Hamilton Walks: James Street South

My starting point is 316 James Street South. The name of this building is Ballinahinch and it was built in 1850 as a family home. Ballinahinch is now condos; a recent 2 bedroom, 1200 sq. ft condo here was listed for sale for $289,000.

Ballinahinch is one of many historic mansions in the Durand neighbourhood which lies west of James Street just below the Mountain. I’ll cover more of them in a future blog post.

Here is a view of the Mountain from James Street South a little further north. The Mountain is Hamilton’s chunk of the Niagara Escarpment, a World Biosphere Reserve.

Durand has some lovely little side streets. Here’s one just off James Street South:

Here is another mansion a little further down the street.

Once you get pass St Joseph’s Hospital (the less said about its architecture, the better), there are some lovely century homes on both sides of James Street. Most of them are now commercial. Here are two. The one on the left houses a great Inuit art gallery Arctic Experience McNaughtGallery. The one on the right has a fabulous porch!

This building used to be a florist shop (the flower is still there) but it’s now the Red Crow Coffee shop, one of several gourmet cafes that keep popping up in our city. Just on James Street alone we have three great coffees places: Red Crow, Radius, and The Coffee House.

At the corner of James and Hunter you find the GO Station. This lovely building dates from 1933, the only art deco train station in Canada. At night the elevated platform is a hotel for the GO Trains. The interior of the building is just as cool so stop inside and have a look around.

On the opposite side of James is the Hamilton Conservatory of the Arts which hosts concerts and other events.

Go under the tunnel. (A Side Note: If you turned left on Hunter now, you’d come to Whitehern, the former home of my buddy Thomas McQuesten.)

When you come up on the other side of the tunnel, you’ll see a church on the west side of James. The James Street Baptist Street Church is, sadly, up for sale. I really hope someone saves this building and puts it to good use.

This former loan institution is now an office building. It always looks so solid and reassuring.

Nearby, you’ll find the art deco Piggott Building, my favourite building in the whole city and the city’s first skyscraper. The original cost to build it was $1 million. This was an office tower when it opened in 1929, the year of the crash. (That’s the Piggott on the right hand side.)

The Piggott Building has had its ups and downs since that dramatic debut, but now it is a condo building. Apartments sell for around $119,000 for a one-bedroom, the last time I checked.

The windows on both of these buildings are amazing.

The stained glass windows in the Piggott lobby are gorgeous!

This walk ends at Gore Park, the heart of downtown, where Queen Victoria keeps a watchful eye over the park’s visitors:

I’ll resume the James Street tour next week at another Gore Park landmark, the fountain: