[David A]

Contingent on the building being restored to good condition, I could see tons of ways it could be put to use. But that initial investment seems like a hard sell without some big player taking a leap of faith. It's hard to imagine the U of A doing anything at all, nor the municipal government unless there were some partner who first agreed to make a big commitment. It's times like these that make me wish Edmonton had the same culture of philanthropy that Toronto and Montreal have.

Toronto and Montreal have generations of many successful large family businesses, like the Rogers and Bronfmans who are very rooted in their communities. Edmonton seems indifferent to keeping or attracting them.

 

[Glenco]

A little bit of hyperbole don’t you think? Winspear, Muttart and the Robins centre at MU. Small potatoes compared to TO and Montreal but there again we are small potatoes.

 

[Oilguy]

A little bit of hyperbole don’t you think? Winspear, Muttart and the Robins centre at MU. Small potatoes compared to TO and Montreal but there again we are small potatoes.

The pooles, the holes, Allards, etc. but as you point out of course we will have less, someone would have to do some sort of per Capita comparison. Chasing away/losing the Shaw’s kind of sucked but my feeling is as much as the laid blame on the city they were like a moth to the flame of the Calgary scene.

 

[David A]

I'm not denying there are some well off families here and I suppose you can survive on small potatoes, but not sure if you can really thrive.

As a city in a supposedly more ambitious part of the country there is no shortage of excuses for a lack of ambition here. Part of the problem is we don't realize the problem.

 

[Glenco]

I'm not denying there are some well off families here and I suppose you can survive on small potatoes, but not sure if you can really thrive.

As a city in a supposedly more ambitious part of the country there is no shortage of excuses for a lack of ambition here. Part of the problem is we don't realize the problem.

I will agree Edmontonians lack self belief. We seem to accept being second fiddle which is very disturbing. There were moments in the recent past when we wouldn’t accept no for an answer when Mandel was mayor other than that maybe Hawrelak?

 

[constance_chlore]

Toronto and Montreal have generations of many successful large family businesses, like the Rogers and Bronfmans who are very rooted in their communities. Edmonton seems indifferent to keeping or attracting them.

Is it really a question of keeping or attracting people? I don't know that Montreal did anything to retain the Bronfmans. If anything, you might say the opposite: Québec during the Grande Noirceur was not exactly the most favorable place for Jews, and then during the Révolution tranquille there was a huge flight of capital caused by fears of nationalism. But the Bronfmans stayed in large part out of a sense of rootedness and civic pride.

I don't really know whether Edmonton scores worse on this front (relative to its size) than other cities. Quebecers tend to think of Québec as being worse than English-speaking Canada, by which they mostly mean Toronto. But I will say that the sense of rootedness, or knowledge and appreciation of history, just doesn't seem to be there to the same degree in Edmonton.

 

[David A]

Yes, Montreal did its best to drive away many that didn't fit the prevailing vision, of course that was Toronto's gain and it eventually surpassed it. However, Montreal does still have the advantage of still being a fairly big city.

Until the late 1980's or early 1990's Edmonton was the major centre of Alberta and something similar happened here, we let that slip away although not as much through hostility as indifference.

Yes, it is probably harder to keep or attract successful people here than because we are smaller and have less history to keep them here, but that seems to have become the excuse not to really make the effort.

The Winspear Centre was great, but that was over 30 years ago and the benefactor was from the era when Edmonton was the major centre, not that much as significant has happened more recently.

 

[kcantor]

I don't think lumping the historic Princess together with the not as historic Paramount is at all helpful for this discussion. They are buildings in different locations from different eras. I don't see the former being torn down, the latter may be.

Of course, the Edmonton mentality is often to take the easy way out and tear things down, rather than do the hard work to preserve and find a use for it and for the most part the current generation has less appreciation for historic buildings that the previous one, so who knows.

If I was to look at the significant loss of historic structures in Edmonton over the past 60 years, I'd have a really hard time blaming "the current generation" for the current state of affairs. If previous generations hadn't almost completely abdicated their responsibilities in this area, we would have sufficient successful precedents to inspire the current generation.

The worst part from my perspective is that it was previous generations that allowed the demolition of the very best so that today for the most part we are forced to struggle to make sense of second and third rate examples by significance (with the rare exception of structures like the old RAM - which may not even be enough - and the original planetarium) and by condition.

 

[David A]

I don't think the current generation was responsible for what was lost in the past and yes it was significant. However, I don't sense as much interest in general in preserving what is left now than a decade or two ago.

Although I would like to be proved wrong on that.

 

[archited]

just doesn't seem to be there to the same degree in Edmonton.

Edmonton is a much, much younger city than Montreal -- a frontier town that grew up/is growing up "over night". It is rife with trial-and-error. That is its beauty.