Council Adopted Hughson Streetscape Master Plan:
|
|
Hughson Street is a north-south, pedestrian-scaled street that intersects important landmarks in the city. Spanning civic, cultural and entertainment areas in the downtown. Major intersections include the Haymarket area, the GO Station, Gore Park, Cannon Street, and the railroad at Guise Street. Identified as a secondary auxiliary street, Hughson Street is part of a support network for the urban core. It provides boundaries for diverse neighbourhoods and acts as an interesting pedestrian connector.
There are many opportunities to design key nodes, landmarks, intersections and corners, implement Public Art, and enhance views and vistas between special places. |
|
|
|
Cultural Heritage
Nathaniel Hughson, an early Euro-Canadian landowner and entrepreneur in the pioneer settlement of Hamilton, named this early right-of-way as Hughson Street in 1835. Several other City street names are also named after Hughson family members (James, Rebecca and Catharine). The historic Hughson street included a variety of structures including large landscape estates and residences at the foot of the "mountain" slopes in the south, the Old Market Square and Courthouse Square, churches, chapels and commercial terraces.
By the late 1890s Hughson Street had fully developed into a thriving and well-established streetscape of eclectic buildings and uses. Today it is a much-altered streetscape from its nineteenth and early twentieth-century appearance and only a limited number of heritage structures remain.
Continuity and Change
In the 19th century, large brick residences predominated, interspersed with institutional uses. Between Augusta and Main Streets were the Hay Market Square, the TH&B Railway Station, the Court House, and the Wentworth Arms Hotel.
Today Hughson is still a pedestrian street that intersects several important landmarks in the City linking civic, cultural and entertainment areas in the Downtown. These special places now provide opportunities for interesting streetscape work, such as intersection treatments and public art display, as well as connecting us to a different and vibrant past.
The Right House
 |
In 1890 to 1893, Hamilton merchant Thomas C. Watkins built the new premises for The Right House on The Gore Park, heralding the arrival in the city of a contemporary innovation--retail marketing on the grand scale, delivered with many fashionable features and modern conveniences such as the elevator.
The Right House was not only the first but it is now also the last of the large nineteenth century department stores to survive intact in the City. As such, this elegant structure is a unique example of its kind in Hamilton. |
One of the City’s objectives for urban renewal is to conserve and enhance the Gore, and the concentration of heritage buildings surrounding it The Right House’s transformation into its current use as an office building attests to the potential and advantages of adaptive re-use of heritage structures.
Liuna Headquarters
 |
By the time the Bell Telephone Company moved into this new building in 1891, Hamilton had been the locale of the first telephone exchange operations in the British Empire for nearly 20 years.
Located at the top of the building was the operating room with manual operators. Each operator was responsible for up to 100 lines. |
This landmark building is now the headquarters of the The Labourers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA).
Toronto Hamilton and Buffalo Railway Station (GO-Transit Centre)
 |
The Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo (TH&B) Railway Station, situated on Hunter Street East at the head of Hughson Street, ranks as a major architectural landmark of Hamilton's downtown core.
This high-styled modernist structure was at the forefront of railway station design in Canada. Designed by the New York architectural firm of Fellheimer and Wagner in a streamlined modernist style known as Art Moderne, the station was constructed in 1931-33 by the TH&B Railway to serve as both a passenger / freight terminal and the company's headquarters. |
In 1981, the station ceased to function as a passenger terminal and now serves as the City's GO-Transit Centre for rail and bus transportation. As the historic Gore Park is identified as our primary landscaped open space in the Downtown, its relationship to nearby heritage structures will be protected as development occurs.
Specific to the TH&B Station, the visual connection between these two important land marks will be enhanced through streetscape designs such as enhanced heritage lighting and way-finding features.