Snow, finally

The date is January 16th and this morning the grass in London was green and bare. There hasn't been a decent snowfall since possibly late November. And it hasn't even been cold enough to make snow. Last weekend the neighbourhood ski hill was closed.

Finally, it is snowing and with luck it will snow all night. Drivers may not see it as lucky, they may see it as their luck having finally run out, but the skiers in the area will be delighted. And not only is it snowing but it's cold. It's dropping below zero.

Snow making equipment is roaring into action and it does roar. People living a full mile from the ski hill hear the big snow-making guns pumping out very localized, very intense blizzards. Winter is back. Cold has returned. Snow blankets the land. All is right with the world.

Ornge serves London

The air ambulance service in Ontario is called Ornge and the aircraft, both helicopters and airplanes, are painted bright orange. Cute, right? The service also operates a number of traditional ambulances.

To learn more about this service, here is a link: Ornge.

Presentation is so important

The old railroad station in Guelph is a good example of why the presentation of a heritage building is so important. The station is a handsome building but one can be forgive for not noticing. Surrounded by concrete, asphalt, a clutter of posts and signs, it doesn't, as a real estate agents would say, show well.

I didn't get a chance to go inside but my wife did and she says the inside is surprisingly  intact. Nice.

Train traffic is on the rise in the Guelph area. The Toronto GO Train system is reaching out farther and farther from the city. What will happen to the old Guelph station as it encounters increased use in the future is an open  question.

London lost its Guelph-style station decades ago. In the '30s, I believe. The replacement was actually quite nice. Some Londoners compared the '30s replacement to Union Station in Toronto. That London station didn't last thirty years before it was replaced with a larger, workhorse of a station  located on the first floor of a small, modern, glass and steel highrise tower.

That one only last a few decades before it too was demolished. The present London station is another workhorse building but with a bit of modern pizzaz mixed with a mild retro look. Hopefully Guelph will not follow the London example.

Another Guelph Heritage Streetscape Photo

The heritage streetscape in downtown Guelph, Onatrio, is both sad and oh-so-very hopeful. The buildings have aged a lot over the years and not always gracefully. Note the application of a thin coat of concrete to the first floor stone of the building on the right. The maintenance of these old structures has not always been in keeping with the architecture. In fact, the repairs have often been downright destructive.

But, and it is a big but, the buildings are intact to the point that these places can be restored with far less effort than is often necessary. It does seem clear that there is more interest in saving these buildings than in demolishing them. It is not hard to envision a day when the magic wand of restoration will have touched many of these buildings, leaving the downtown with many sparkling, architectural jewels.

Guelph City Hall

With just moments to spend in the downtown core of Guelph, one might think it would be difficult taking more than one quick shot for my blog. It wasn't. I didn't have to leave the intersection where I parked my car. Each corner contained a delightful hertitage building.

Shown is the 1856 Guelph City Hall constructed of Guelph stone like so many of the heritage structures in town. For the first hundred years the city hall had a clock tower but it was removed in 1961. But the remainder of the front portion of the building is true to its original look.

In 2009 its use as the city hall ended and it became the Provincial Offences Courthouse handling small legal violation such as traffic tickets.

Heritage buildings in Guelph, east of London

Yesterday my wife and I had to drive to Guelph, a small city about an hour east of London. I haven't been in Guelph in years and was pleasantly surprised to find the core of the city featured many well maintained heritage buildings.

The friend that we met in Guelph knew very little about the plethora of heritage structures and so I hit Google on getting home. The first think I learned was if you think downtown Guelph is striking today, you should have seen it a hundred years ago. To think such a wonderful place, constructed with such love, an urban core that once showcased beautiful, heritage architecture, to think such a site wasn't cherished leaves me numb.

Shown today is the Kelly Building at the corner of Wyndham and Macdonnell Streets in Guelph. The building to the left of the Kelly Building is Petrie Building which still boasts its original stamped galvanized full sheet-metal facade—one of only three such buildings remaining in Canada. The fact that these two structures are standing today is the result of the concerted effort by many area residents willing to fight hard to save the area's heritage.

For more info on these two buildings please click the links:
Petrie and Kelly Buildings.
Downtown Guelph

New suburbs are the place to find rows of similar looking homes: a myth

There's a myth that new subdivisions are the place to find rows of similar looking homes. Not true. Building like-looking homes, sometimes identical, either side by side or here and there throughout a region, has a long and honourable record.