Three Cheers for the Elmdale Tavern!!!

[Northern Wish]

When I first moved here and Stapes took me down to this dive (thats a real dive folks, no faux dive here), I took it with a heavy grain of salt. The pickled eggs on the bar, the single grainy TV and the local flavour made me think he was fucking with me.....Three years and a bit later and the place has risen like a phoenix from the ashes. Upcoming shows include Marco Benevento, Dusty Drifters, Ron Hawkins (LOTL), Lee Harvey Osmond to name but a few.

I just wanted to say three cheers to the Elmdale, Nat and Hintonburg in general for being so damned cool!!!

[Big Wooly Mammoth]

definitely a great place to see a show.

[d_rawk]

Actually wearing my Elmdale t-shirt today and saw this thread. Great place .. first (and last!) time I ever ate a pickled egg.

I've discovered a few new good acts there, just by virtue of stopping in to see what was going on.

Hintonburg rules.

[localcrew]

It is cool what they have done to the joint. It's nice to have it in the hood. The first time I went there was about 25 years ago (I've lived around here a long time) and it was really a rough place...as was the whole area actually.

I live in Mechanicsville actually which people always thought included Hintonburg and the whole area was really rough when I moved into my current home (20 years ago).....the swat team pulled up in front of my house once a month back then.....things are a little better now eh?

The place I lived in 25 years ago when I would have gone to the Elmdale was the place in Hintonburg that was in the news a few months ago when it finally got torn down-the neighbours were so happy it made the friggin' news! It wasn't the worst place in the hood back when I lived there I can assure you!

There were a lot of father rapers and mother stabbers around back then that made the local Outlaws Clubhouse seem like the most upstanding house on the block!

[Northern Wish]

Within two blocks of the tavern, there are no less than 10 new condo/ townhouses being constructed in the places where those notorious crack houses used to stand.

A new pizza joint coming, the Hintonburger, The Palace, Patrick Mills gallery, the neighbors and the market....What a neighborhood!

[ollie]

Within two blocks of the tavern, there are no less than 10 new condo/ townhouses being constructed in the places where those notorious crack houses used to stand.

[color:purple]I fail to see how this is an improvement.

[Northern Wish]

If you walked by some of these places on your way home from the bar or even from work you wouldn't be saying that.

[ollie]

It's an anti-condo sentiment more than anything else. Glad the neighbourhood is cleaning up. Not that you're helping much NW.

[Northern Wish]

They are definitely townhouses, my mistake.

The two or three level variety where the garage is on the main floor.... Nothing taller than 3 stories.

But I get what you are saying too.

[localcrew]

Well....for one thing some people don't like crack houses....

I don't want it to become condo land around here but I don't think it will....?.....who knows..

Living in one of the hundred+ year old houses in the hood I can verify that some of them are really not worth saving and putting tons of $ into. Some are of course and I hope a good balance is kept. It's not as if tons of houses are being ripped down to build multi unit condos; though of course if people are buying the properties for rental income you can bet they're going to cram as many units into the property as possible.

There have been a few interesting architecture experiments and a few eco-houses built too. Some of the nicer old houses have been fixed up rather than torn down too. I can't think of a really great place that has been torn down-hopefully it stays that way.

My friend Glenn's house was torn down which is sad since he fixed up antique cars and had an auto garage grandfathered into his property...sadly he was uninsured and had a fire leaving him with the only option of selling. There is a sort of multi unit place going up there but it's for the new owner and his kids' family so that's not so bad.

[bouche]

aren't most of the old houses just split up into multiple apartments for profit and then let to slowly rot as more and more slumlords do the bare minimum to keep up with codes and shit?

[localcrew]

...pretty much...

The hood is getting a bit more affluent so some landlords are fixing places up to rent for more $ while some are still in the slumlord business. I would guess that a lot of the new crammed tiny condos are going to sell rather than rent by the folks that are building them....of course they may be bought by landlords rather than resident owners....who knows? They're playing with the zoning restrictions I suppose-you can't build higher than 3 or 4 stories on most streets here.

Before too long the slumlords will not be tolerated I suppose.

Some of them are probably doing quite well now; there was a 6 unit apt building on my street that sold for $40,000 about 15 years ago-I'm not sure what it would sell for now-I would guess 10-15 times that....or you could just soak in the $600-900(?) per month, per unit....