53 Hamilton Street, Goderich, Ontario
Blog follower Jon Jackson shared his FRESH BRICK story with me and I'm glad he did! Read all about the historic flatiron building he purchased below, including its intriguing history and his future plans for it!
Jon & his wife purchased this old building this summer. It had 71 years
of combined ownership between the previous owner and his father. It has as many
or more years of deferred maintenance, but they felt like we were up to the challenge
of saving this unique old building with its cast iron window lintels and white
marble sills.
53 Hamilton Street is an old Vista (flatiron) building in Goderich Ontario. The Victorian store fronts haven't been modernized. The Jackson's 5 year plan is to have an old style toy store in the commercial
space.
Under the piles of empty auto parts boxes there
are the old glass encased store cabinets. There is an accounting room with a
built in brick lined safe. In front of the safe is an oak desk with a
mechanical adding machine. The
safe floor has a marble slab inscribed "In Memory Of William Hick died
Stratford Ontario 1845."
FLATIRON 101
Flatiron buildings are structures built between 1880 and
1926, generally in Beaux-Arts or Renaissance Revival architectural designs
popular of the era. The buildings are identified as flatirons because they are
shaped like a flat clothes iron and built on trapezoid-shaped lots common in
the 19th and early 20th century city grids.
History
Existing flatiron buildings in the United States date to
1880 with the first built in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. The most popular
buildings today are the Gooderham Building, built in Toronto in 1892; the
English-American building in Atlanta, built in 1897; and the most famous, the
Fuller Building of Manhattan, built in 1902. San Francisco, Fort Worth, Chicago
and Portland, Oregon, also have fine examples of flatiron architecture. These
buildings have been designated as historic landmarks.
 |
| The Gooderham Building of Toronto was built in 1892. |
Significance
These structures are the first skyscrapers, which are
built using steel frames over reinforced concrete, which takes the weight of
the building off the exterior walls to allow it to be constructed taller than
other office buildings of the day.
 |
| The Columbus Tower in San Francisco. |
Types
While the Fuller Building was not the first flatiron, it
served as an inspiration for future similar buildings, most notably the Fort
Worth's Flatiron Building, which offered elements of Fuller's Beaux-Arts
architecture combined with Renaissance Revival.
 |
| A smaller yet stately version of the flatiron in Portland, Oregon. |
Features
In addition to its shape, the flatiron features classical
Greek columns, terra-cotta facades and stately arched entryways with caged
elevators, which originated with Chicago architects who conceived the early
renaissance styles of skyscrapers in the 1890s.
Function
Flatiron buildings serve two goals: They employ efficient use of otherwise unused space for commercial purposes and give business districts a specific architectural identity.
 |
| Modest flatirons like this one in Wichita, Kansas, make the most of unused space. |
Identification
Surviving flatiron buildings are found on wedge-shaped
lots usually in the center of a city's business district or older neighborhoods
and offer examples of classic 19th-century style.
Fun
Fact
Manhattan's Fuller Building is a popular venue for
movies, including the comic-book Spiderman series, which used the flatiron as
headquarters for the fictional "Daily Bugle" newspaper offices.
Source: eHow read more HERE
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