Archive for the ‘Uptown’ Category

Summer 2009 in Saint John

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

This month, I returned to Saint John for a visit. Of course, I tried to time this to occur in July when the Port City usually has less than horrible weather. I was in luck on a few sunny days and went out with my camera.

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There are some very nice, well kept homes in Millidgeville. I was drawn to the colour of this house. Hopefully no one saw me, wondering why I’m randomly taking a picture of this house.

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From this shot in the North End, Saint John looks quite dense! However, what you don’t see here is the large open area of mostly-empty highway lanes and roads in between the buildings in the foreground and the uptown high rises in the distance.

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Uptown Saint John!

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The view from Harbour Passage is somehow one of the most scenic you can find anywhere on the ground in the city, even though there isn’t anything entirely unusual in this area.

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Measure twice, cut once! Work is progressing on the Market Square expansion to add new office space. From where this guy is standing, it’s a long way down if something goes wrong!

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Someone’s porch has a nice, decorative clock on the patio of their uptown condo. I can’t imagine actually wanting to sit here though simply because people like me are always walking or driving by.

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On the first sunny day in a while, Saint John Harbour is entirely void of any cruise ships. Oops. I liked the lines visible in this photo. This same picture should (hopefully) look entirely different in 10 years because the coast goard site at the left will hopefully be redeveloped. Many the city will find a way to actually use the new cruise ship terminal properly and get rid of that tacky white tent too. While we’re at, they could condemn the Canada “Customs Building” (which actually has no customs offices inside anymore) for unsightly premises. It is ugly!

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Barbour’s General Store is looking nice at its new location across from city hall. This building has moved many times in its history. It must have a solid structure! The Brunswick House office tower is visible in the window reflections.

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A horse chows down at Rockwood Park. It seemingly has no problem living off the system.

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A lifeguard seat is empty at Fisher Lakes. Actually, there was lots of people at this beach behind me. This was the last photo I took in Saint John while home, just a couple hours before I hopped on my plane to go back to Calgary.

Posted in Photography, Saint John, Uptown | No Comments »

I used to think Google Maps was good

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

Gone are the days when a bird’s eye view of where you live is something you can only imagine or see in an airplane. Google Maps has for years allowed you to type in any address and zoom in on it right on your computer screen. At least this is how it is for many cities outside Saint John. I’m not entirely sure where Google gets its imagery from, but I think it needs a bit of a refresh for the Saint John area. Let’s take a look at Google Maps for Uptown Saint John:

Not a pretty sight. There’s three sets of images coming together and only the greener section in the top right is actually high resolution when you zoom in. Harbour Station is barely visible at all!

Until today, I have just given up and assumed there are no higher resolution images available for Saint John. This was until I tried out Microsoft’s Live Search Maps:

The imagery in this similar view from Microsoft’s service is much better, so much better in fact that I was able to zoom in on my own neighbourhood and discern my father’s trailer parked in the driveway outside my house, whereas I can barely see anything at all on Google Maps. Microsoft’s system also seemed a bit faster and more responsive, without any ugly copyright watermarks splashed across the maps. This is saying a lot for Microsoft since I was using a non-Microsoft web browser in a non-US location, circumstances that usually lead to a better experience with Google’s services.This puts my respect for Google down a peg since they, as the supposedly hip and fast moving innovators, are always too quick to attack Microsoft for being the slow-moving dinosaur, when the roles actually seem reversed somewhat here.

Posted in Technology, Uptown | No Comments »

My thoughts on the proposed Irving world headquarters

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

As most locals already know, a couple weeks ago, Irving and the Saint John Port Authority announced their plans for development along the waterfront. Irving wants to build a new world headquarters on the site of Long Wharf. With that would come development of public green space. Since this is right next to Harbour Passage, it’s not a bad idea to be improving the quality of the parks and green space in the area.

In this artistic concept courtesy of the Irving press release, you can see what the development will look like. Right now, most of this space is a big ugly concrete field. Since this is currently active port space, this deal is conditional on the former sugar refinery site being transferred to the Port Authority to use instead. There’s no loss. In fact, there’s a gain. The area would continue to act as a secondary cruise ship terminal, keeping the other space always free for other purposes.

Here, you can see the building as an artistic rendering from the ground level. Instead of a high rise, the use of a low-rise structure is more practical and will not block out too much view of the harbour. The press release also cites various environmental considerations leading to the choice of this type of structure.

Exactly why is anyone opposed to this? Some people suggest that Irving should build a taller building or that the location is bad, and they should use the old Centracare site instead. How stupid. It’s clear to see why a large company like Irving would want its headquarters centrally located in a prestigious spot of the waterfront. It’s also obvious to me that this city isn’t yet big enough to be in a position to start demanding high rises when all we need is more appropriately sized low rises.

Some people think it’s a good idea, but a bad location because we’re “losing valuable port space”. That isn’t true at all though because the sugar refinery space would open up as new space. In fact, I think that space would be even more valuable for the port’s purposes since ships could avoid entering the main part of the harbour and dock at the entrance instead.

Those who know me well know that I’m often not the hugest Irving fan, but let’s be realistic, this is a good idea. I hope it goes through. What do you think?

Posted in Politics, Uptown | 3 Comments »