Hello, I hope you are really noticing wherever you are. Here are a few things I’ve noticed.
Substantial completion of the massive Cogswell District was recently marked with a community celebration. We dropped by to look around as families enjoyed a “bouncy castle.”
It’s taken four years to get to this stage and it will be many more before the District is built out and the new trees mature. You should take a look now and see what you think. Or read Suzanne Rent’s reporting in the Halifax Examiner.
While we’re waiting for Cogswell to grow again I hope there is a robust program of activities to encourage folks to begin using what’s there now. At the same time the Granville Street Mall, a link to the new park spaces, needs more love and animation (weeding and application of a stiff broom would make a big difference too).
These days the only thing that brings us to the Granville Street Mall is the occasional visit to the Anna Leonowens Art Gallery. It was looking particularly good, and a refuge from the loud music on the windy plaza of the Cogswell celebration. The 1860s commercial spaces are perfect settings for contemporary art; like you are in SoHo in New York in the 1980s.
We were there to see work by artists who have been using and responding to locally grown and processed flax. This is a significant step in our flax renaissance, watch out. And what’s not to like about beach cobbles suspended by flax rope.
Then we went up to the Blue Building Gallery which puts on brilliant shows so we try to visit regularly. Now they are showing landscape paintings by the late Jerry Ferguson, who was one of the influential figures that propelled NSCAD into the international art world in the 1970s. A show not to miss.
It was a good afternoon to wander the Agricola district because have you noticed how quickly things are changing? (irony alert)
Bike Again on Charles Street is a remarkable service, providing tools and expertise to help you maintain your bicycle. I liked a mockup of the bike rack attached to the front of Halifax Transit buses. Practice makes perfect, so you won’t embarrass yourself in front of the other passengers.
A concrete table tennis table was the appropriate sized playing field for compact Fuller Terrace Park. The stainless steel “net” has this inspirational message: “stay fit and fast on Fuller.”
Further along Fuller Terrace we paused to admire a house built on a vacant lot about 15 years ago. It is a good friend to the surrounding flat roofed houses that are about 100 years older. Google Street View records how the landscaping had matured, check it out. Love that perfectly clipped hedge.
Speaking of perfect, we regularly walk a path through a parklike space beside the busy on ramp to the BiHi. The City mows the grass but some garbage does accumulate. We live nearby so it was no trouble to go over and fill a bag with trash. The grabber that Sheila used when she had hip replacements is surprisingly effective.
Postscript
On my visit to the Cogswell District I felt ambivalent. Removing the interchange was absolutely the right thing to do, bold and brave, but I was concerned about how the project would evolve while also not feeling very engaged. It’s a space for younger generations’ dreams.
I remembered a visit to this same area about 60 years earlier. A whole community had been leveled for Scotia Square and the highway connections to Harbour Drive. I snapped a photo of the last buildings from that earlier time that were still standing on this section of Barrington Street.
On my visit in 1966 I also photographed the last cobblestone street in the city that had not been paved over (all the buildings on Bells Lane had already been demolished). The street was more or less where the Food Court in Scotia Square is now. I marvel at how crisp and clean the cobbles look!
On the Granville Street Mall this is what the pavement looks like. If it was earlier in the season I might turn up with kneepads, a weeder, and a stiff broom and do a bit of neatening.
