New Use for Urban Ruins?

jeeff: 16th May 2006 - 05:05 GMT

there's a no frills store at dundas & lansdowne in toronto that uses the same technique with an old facade, though on a lesser scale. purely decorative. i'd like to see it covered with ivy.

elaine: 16th May 2006 - 08:36 GMT

in edinburgh when i was a teen, they started the trend for recycling churches. there was one which was a sweetshop distribution place, which we lied about having a shop to get to look at the wonder within, and another one was an electricity sub station. i think this was permissable because scotland is holy in general, so you could always get married anywhere there, so maybe churches were less of a big deal. nowadays in london i have mainly seen them turned into luxury developments, though one, i think, is a gym.

Biff: 16th May 2006 - 09:41 GMT

Wow! Like Ireland the whole country is a church...

Jamie: 16th May 2006 - 13:03 GMT

There's loads of empty churches going spare round here. I know of at least one that's been converted into a massgage parlour, but i want to buy this one

in new york, lincolnshire

alas; i am poor, so can't.

Peter: 16th May 2006 - 13:40 GMT

theres a deconsecrated church in midtown manhattan thats been recycled into a rather (in)famous club:

www.nightclubvip.net/avalon.asp

also, the photos on this page are making me lol:
www.velvetlist.com/Avalon.php3

Catherine Penfold-Waxman: 16th May 2006 - 14:22 GMT

The New York Methodist Church on Dogdyke road...it has a certain ring to it. I have all kinds of conflicting images in my head. Best if I leave them there.

Jamie: 16th May 2006 - 15:07 GMT

That's probably best, yes. I am, however, accepting paypal donations.

Chris Erb: 16th May 2006 - 15:55 GMT

There's a beautiful old wooden church here that's been turned into a cellphone store.

EvilGentleman: 16th May 2006 - 17:21 GMT

I have to say that is a lot of work to preserve what is in fact the facade to a discount supermaket franchise. I guess Loblaws has been doing better as of late, if they can afford to do these sorts of things. But the 2x4's look so temporary. I just may have to swing by the Angus Yards on a bike myself to go have a look-see.

jeeff: 16th May 2006 - 17:35 GMT

they might also be planning to expand the store in stages.

Chris Erb: 16th May 2006 - 17:53 GMT

The supports are bigger than 2x4 and are pretty thick steel. You can see that on the other side of the parking lot they've built much more elaborate supports. An expansion could indeed happen as there is parking on the outside of the building. i'm not really sure why they put the parking on the inside.

Chris Erb: 16th May 2006 - 18:02 GMT

I googled Angus Yards to see if anything came up. I got this story:

http://www.canadianarchitect.com/issues/ISarticle.asp?id=145885&story_id=209461105538&issue=01012004&PC=&RType=&btac=no

Apparently the building used to be a CP rail repair shop. The mystery third of the building has apparently been made into office space.

EvilGentleman: 16th May 2006 - 18:51 GMT

Oh yeah, now that I look more closely, I can see the bolts and brackets and stuff. Sorry about that. When I looked quickly, they looked like 2x4's. Nice find, by the way.

Rogueboy: 3rd Jun 2006 - 20:06 GMT

The Angus yards were originally bought by CP rail, but during WW2 it was turned into a tank factory and pumped out alot of Canada's tanks, I drove by it this morning the walls are whats left of the original factories, unfortunately people are starting to forget what it means, loblaws has nothing to do with these walls other than buying them and not tearing them down.

drew: 16th May 2008 - 06:32 GMT

they just cannot put those down, its part of history and protected. I live pretty close and go for grocery there every week, and you should have go INSIDE the loblaws cause they kept lifters and stuff on the roofs! Its pretty big and interesting from the inside! If you walk around the store, there's a bunch of historical stuff they kept from railways.