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Old Kitchener City Hall
#1
This thread is designed to collect historical documentation about the old Kitchener City Hall. There are many lessons to be learned from the process and outcome of the referendum leading to the fateful decision to demolish this nice building and public square and replaced it with a generic mall.
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#2
There's a good picture on display at the moment at the Kitchener Central Library - it shows the recruiting office that stood on the Frederick St side of the City Hall Square during the war.

I often what use the Kitchener City Hall would have been put to had the building been saved? A tower annexed to it at the back? A home for the KW Art Gallery?
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#3
(12-08-2014, 03:54 PM)panamaniac Wrote: I often what use the Kitchener City Hall would have been put to had the building been saved?  A tower annexed to it at the back?  A home for the KW Art Gallery?

Excellent suggestion. Seems like the right amount of space for a gallery and quite fitting given the public square in front of it.
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#4
Photo 
A more interesting question for me is: how would civic cultural life have changed had both Waterloo and Kitchener kept their City Halls and the accompanying centralized public squares?  Both City Halls had prominent squares that were gobbled up by urban development when they were torn down.  Would Oktoberfest have used the City Hall square as a focal point rather than squeezing itself onto Frederick?  Unfortunately, when Waterloo's new City Hall was built, there was not much room left for public space.  Kitchener's Public Square would have also commanded a nice view south along King Street.

Back to the original question, there are a couple local examples of how to marry the old with the new:

- Toronto's Old City Hall became court houses (rather, I believe, the case was that the municipal functions moved out, and the court functions expanded to fill the space)

- Cambridge City Hall
[Image: 6622449145_c3ba0ffb34_z.jpg]

- Goderich Town Hall (which was the post office until 1961, the newer section was added in 2009)
[Image: getDocument.php?Img=600&D=bheritagesup&F...7.57068477]
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#5
The old City Hall Square was not used for public events (that I can recall) other than Remembrance Day.  It was also the spot where you could catch most of the city buses.  The current City Hall is vastly superior (imho), although I find the plaza a bit too small.  The old Square was a beautiful location for the Cenotaph.
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#6
You can get a vague idea from some old aerial photos:

http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/locations/um.../IM30.html

Honestly, the new plaza doesn't seem much smaller than the old one, though the old one would probably be bigger, when you close the neighbouring streets.
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#7
(12-08-2014, 05:54 PM)panamaniac Wrote: The current City Hall is vastly superior (imho), although I find the plaza a bit too small.  The old Square was a beautiful location for the Cenotaph.

I agree> however the present city hall did not replace the old city hall. More importantly, it would have been best to keep the old city hall around and house the Art Gallery and Region museum in it.
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#8
Should any of you find yourself down at the Stanley Park Mall, take at the peek inside the recently renovated TD Bank. At the back of the new open office area, a wall has been covered with a scene showing the old City Hall and surrounding area, circa 1920s-30s. Since it is in the office area, I didn't go in for a close look but from a distance it looks like a painted mural. I was pleasantly surprised to see this nod to local history in a modern bank branch. It's also a reminder of a failed heritage fight, and why the construction of Market Square still sets off reactions among locals.
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