Thank you to the 30 or so folks who attended our Jane’s Walk: “Marvellous Mt. Hope – Breithaupt Park: from Industrial Past to Innovative Present”. It was a lot of fun to talk about our great neighbourhood and chat with so many of you.
Here are a few highlights. We look forward to leading another walk next year!
At the beginning of the walk everyone met the co-leaders: Ted Parkinson and Lane Burman.
We started the walk at the “Shoe Factory” at the corner of St. Leger and Breithaupt Street. This building has around 40 tenants in it, and has kept most of the historic look since it was the Greb shoe factory. Lane recounted many stories including one of a “ghost” that might still be there!
We talked about Krug Furniture, the Weber Street Widening, the impact of the railway being constructed in 1850 and the “industrial” roots of our neighbourhood.
Below Lane is discussing the area around the former Fire Hall at Duke and Breithaupt. Another topic of our walk was how most of the buildings in MHBP are examples of “vernacular” architecture, this building has a fire hose tower that includes some Italianate features making it “polite”. The things you learn, right?
We ended the walk in the shadow of the Breithaupt Block which has been
extensively renovated for Google and other tenants. One of the most
exciting things about our area is how so many of the older buildings
have been updated to still be used for so many “modern” commercial
activities like developing software.
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