[Brighter Hell]

I've taken a lot of pictures of Peterborough over the last year or two. Some of these might have made their way to the forums at some point but most are relatively new.

George St is the main street and the busiest part of downtown. The area between Simcoe and Brock is the trendiest part of downtown - it's no Queen West but it's not bad for a small city.

The Morrow Building

This place makes good beer :smokin The facade has been redone since - the upper floors had really tacky fake siding that's been removed but the pub looks pretty much the same.

Both of Peterborough's movie theatres are downtown - the artsy independent one and the Galaxy multiplex.

More George St. The building with the clock tower has been used as the City Hall, a market hall, and now a theatre.

The obligatory downtown mall. Its design wasn't as bad as most other downtown malls - most closed off streets or were built over them, this one was built under a street. The mall itself is quiet but not totally dead, the attached uses like the office building, movie theatres and retirement home help out. The main entrance faces the busiest intersection downtown and looks like ass.

This giant wooden chair just happens to be in the middle of the highest concentration of bars in Peterborough. The thing's a magnet for drunk people - in the two years it's been there it's already been destroyed and rebuilt. Swamp Castle anyone?

The area around Confederation Square is where most of the civic buildings are, including the Armoury...

the old YMCA...

City Hall...

the County Court House and Victoria Park...

...among others.

Water Street is the one-way twin to George and is mostly a traffic sewer. It does have some nice features including some funky storefronts.

A provincial government building

Hunter Street has been rebuilt by the city over the last couple years to encourage more patios and streetlife. Sure enough, the street has seen new restaurants, pubs, and patios, and it's way more alive than it used to be - the buildings in this shot were pretty decrepit until recently.

The city is on the Otonabee River and Trent-Severn canal so it has a lot of waterfront. There are several locks on the canal but the one everyone knows is the lift lock.

and in winter...

They have free concerts and fireworks here twice a week in the summer. Too bad their target demographic is middle aged people (no offence to anyone over 40 )

One of the few waterfront condos. For some reason there's not a lot of that happening. Then again going by the design of some of the condos in Barrie or Kingston, maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Little Lake is just outside downtown and is home to the Centennial Fountain. It's modelled after the one in Geneva IIRC.

The Quaker Oats plant

Charlotte St. is another major street that has lots of variety, including everything from outfitters to pubs to old school locksmiths and photolabs, plus it has Peterborough's slabtastic tallest building.

Some residential surrounding downtown

The old Westclox factory, which is now offices and apartments. Ironically enough, none of the clock faces work.

 

[bizorky]

Very nice tour.

Burried utility poles. Something that would benefit Toronto streetscapes.

 

[Darkstar416]

Great tour, thanks!

Peterborough's downtown is indeed in pretty good shape and a good deal healthier than most Ontario towns of similar sizes.

BTW, this is a highly recommended restaurant:

 

[21stcenturymichael]

Thanks for the photos. I really enjoyed that.

I was a Trent student 1988-92 and loved Peterborough. Although it is nice to see the downtown in good shape whenever I visit, it is quite different than it was almost 20 years ago. Back then, it was a much more full service commercial area, with both department stores (Eaton's, Zellers and Woolworths) and a regular supermarket (Food City, of Food ity as well called it because the C was always on the blink). Now, it's mostly specialty shops and restaurants. There's nothing wrong with that (a lot of Ontario downtowns don't even have that), and that's the land use trend of the last few decades -- downtowns have ceased to be the primary commercial area and have become niche shopping areas. And of course some of the change is due to circumstances that extend well beyond Peterborough (the bankruptcy of Eaton's, the closure of the Woolworths chain). But there is still something a little sad about it.

On the upside, the cinemas are now all downtown (back in the day, the two screen Trent Cinema was downtown, but all the good movies were way the heck out at Landsdowne Place). The Galaxy Cinema is a great fit for the old Eaton's store (much better than the call centres and office space that replaced many downtown Eaton's stores in smaller Ontario towns). And there has been great refurbishment of some of the heriateg buildings (the Morrow Building was so decrepit when I lived in Peterpatch).

 

[Brighter Hell]

^Actually all 3 of those stores were the victim of chain-wide closures. Zellers closed all their Zellers Select stores and since then the old Zellers has been downtown's most prominent vacancy. The City and the downtown BIA have traditionally focused on downtown as a retail destination, ignoring residential, offices, entertainment, and culture. Those attitudes are slowly changing. The Hunter Street redesign has been a success and there's been talk of bringing that kind of thinking to other streets. The owners of Peterborough Square have plans to redesign much of the mall's exterior but only interior renovations are happening - I have a feeling they don't have the cash flow they were hoping for. There's more of a focus on entertainment and culture (Showplace and the cinemas) and to a lesser extent residential. There have been quite a few renovations recently but zero new construction. Oh yeah Galaxy only takes what was the second floor of Eaton's. The first floor is call centres now.

 

[Bayguy]

Peterborough is one of the best cities of its size in Canada.