A Cautionary Tale

The former Montreal House at the northeast corner of King and Aylmer The building is at least 150 years old. It appears in historic photos and is depicted on historic maps. The structure itself, however, has now been declared simply, “Old” and will be removed from Peterborough’s Heritage Register. The plan is to demolish it and build affordable housing. Personally, this building has never been one of my favorites. It seemed a seedy, scary place in my childhood. And yet, it’s fate is particularly worrisome now that the Toronto real estate boom has thoroughly engulfed Peterborough. When I first heard about the plans, I felt pain at the usual short-sighted cries of progress. I’m the first to agree that Peterborough, like many cities, is in dire need of affordable housing. But that doesn’t mean you have to demolish historic buildings to create the space. Peterborough has several weedy vacant downtown lots, and plenty of space farther afield. The plans here are to integrate a new building into a skate park currently under construction to the east of the property. I’ve never been a fan of this proposal, a project that has been ongoing for well over five years and still far from completion. From its nature and location, I’m certain when it is done it will be defaced and otherwise subject to vandalism in short order. Having lived across the street at City Centre I know how noisy even a few skateboards on concrete can be. Not an ideal location for residential housing. Historically, demolition of heritage properties in Peterborough have not led to successful results. Here are just a few examples:

Brock Street, just west of George. An 1830s Georgian stone house, once home to many notable residents, was demolished in the late 1960s and replaced with this rectangle.

Two late-Victorian mansions were demolished to build Brock Towers. Briefly the height of sophisticated elegance, this former luxury apartment building quickly deteriorated.

A squat government-built box on Hunter Street replaced a magnificent 1880s post office. Churchlike in design, and complete with a clock tower, it was demolished in the mid-50s when a modern postal facility (itself since converted to apartments) was built on Charlotte Street.

At Water Street, Victorian downtown commercial buildings with a mansard roofline (reflecting their neighbour across Simcoe Street) were demolished and replaced with this stained, out-of-place concrete structure.

This is the site of one of Peterborough’s biggest demolition controversies. The fight to save the former Cluxton Building on George Street at Hunter was a major battle for architectural conservationists. Alas, efforts failed and the Second Empire style, three storey with a mansard fourth, was razed in 1972.

Across the street on the northwest side of George and Hunter, another historic business block was also sacrificed in the name of progress.

An unpaved parking lot on King Street is all that remains on property that contained what may have been the two oldest houses in Peterborough. Both were demolished in the 1980s for plans that never came to fruition. Once an historic building is gone, it’s lost forever. Construction methods are no longer up to the craftsman standards they once were. Rarely, if ever, are demolished buildings replaced by superior structures. Removing properties from the Heritage Register, deeming them merely “old” is one very destructive precedent. In the long run, it’s simply a loss of heritage architecture.