A great community association and a somewhat intact built environment that has survived much of the pressure to tear down and rebuild in faux architectural styles foreign to PG.

Time to get some guidelines in place for infill housing before the kitsch being built in the Vancouver-Winnipeg corridor moves in to destroy it.

Everything else in Prince George, South Ft George, Central Ft George has been destroyed, so why stop now.

Even the old CN Station at Cottonwood Park had to be brought in from Penny, because the Prince George Station was torn down.

Buildings destroyed.

1. CN Station, and Roundhouse
2. Baron Byng School
3. South Ft George School
4. Historic house belonging to Fanny Kinney, a well known school teacher in the 40’s and 50’s. in South Ft George.
5. King George the V School
6. Cameron St. Bridge
7. South Ft George Firehall. Converted into a home.
8. Most of the old restaurants, and hotels, and retail establishments.

Not much left in Prince George. Some older churches, and a few old buildings on Third and George.

However we do seem to have lots of plaques to put up to show where these buildings used to be.

“Everything else in Prince George, South Ft George, Central Ft George has been destroyed, so why stop now.”

That is easy. To everything there is a start and an end. In this case it is an ongoing human endeavour ovr which we have some considerable control. There are always some “heritage” buildings left. Especially if one considers the starting point of asking the question – is the building 50 years old or older.” That is the easy one, then we go to the more subjective and difficult questions.

Not only that, this is a Heritage Neighbourhood, not much different than the south side of Kelowna, for instance. There is a huge variation of quality, size, cost, importance, etc. But the fact that is is a crescent is not all that common in small cities.

We do not have stately, tree lined streets leading to downtown in PG as they have in cities such as Kelowna and Lyden, WA. We have such streets in the Millar subdivision. It is such characteristics which ar intended to be the subject of the heritage award and should also be put on the heritage registry. But no one sems to carfe about that.

As you say, the heritage commission has gone into the plaque business in the past few year. That should be the business of the Museum.

Lynden
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajmstudios/6830369142/sizes/h/in/photostream

My comment was facetious Gus. I am 100 percent in favour of keeping the Crescents as they are, there are a number of houses there that were built over 70 years ago.

One that comes to mind was owned by an Uncle of mine and who used to own a service station on the corner of Third and Victoria. It was called West End Motors.

There is also a house on the South End of Queensway (West side) now being used by a car lot as an office. This house was built before the 2nd world war, and really is a heritage home, however I don’t expect it will last much longer.

So who’s in charge of heritage buildings??

I was transcribing documents on heritage buildings and this was a notation on the London Hotel, “although the best preserved the building has no heritage significance as it was never owned by anyone of any importance”.

The Ct Ft George school was build before Prince George existed, the addition was not in good condition, but when it was removed the original building looked so much better and was left standing for a few weeks. The reason was the engineer was trying to have it save for heritage reasons and also the fact that it was in great condition. The reason “no one of any importance went to school there”.

Its unfortunate that we have lost our sight of our heritage when one looks at the 4000sq ft homes built on a 60 ft lot. Not a tree in sight just concrete driveways.
Cheers

And so it goes.

Prince George (as a City) was a late comer to this area. Ft George was first, and that’s where the town was built, along with hotels, fire halls, sawmills, and of course the paddle wheelers.

Central Ft George was next, and then because of land speculation the Grand Truck Pacific, located Prince George on property purchased from the first nations between 1st Avenue and River Road.

Soooo. We could say anyone of any importance in this area lived in South Ft George, or Central Ft George, and that Prince George was nothing more than an after thought.

Prince George itself has never had any sense of history, mainly because all the history of the area took place before Prince George was established. That’s why you hear very little about river traffic, logging, paddle wheelers, farmers, native’s netting fish in the rivers, the Hudson Bay Post, etc;

This area actually has a rich history, however I suspect that 75% of the people here are newcomers. (People who have been here for less than 40 years) and therefore have no sense of the history.

Simon Fraser, Alexander MacKenzie and many others have passed this way only to be forgoten while we chase this holy grail of our economy. At least the Hubble Homstead is rememberd and is a great tourist attraction,
cheers