FEATURE -- NORTH END: The main street through Halifax's North End - and the one-time hotspot of commerce in the city - is making slow progress toward recovering some of its former glory.
By Holly Gordon <hagordon@dal.ca>
Posted: Nov. 18, 2005
Gottingen Street was once the main drag in Halifax, but it lost its fame when the city's urban renewal plans came forth in the '50s. Photo: Holly Gordon
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When Shirley Burnstein thinks of Gottingen Street, she remembers standing on the sidewalk in her good shoes and nice hat, waiting for Empire Theatres to opens its doors for the weekly western movie.
"You would rush to come back every week to see what happened to Hop-Along-Cassidy or High-Ho Silver," says Burnstein. "Those were great days."
She can list the names of grocery stores, drug stores, clothing stores and restaurants - all of which lined the then main street of Halifax. Her father owned a grocery store on the corner of Falkland and Creighton streets, and her uncle owned one on Gottingen Street. She says the times were good.
That was more than 50 years ago. Today, Burnstein, who is now the director of music and drama at Northwood Manor on Gottingen, says she drives down the street and sees only the shell of a formerly prosperous district she loved to frequent.
"It's very depressing for somebody that's seen it in a day where you used to go to Gottingen Street - you would get dressed, you'd put on your hat, your gloves, and your best shoes, and you went down shopping," says Burnstein.
Now, she says, the street is ragged and torn apart. Many storefronts are covered with graffiti and painted signs, and she would not be tempted to walk into most of the buildings on a street she considers an integral part of her past.
Over the last half-century, Gottingen Street bore the brunt of changes in the city and has been struggling to find its feet. But contrary to public perception of the area, people involved with Gottingen Street say it is doing better. Residential property values are rising, and there are plans to build condominiums and apartments on the street. There is simply a lot of history to overcome.
Nick Dimitropoulos is the co-owner of Vogue Men's Wear and Tailoring, a shop that has been on Gottingen Street since 1965. Photo: Holly Gordon
Dr. Paul Erickson, an anthropologist who has lived in the North End since the '70s and who has written two books about its history, says the main reason Gottingen Street declined from its busy days was because of Halifax's urban renewal plan in the late 1950s. The idea was to revitalize the downtown core after the Second World War because the housing stock was overrun by an almost doubled population during that time. The city commissioned plans for the redevelopment in many neighbourhoods but, unfortunately for Gottingen Street and the north end in general, that area was not in the plans to be revitalized.
"A large portion of the middle third of Halifax Peninsula, north of the Citadel to North Street, is virtually unrecognizable from what it was before these urban renewal schemes began," says Erickson.
Part of the renewal plan involved building Scotia Square in an area bordering downtown that was occupied by low-income families. The city built the mall and moved the people living in the area to Mulgrave Park in the far North End. Erickson says the proximity of Scotia Square to south Gottingen Street made it both desirable and reasonable for some of the street's businesses to relocate in the mall environment.
Erickson says another part of the plan was to remove what some called "slum housing" in the North End by raising the price of properties. In the case of south Gottingen Street, that was done to create parking. This made sense to the city because, before the renewal plan was acted upon, the MacDonald Bridge had been built. Erickson says the idea was to have Dartmouth residents drive over the bridge, through the North End via Gottingen Street and then use the parking lots at the end of the street.
"The vision was for people to come through the North End and go elsewhere because the North End was sort of the poorest part of town, [and] had the oldest housing," says Erickson.
But constructing parking lots instead of keeping the residential properties meant removing people from the street and, in effect, removing the small businesses that existed. Erickson says for local shopping on Gottingen Street, you need local people, and the city's plan didn't allow for that.
The city also constructed new buildings on the street and designated them for low-income housing. Erickson says this gave Gottingen Street a reputation for being a low-income area and, when the seniors' high-rises were built near Gottingen and North streets, it added to the fixed or low-income status of the street. And for merchants, low-income meant very little money to be spent in the stores.
Nick Dimitropoulos immigrated from Greece in 1966 and joined his brother, Mike, as the co-owner of the tailor shop he'd started on Gottingen Street a year earlier. The two continue to own Vogue Men's Wear and Tailoring in the same location, and they remember the bustling activity Burnstein described well.
"It was like Tim Hortons," says Nick, describing the activity in his store when he first arrived at its doors.
He acknowledges the decline in sidewalk traffic and the general decline in sales, as his store is much emptier than any Tim Hortons found in Halifax today, but he is hopeful the street's situation will turn around.
Nick says himself and Mike aren't planning to move and they have many customers locally and all over Canada. Their loyal clientele is now what keeps the business going, instead of busy main-street traffic.
Michelle Strum, president of the Gottingen Street Merchants Association, represents about 25 businesses on Gottingen Street through her position and says they are doing well. Places like the BMX store, Viewpoint Gallery and Taz Records have opened up in the past few years and are staying in the area. Strum says this is a good sign because more healthy businesses on the street means more foot traffic for other stores.
Dawn Sloane, city councillor for downtown and part of the North End, says there are a few new projects in store for Gottingen Street. A 48-unit apartment complex will be built on the corner of Gottingen and Falkland streets, and it will have retail units on the main floor. The old warehouse on the corner of Cornwallis and Gottingen streets will be turned into condominiums. She says the city is also working on enhancing services in the area -- bylaw enforcements and recreational needs, for example. She adds the city is currently working on fixing up the Gottingen Street entrance to the George Dixon Centre, putting in a sitting area, new planters and new signage to make the building look more inviting.
Sloane says she thinks with more people moving into the area, more services will come.
"It's a very exciting time in this area," she says. "There are lots of people with great ideas. We just need to get them up and going."
