Downtown Hamilton 2009
fountain


Gateway to Downtown
Gates to Downtown
building
Tourism Office

Old Library
Sir John A
Sir John A .Monument

monument   Doors Hamilton
War Monument             Door    
City Hall Reno
City Hall under renovation
  There are many good things in the downtown area to welcome visitors, such as the gates to downtown, the war monument and Sir John Alexander Macdonald monument, and the information centre.

It was easy to get around.  However, if it’s downtown, it should have been more difficult, because, although I was there on a Sunday, a lot more people should have been there.  

You can use the bathroom for free at the YWCA and YMCA.  Youth and seniors can also live there. City Hall is also available to the public, although it is currently under construction.
Downtown
Employment
CIBCHSBCBuilding

Art Gallery

Hamilton Club
   A banker, lawyer, or accountant, or fireman could work at one of the banks or businesses located downtown.  The employment centre could also be a place in which people without such credentials to find a job in the area if they so desired.

There are lots of places for people to work, as long as they want to work in a bank, a restaurant or office.  There are a couple of other places, such as Subway, the bus station, or maybe City Hall.  There is a hospital nearby they can work at, but it is 4 blocks south of downtown.

Urban Planet
Chester'sC
Downtown stores
King Street

Gem Capital

Convenience Stores


         
  Phone Booth            Peep Show

Market

Bingo
Bingo
Bingo
Chinese food
Chinese Food

Right House
   There are several noticeable stores to purchase milk and other groceries.  I did notice one place in particular to buy vegetables. However, the Farmer’s Market is nearby.

A store, restaurant, or cafe I’d like to hang out in is The Pagoda Chinese restaurant, mainly because I like to eat Chinese food.

I could buy a birthday present for my best friend if I got them clothes at Urban Planet or some other clothing store.  I could also go to a convenience store and got them a magazine or something.  

I also didn't notice a place to rent a movie.  I have seen some convenience stores that rent them out, but I didn't see such a place downtown.

Unless one of these places has a post office hiding inside of it, I couldn't find one.  I saw a UPS store, but I am unsure whether it has full postal services.

Bike Racks

Tourism Office



bike rack
Bike Rack


bike rack
Bike Rack
 There are plenty of places to lock a bike.  There were a couple of bike racks around Gore Park, and there were some strange-looking ones at the YWCA.  Of course, if you need to get home and you don't want to ride your bike anymore, you can put it on the front of a bus.
the Gore
Benches
Benches
Benches
Benches
  There are lots of places to sit all over the place.  You can sit in or around Gore Park, and if the weather was bad the bus shelter has a bench.  These are good benches for people watching.

It kind of looks like a community of old people with a couple of young people who want to stay with them.

 The building that used to be the Hamilton Public Library, for example, is nearby the flashy CIBC tower.  One is obviously old and the other is obviously imposing its progressiveness. 

Whitehern
Whitehern
Whitehern
Whitehern Gardens

Whitehern
Whitehern
The Whitehern museum gardens is a good place to sit and just look around.  It's a really nice garden and is much cleaner and neater than the other benches around the city.

It seems like the only recreation aside from Copps Colliseum and Jackson Square is the YMCA and YWCA.  Gore Park isn’t very large, and people think it’s unsightly when teenagers loiter all over the street.  This is downtown, however, so I understand the lack of green space in the area. 

Ywca
YWCA



YMCA



YWCA
 The community facilities are adequate. The nearby library is the biggest in Hamilton, there is the YWCA and the YMCA, and there are lots of nice-looking old churches.  The only high school nearby is Sir John A. Macdonald. Perhaps a downtown area would have more colleges.  To see or rent a movie, you would need to go to Jackson Square.

Church clock
Church



Church

Church
Church
  There are plenty of places of worship downtown.  Some of the churches are ornate and dignified, and some are little places that would be unrecognizable as churches but for the signs that proclaim their existence.
Homes
Buildings
windows
Buildings


Buildings
   Although they don't look very child-friendly, families can make their homes above storefronts.  There are also high rise apartments in the area.

There is sparse housing in the area that is surrounded by trees.

Within this area,the citizens of all ages can live at the YWCA or YMCA.  I don’t think families with children can live very readily in the neighbourhood,
Go trains
Go Train Station

GO Bus Station

Cargo Train
GO Station

Cemetery
  If public transit is what you need, then you'll find it downtown.

 There's a GO station, several bus stops, and a train station, all of which are in or near the area.

The Hamilton Street Railway provides buses to every area of the city, and Gore Park is the hub of transfer activity.

The bus patrons bring the majority of traffic to the Core.

Parking

Parking Meters







Parking
  There are a lot of places to park a car.  There are many parking meters and many parking lots.  It's free to park at the meters after 6:00 p.m. and on Sundays. If you don't mind walking about 4 blocks, it's free to park for 2 hours. 

There seems to be some places for people of all ages to gather.  A larger park might be beneficial.  People may hang out anywhere.  When I went downtown, there wasn’t really anyone “gathering”, but I’m not sure what is missing.  It just is.

Boarded Up
Restaurant

Boarded Up
Lister Block
Lister Block

Scaffolding
  There are also the buildings that are in need of restoration or someone to purchase them.  Many buildings downtown sported boarded windows, scaffolding, "For Rent" signs, and Tyvek plastic coverings.

The downtown area needs more things to do.  Pretty much all I saw there was a lot of banks and a few places to get stuff to eat.  The places one can go to (if one is restricted to an area such as mine)  is Gore Park, a restaurant, Bingo, a bar, one of the Ys, and that’s pretty much it. 

Building

Lister Block

Prime Retail Space
  There are no malls, theatres, or anything like that, unless you go to Jackson Square. If I went downtown it would be because I had to and not really because I wanted to.  It needs less buildings that don’t really serve a purpose, like the hordes of buildings that have probably had “For Lease”  signs forever. 
Alley
Alley

Alley
Alley
Alley
Alley
Alley
  There are the several convenient alleys in downtown Hamilton.  They are just like every other alley you've ever heard of.  Dark and dirty, with shredded curtains and holes in the windows with pigeons living in them.  They have crumbling red bricks and worn out fire stairs.

It felt safe, but mainly because I was downtown with several people.  If I had been there myself, it would not have felt safe.  

I don’t like a lot of the places in downtown Hamilton because they look undesirable.  Many buildings have paint missing on their signs, some neons look like they wouldn’t work if you turned them on, and there are far too many windows that are boarded up.  I find nothing cool about rundown buildings.  Personally, I find it extremely sad that our downtown looks kind of what a poor person’s house might look like.  However, I do like the look of the churches.  I also noticed that they aren’t run down.  To change and/or improve the buildings, I would need to find a way to get people to come and work and play downtown.  The problem with that is that no one wants to come downtown because nothing is going on, so numerous buildings remain unleased and unused.


In 10 or 15 years from now, I would not want to live or work there because I want to be a computer programmer with two kids and eventually make my way into a large company.  This area does not have the place in which I want to work.  There isn’t even one software company, and if there is, I didn’t see it.  I personally would not put a software development company there because it would probably be unsuccessful.  If a person wants to be a computer programmer, they want their game to be good and marketable, and if there was a software company in downtown Hamilton it probably wouldn’t be a very good one because our downtown isn’t a good place for this sort of company.   Perhaps the Ancaster business Park would be an ideal loation for that kind of job in Hamilton.    Additionally, I would not want my kids wandering around downtown Hamilton.  There’s not really anything there for them to do, and there are things such as intimidating alleys and graffiti on the sidewalk.  I have read in the Spectator about the city trying to make homeowners clean up graffiti in a timely fashion while the city and downtown  have graffiti on the sidewalk.  If a little kid is walking, they are going to look at the sidewalk, and I don’t want my children reading graffiti in the first place.   Downtown is not very family friendly. There is a strip bar and a peep show, and a bingo hall, and mostly places to buy food or clothing.  The only thing a family can do for free downtown East of James Street is sit or walk. It wasn’t exactly boring, because I was shown around downtown and I had never really been around it before, but again, if I had been downtown for the sake of being downtown, I would have been bored.





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Published: 05-13-2009