladies Home, the original house I have heard was once owned and lived in by the Knight family, but was split in two, moved away and the present building took its place. Next to them came a Mr. Gully and family, and next again a Mr. James MacLearn and family, very dear friends of ours, then somewhere near, a house in from the street, which in that day of mine was occupied by Rev. Dr. Forrest, then pastor of St. John’s Church on Brunswick Street, and afterwards President of Dalhousie College. The Bayne family lived in a very nice stone house corner of Cunard Street, then North Baptist Church, since removed to Robie, and Zion Church, which I think is still there. A Mr. Parker lived in a very nice house in from street, and on other side a Colonel Clouleith, who kept several small dogs.

Am afraid my memory is failing as to other families on this street, but recall several shops, Liswell the baker, who made wonderful long molasses cakes and ginger breads all shiny on top, with blocks of pictures stamped on like the creamery butter is now, and wonderful hard biscuit, also a spongy kind of biscuit, and no baker these days made as good bread as they did.

Mrs. Campbell kept a candy shop corner of Cornwallis, all home-made and good beyond telling. A dear old coloured woman, who wore a bandana on her head, had a shop, and sold all sorts of herbs, lobsters and other things. I can remember the smell of that shop now, a sort of interesting witheroddy (blurred text) smell. Hemsworth, I think, kept a tobacco shop opposite Mrs. Campbell’s sweet shop. Various liquor and pork shops, one having a golden pig over the door (note: Carol Palm’s Pork Shop, Grandfather of Carl Bethune), in which we got all sorts of good things, hams, bacon, sausage, eggs, butter, etc., and those were the days when sausages were good. I can also recall the smell of those shops.

At the end of Gottingen near Cogswell street were some nice old homes with long steps leading up to them, and a family of MacNabs, friends of ours, lived in one of them. Rev. P. G. Macgregor had a very nice house further north, afterwards occupied by the very popular doctor, Dan Campbell, and facing up Gottingen on Cogswell Street was a large building called the Ball house, if I remember rightly, in which games were played by the Military.

Some more shops have come to my memory now, a tiny one kept by a Miss Ahern, in which one got needles, pins, sewing silks, twist, etc. Also a shop kept by the Misses Henneseys, and McPherson’s dry goods store, in which a pretty little lady served, who, as the years went on, never seemed to grow any older.

These are just the memories of an old woman trying to hark back seventy years, and may be interesting to some equally old person who will probably find me wrong in some of my memories. But one thing I do remember is that it was an interesting and pleasant old street, and I recall that the sun, in summer, set at the end of it and made a lovely afterglow of a beautiful summer evening.

Despite her age both in 1875 (about 8) and in 1940 (about 73) Laleah appears to have remembered quite a bit of history.

I don’t have the space to hit every single thing Laleah talked about but here are some highlights.

She talks about the stone house at the corner of Gottingen and Cunard Streets. Today this space is occupied by the former Scotia Bank building which is now the costume storage and repair facility for what I believe is the Royal Nova Scotia Tattoo. Below is a picture of that house:

Corner of Cunard Street and Gottingen Street ca. 1891

You can see that the house was set back from the corner and had a considerable amount of property. Abutting the property in the background that still stands on the corner of Cunard and Creighton Streets.

Today adjacent to the house on the corner of the above mentioned streets is the former Cunard Street Theatre which today is used by the congregation of Revival Tabernacle. On the weekends in the summer, if you’re lucky, you’ll hear them singing gospel from the open windows.

Interestingly, in the 1925 this house was owned by Dr. Hawkins and was in bad shape; enough so that the City tried to have the owner fix it up or take care of it otherwise. The description of the building is as follows:

I beg to report on the condition of the buildings on the north-west corner of Cunard and Gottingen streets. There are three buildings on the property, the main building is a two and one half story building with a stone foundation and the northwall is stone and brick, the south and west walls are in the same condition as when the section of the building was cut off, no repairs having been made and they are very rough and untidy. The east wall is in fair condition. The other section is a two storey flat roof building and is placed on crib work in the rear of the main building. The third building is a one storey shed placed there by the Relief Commission after the Explosion and is used for storage. (Report to Halifax City Council re: Hawkins Property as reported in Halifax Evening Mail, 7 October 1925).

You can see, as well, from this portion of the 1878 Hopkins Atlas, the block of Gottingen between Gerrish (today’s Buddy Daye Street) and Cunard Streets:

1878 Hopkins Atlas of Halifax, portion of Plate F, showing the West side of Gottingen Street between Gerrish and Cunard Streets.

Starting at the corner of Cunard and Gottingen, on the West side, and walking North you have the stone Bayne family house mentioned by Laleah. Then, in the middle of the block you have the large McGregor house that is situated in from the street and then adjacent to that the Liswell Bakery where Laleah enjoyed many sweets and pastries.

The McGregor House is also know as the Mignowitz House and we are lucky as a picture of this building has also survived:

The McGregor/Mingowitz House, Gottingen Street.

This building was located in the centre of the block roughly where the former Sobey’s used to be in the empty lot across from the Library.

Laleah’s recollection is so packed full of historical insight that I’ve decided to break this post up over two posts. The second post will examine some of the businesses and the Hendry family itself.

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Sources: All images used above have been purchased from and are the copyright of the Nova Scotia Archives for use in the Map App project of the Gottingen 250 Festival and are being used here on The Old North End blog to help promote the Map App Project. Primary source research has been conducted entirely by myself, Nathaniel Smith, for use in the Map App project as well as for this blog.

Richmond vs. The Old North End

Old North End looking West from the Grain Elevator

A lot of people have written me about my decision to call this blog “The Old North End” and there have been some serious debates on Twitter where boundaries of neighbourhoods have been disputed. I have chosen, for the purposes of this blog, to only focus on the geographic area the encompassed the North End of the down town business district and the residential neighbourhoods that stretched to North Street between Robie Street and the water. I made this decision very deliberately and I hope to explain in part why I did that.

For much of the first fifty years of Halifax’s existence the city was confined to the area immediately below the Halifax Citadel and within the boundaries of the Blockhouses and palisades that were built to protect the early settlement.

Line Drawing of principal forts, blockhouses, and batteries of Halifax’s early defences.
Drawing by G. MacLaren after a map by H. Piers. 1946. (NSA)

The so-called “North Suburbs” were the area just outside the palisades between Forts Luttrell and Grenadier and the Naval Yard. As will be explained below from various primary and secondary sources for much of the last two hundred years the geographic extent of the City of Halifax was a small area at the base of Citadel Hill. The South End of the city wasn’t opened up and built until the 1880s, the West End immediately west of the Halifax Commons began to be developed in the early 1890s, especially along Quinpool Road and it wasn’t until the early 1900s that the small village of Richmond and the main parts of the far North End were completely built up and populated.

In her examination of the history of late 19th century life, Glimpses of Halifax, historian and archivist Phyllis R. Blakeley described the North End of the city ca. 1867 as follows:

North of the Commons there were only a few scattered houses among the fields, and Agricola Street had not been opened…A few houses of the poorer class were stretched along Campbell Road between the Dockyard and Richmond, where a settlement had grown about the railway terminus after the beginning of the Nova Scotia Railway in 1854. Richmond, where the machine shops employed one hundred and fifty men, was considered a separate village, as it was four miles from the business district. (pg. 4).

The above photo from the Tom Connors collection held at the Nova Scotia Archives  shows the Richmond train/freight station ca. 1860. The shabby conditions of the Richmond station led to the train station being moved in 1878 to the foot of North Street. However, the train terminus was one of the main reasons for the settlement on this part of peninsula.

The far north end of the peninsula was originally granted to the St. Paul’s and St. George’s Church for use by the glebe and were commonly referred to as the glebe lands. This is reflected in the names of some of the streets today: Rector, Glebe, Vestry, and St. Paul’s. The wide open space provided plenty of land for industrial purposes as the industrial complex in the city expanded out of the cramped down town warehouses and buildings. Large, primarily brick, factories sprung up all over these former church lands:

– 1880-81 the Nova Scotia Sugar Refinery was erected at the foot of West Young Street on the water side of Campbell Road. Completely destroyed in the Halifax Explosion in 1917.

– 1883 the Nova Scotia Cotton Manufacturing Company built its massive brick factory along Robie Street at Young. The chimney of this building survived the Halifax Explosion and would become a major symbol of the Piercy’s building supply buildings until it was demolished in recent years.

– 1889 the Graving Dock at the foot of Young Street opened after two years of construction.

The above factories employed hundreds of men and women and began a small real estate boom in the lands surrounding them causing the lands to be subdivided and houses to be built. Despite all of this industrialization the area north of North Street remained sparsely populated, with the major pockets of residential development taking place along the waterfront, along Campbell Road/Barrington Street and in the cluster of streets immediately surrounding the Dry Docks at the foot of Young below Fort Needham Hill.

The fields just North of the foot of Citadel Hill were opened up relatively late in the history of Halifax. Bauer’s field which encompassed most of the area west of Brunswick street to the commons wasn’t subdivided until the 1830s when we see Creighton, Maynard and Bauer streets start to be developed. Woodill’s field which encompassed the area between Windsor street and Robie wasn’t opened up until the mid 1880s and for most of that time was used for large green houses which ran along North Street at the intersection of Robie which at the time was called Longard’s Road because it functions as the main road which ran through the wilderness to the Longard farm which was located roughly at the intersection of Robie street extension and Lady Hammond Road. Brunswick street down to the water was where a lot of the early development took place stretching the boundaries of the city out of the streets that fell within the confines of the old walls and outside the protection of the Blockhouses which protected the town of Halifax.

Creighton Street in the 1940s or 1950s

The German settlers who arrived between 1750 and 1752 had been granted land outside of the blockhouses, the Little Dutch Church being built-in 1756 at the corner of Brunswick and Gerrish streets, St. George’s Anglican church was built at the corner of Brunswick and Cornwallis in 1800 and the Brunswick Street Methodist Church opened in 1834. Despite these institutions being established the population was tightly packed into, for the most part, the area between Gottingen street and the water with the largest concentration of people being in the area that is more or less underneath modern-day Scotia Square and the Cogswell Interchange along Jacob street.

Blakeley refers to the area North of the down town as being referred to even as late as 1867 as “Dutch Town” with the area north of that to North street being referred to as “New Town”. It is my feeling that given the events of December 6, 1917 Richmond has been given a fair amount of study, you throw in the rebuilding efforts after the explosion and the amount of study given to the Hydrostone neighbourhood the area has been extensively examined. That is why I chose the “Old North End” as it represents a part of the city which for the most part doesn’t exist any more. Instead it has been replaced by large-scale building projects like Scotia Square and the Cogswell Interchange. If you drive along Barrington Street today you wouldn’t realize that between Barrington and the water there were hundreds of people who once lived in two, three and four storey buildings along streets which no longer exist. Richmond was rebuilt, the Hydrostone represents a new history for the North End but the old North End, for the most part, isn’t there any more.

Historian Suzanne Morton in her study of the Hydrostone in the 1920s Ideal Surroundings provides further insight into the debate around boundaries in the “North End.”

The term ‘North End Halifax’ can be confusing, as there were two distinct ‘North Ends’ in the city. Richmond Heights was located in the far North End – a location quite separate from the Ward Five ‘North End’ associated with the area between the Citadel and North Street. The Ward Five North End contained some of the city’s worst housing and poorest neighbourhoods. Part of the confusion around the two North Ends lay in the almost complete isolation of both areas from the generally more prosperous South End. The North Street passenger train station and the old train route along the harbour had been the only exposure of most South End residents to the district and with the destruction of the terminus and the permanent redirection of all passenger traffic through the new south-west route, even this very limited contact ended. (footnote no. 11, Introduction).

 

I agree with Morton’s assessment of the distinctiveness of the two neighbourhoods. The two North Ends of Halifax were different and thus need to be examined as such. That is why I have chosen to only study the Old North End.

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Here are some interesting facts:

In 1951 the area of the Old North End was experiencing rapid decline both in upkeep of buildings and businesses, but also in population. In 1951 the area had a population of 11,939 people who represented nearly 9% of the overall population of Halifax. On average there were 4.1 persons living in each household. In 2001 (I haven’t looked at 2011 numbers) the area’s population was only 4943 people, mostly single and had an unemployment rate of 54% (Silver, Public Housing Risks and Alternatives: Uniacke Square in North End Halifax, February 2008). I think these numbers are extremely significant as they show the character of the neighbourhood and the nature of the city has changed dramatically in a short period of time. It also shows, to me at least, that there is a history here worth telling.

The Northern Light and the North Pole – Halifax?

Check out the blog throughout the month of August as we gear up for the Gottingen 250 Festival which will be taking place on September 12-14 on Gottingen Street and Maitland Street.

Masthead of The Northern Light ca. 1894

From 1988 to 1998 a local newspaper published weekly in the North End of Halifax called The North End News. Copies of this newspaper are available for view at the Halifax Central Library on Spring Garden Road.

However, prior to that the North End had another newspaper called The Northern Light which was published from roughly 1891 til the late 1890s.

Building Blocks: 2-24 Gottingen Street – UPDATED

Gottingen Street between Cogswell Street and Falkland Street, 2013

Back in June 2013 I started what I hope will be a series of posts called “Building Blocks” that do a block by block analysis of how streets changed over time. It was modelled off of a blog called Keith York City. You can read the original post HERE.

Since posting this analysis of the western side of the first block of Gottingen from 2-24 (using the old numbering system) I have come across additional information which I think is really cool.

I’m Back… Summer 2014

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to send a little note to say that regular updates will continue throughout the summer as I have returned from three months working in Ontario (officially returning on July 1st). A lot has happened since I’ve been away so I thought I would highlight some of the stuff I have been working on. I expect my first substantial update to take place on Monday, July 7th. Here are some short notes of what I’ve been working on:

1. Armouries Expropriation

One of the projects I dropped due to my work obligations was research I was conducting on the lands expropriated to make way for the construction of the Armouries at the corner of North Park and Cunard streets. I am nearly ready to post the results of this research which I hope to share over two posts in the coming weeks.

2. Gottingen 250 Festival

Since October 2013 I have been involved with the organizing committee of the Gottingen 250 Festival that is coming this fall to the North End. Its going to be a great time. Over the course of the summer and leading up to the actual event I hope to highlight some of the events, people, buildings and what not that I have uncovered leading up to festival. As co-chair of the History Committee we have some interesting things to roll out between now and September. So keep your eyes open.

3. Photo Project

Over the summer I am going to be putting out a call to current and former residents of the Old North End for photos of the area which I can highlight on the website, do some research on and what not. If you have any old photos please send them to me at: disasternat@gmail.com.

This is just a bit of what I hope to accomplish over the summer and I thank you all for your continued support and I look forward to getting Halifax more familiar with its past and specifically the past of the area of Halifax I love very much – the Old North End.

Nat

The Race Riots of 1919

On the evening of Tuesday, February 18th a group of men, drunk, and with little to do, began what would turn into a two night riot and would result in tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage to stores and restaurants in the Old North End.

Mrs. Patton outside her store at 21 Gottingen (1919) – Halifax Herald

Real Estate Registers – find out how much your house cost in 1877

The Nova Scotia Archives has an amazing resource available to researches on their website called the Built Heritage Guide. If you own a house and want to know how to go about researching its history, figuring out what resources are available and so on this is the place to go.

One of the coolest things, at least to me, that is available in this research guide are scanned copies of various Real Estate Guides which much like the magazines and Real Estate channel today provided residents and interested persons with information about what was available for sale, rent, lease, etc. in Halifax.

The oldest register available on the website is from 1877 which you can view page by page here.

1877 Real Estate Register of Halifax

Going through this register you can see what was available for sale, rent and so on in the Old North End and its an interesting look at how much things cost and what people could buy. Some examples are:

– “A comfortable Family Residence at the North End, containing 12 rooms, pantry, etc., with stables and outhouses. Rent $400.”

– “That very eligible residence on Brunswick street, corner Proctor’s Lane, contains 14 rooms, with panties, closets, etc., large garden, croquet lawn, stables, coach house, etc. The house is built with all modern improvements, and is one of the best houses in North End. Rent $500.

– “Large House on Gottingen street near North street, contains 14 rooms with usual offices, and has large garden, stable and barn. Will be rented for $240.

– “A House in Gottingen street, containing 7 rooms, and kitchen and frost-proof cellar. Rent $240 per annum. Possession immediately.”

– “A Shop and dwelling in North End. To a good tenant would be put in thorough repair. The Railway extension being in close proximity, this should offer a good chance for a new beginner. Rent $200.”

– “A shop 30 x 25 on Gottingen Street, with work room of same size above. Suitable for market or factory. Rent $160.”

Page from Register

The above entries are just a smattering of the listings available in this register and they provide a valuable amount of information about the housing market in Halifax in the middle of the last half of the 19th Century. Canadian inflation calculators only go back to 1914, however, if we assumed the money was in US dollars $4,000 in 1877 would represent a value of about $85,000 in 2012. Interesting, eh?

When is a parking lot more than just a parking lot?

North Park street is a relatively short street. Only two blocks stretching from the intersection of Cogswell and going North toward the intersections of Cunard and Agricola streets. However, it’s a street with a lot of history. One spot along this road that has always intrigued me is the parking lot located on the corner of North Park street and a tiny little lane called Armoury Place which runs alongside the Halifax Armouries, formerly called John’s Lane.

Parking lot at the corner of North Park street and Armoury Place.

In the above photo you can clearly see a granite stone wall that runs along the length of the parking lot. I notice these things when I walk around town and it always has me asking when is a parking lot more than just a parking lot?