The day before the sad announcement last week about the closure of CHML Radio, I was a guest on Rick Zamperin’s morning show. The program featured a segment called “Do You Know?” and the topic we talked about was “ ” drinking fountains that were found on city sidewalks and in parks from 1914 until the early 2000s. The continuously gurgling fountains — the subject of a — were uniquely Hamilton.
There was a time when everyone in Hamilton knew what a Shorty Green was, while outsiders would have no idea. We also talked about Shorty Green (Wilfred Thomas Green), the captain of the 1920s Hamilton Tigers of the National Hockey League. He led a players’ strike because they were expected to play extra games without extra pay and the team in 1925 ended up moving to the U.
S. to become the New York Americans. A Hamilton NHL team never returned to the city.
CHML has gone off the air after nearly a century of broadcasting. It’s just the latest bit of local cultural identity to be lost, Mark McNeil writes. Thinking back to the phone conversation with Rick, it seems so ironic.
There we were talking about history on a radio station that was about to become history. Just over 24 hours later, the CHML signal, at 900 on the dial, dissolved into static. Nearly a century of local broadcasting history vanished from the air.
“After decades of service to our remarkable community, we are announcing the closure of the 900 CHML Radio station,” the Wednesday announcement said. “The shift of advertising revenues to unregulated foreign platforms, combined with the difficult regulatory and competitive landscape, has forced us to make the difficult decision to close.” There is no doubt about that.
All Canadian media outlets are feeling those same pressures — including this newspaper. But I think there are other forces in Hamilton that should be noted. From 2005 to 2012 local historian and Hamilton Library archivist Margaret edited four books titled “Vanished Hamilton,” which featured stories about more than 220 examples of Hamilton heritage that are no longer with us.
It’s not just local news that’s in trouble. It’s local culture. It’s the stuff that makes Hamilton unique.
The traditional heart and character of the city — something CHML so enthusiastically supported — has been disappearing. Some people are OK with that. Bring in the new.
That’s how we ended up with the Jackson Square urban renewal project that demolished 17 hectares (43 acres) of downtown Victorian architecture in 1969. Today there is another downtown construction boom, this one building condominium towers largely intended for commuters to the Greater Toronto Area. Amid all this, is there a danger of the city becoming homogenized into a suburb of Toronto with people who are not so interested in Hamilton news, culture or history? It’s something that has been brewing for awhile.
You just have to look down from an airplane to see the city is part of a metropolis that extends from Oshawa to Niagara. Hamilton is not as definable as it once was. Perhaps the mood on the ground reflects the view from the air.
From 2005 to 2012, local historian and Hamilton Library archivist Margaret Houghton edited four books titled “Vanished Hamilton,” which featured more than 220 examples Hamilton heritage that are no longer with us. Sadly , but if she were alive today she would probably have no trouble coming up with another volume or two. And there would definitely be a chapter about CHML.
Here are some “Vanished Hamilton” items from Houghton’s books. Opponents of a developer’s plan to tear down Hamilton’s historic Birks Building, on the corner of King and James streets, show their displeasure with a banner in 1973. The five-storey gothic building at King and James streets was once described by Oscar Wilde as the “most beautiful building in all of North America.
” It was originally built for the Canada Life Assurance Company in 1883 but switched over to Birks in 1929, at which time an iconic clock was added to the structure. In 1972, Birks moved into Jackson Square and demolished the building to make way for a new office building and bank. Thankfully, the clock was saved and today is inside the downtown Hamilton Farmers’ Market.
Old Hamilton City Hall opened in the late 1800s and closed around 1960. , on James Street North, was a beautiful French Romanesque stone building with graceful arches and a tall clock tower that opened in 1890. The building was used until 1960, when the new marble city hall on Main Street opened.
It took six months in early 1961 to finally bring the old stone structure to the ground. Most of the rubble was used as fill for the wharf extension of Catharine Street. The Grand Opera House opened in 1880.
It was located on the north-east corner of James Street North and Gore (now Wilson) Street. It was demolished in 1961. The opulent Grand Opera House at James and Wilson streets opened in 1880 and spared no expense in its construction.
Designed in a Gothic and Eastlake style by George H. Lalor, the stunningly beautiful building was enthusiastically embraced by Hamiltonians. Its inside could seat 1,169 patrons in two galleries and was once described by a journalist as “the handsomest, most comfortable, best-fitted, cosiest and most generally excellent opera house in the Dominion.
” The opera house featured a wide variety of entertainment beyond opera and attracted big crowds through its early decades. But by the 1930s interest had begun to fade. In the 1960s it was demolished and today there is a strip mall and parking lot in its place.
The Gore Park washrooms, circa 1984. It’s hard to get excited about lavatories, but the were truly special. In 1981 they were heralded by Today Magazine as “Canada’s Best Public Washroom.
” They were built in 1913 in the European tradition featuring gleaming tiles, ceramic fixtures and attendants who provided towels. But, alas, amid concerns about increasing illicit use, they were closed in 1984 and then infilled in 2014. The Bank of Hamilton was at the corner of King and James streets in Hamilton.
It’s not well known today, but there was actually a Bank of Hamilton from 1872 to 1923. At its peak, the chartered bank had more than 100 branches across Canada. For most of its existence, the bank’s head office operated from a handsome eight-storey building at the southwest corner of King and James streets.
The bank merged with the Canadian Bank of Commerce in 1924 and the head office building in Hamilton was demolished in 1929..
