That's fair... They are pretty fugly. But these medallion ones are by far the nicest, go a little deeper and it only gets worse. At least medallion tries to update these ones. The insides have had a lot of work done in past few years
 
Armour said:
Yeah, like a wrecking ball. There is no redemption for them.
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Sad to think how many nice houses were demolished to create this ugly, dysfunctional commie-block community. St James used to be another Cabbagetown.
 
salsa said:
Sad to think how many nice houses were demolished to create this ugly, dysfunctional commie-block community. St James used to be another Cabbagetown.
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I know. I was thinking about this when I was walking around Cabbagetown, for the first time, about a month ago. It would have been great to have that atmosphere extended further north, instead of feeling like such a no go zone once you hit St James Town. Not to mention that Cabbagetown also extended south (where Regent Park now lies). Such a shame that we destroyed such charming neighbourhoods, and for absolute crud, no less.

http://www.blogto.com/city/2014/04/st_james_town_and_the_messy_politics_of_urban_renewal/
 
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Armour said:
I know. I was thinking about this when I was walking around Cabbagetown, for the first time, about a month ago. It would have been great to have that atmosphere extended further north, instead of feeling like such a no go zone once you hit St James Town. Not to mention that Cabbagetown also extended south (where Regent Park now lies). Such a shame that we destroyed such charming neighbourhoods, and for absolute crud, no less.
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Well they weren't considered charming back in those days. They were very rundown. They were considered slums. St James Town was a very desirable place to live when first built. It only started to go downhill when rent controls caused the owners to cut back on maintaining the buildings.
 
If memory serves me Regent Park was largely a collection of shacks. St Jamestown never really lived up to its potential. It never really became desirable to the target demographic. Believe early phases were moderately successful but the massive white blocks completed from 1967 to 1969 pretty much were failures.
 
You can see what the old Regent Park looked like in this propaganda video for the "new and improved" Regent Park shortly after it was built. It's a great watch and although it's obviously super biased it sheds a little light on what the area/Toronto was like in the late 40s and early 50s. If you've got 15 minutes I highly recommend you watch it, it's called "Farewell Oak Street".

 
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Crane is going up!
 

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Gotzvon said:
You can see what the old Regent Park looked like in this propaganda video for the "new and improved" Regent Park shortly after it was built. It's a great watch and although it's obviously super biased it sheds a little light on what the area/Toronto was like in the late 40s and early 50s. If you've got 15 minutes I highly recommend you watch it, it's called "Farewell Oak Street".

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That is such a great movie thanks for sharing. also very ironic
 
That documentary was slapstick, hilarious but also sad. I could not imagine living in a time when truth was seen as hard and fast, lines never blurred - progress or dissolution. They literally trotted out child predators to justify the destruction of our heritage, only to have the solution become the problem. I suppose we will have to see if our own time's solution is better (the mixed use replacement of regent park), but even as we wait the rest of our social housing is rotting on the vine.
 
Medallion has the ones along sherbourne mostly on the east side but also 540 on the west side of street and then I belive they have another building or 2 along Howard. I live in one of them and in their defence they have done a lot quite recently.

The rest of St james town is either community housing like 200 wellesley or run by a different company. Used to be GS if I recall.

Medallion could be better but in that neck of the woods their buildings are definitely the nicest.
 
A friend of mine actually lives in the building next door to 565 (The brown building on the left in the pic I posted above) and the interior is actually pretty nice. The lobby must've been redone sometime in the last few years, there is new carpet in the halls, and the units themselves are very well kept.

The only issue is the elevators always seem to be breaking down, but that's more of a citywide issue than anything. Even new buildings are dealing with elevator issues.
 
I am in 545 and they replaced the elevators about a year ago so it's been much nicer. They also reclad the lobbies and hallways with new tiles etc. redid all the suite doors and replaced the hall carpets with tile. New lighting, new hall paint colour. Automated doors for wheelchair accessibility. Really now that I am thinking about it there isn't much on the interiors they haven't done.
 
I'm very curious if, at 565 sherbourne/all associated buildings, they are planing to beautify the old rental towers, or are they simply adding a new tower in between them and improving the retail?

It would be very sad if they didn't give the existing buildings an exterior face-lift.
 
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