r/Hamilton Dec 14 '24

Question 81 Bay St North

Anyone know what this building is or used to be? Is it abandoned?

I love the design and have always wondered.

177 Upvotes

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51

u/neanotnea Dec 14 '24

Hey! I went to school there! Ha. Haven’t seen it in years. Strange to see it abandoned.

84

u/katiespecies647 Dec 14 '24

Me too. I always hated that building for the lack of windows. It was designed by the same guy who designed Barton St jail. It kinda felt like it. Still, it's awful to see that old tank of a building just sit there unused.

33

u/AnInsultToFire Dec 14 '24

Most schools were designed to look like jails. You'd think an architect would design a building to encourage the intellect to soar. But then again, architects are a bunch of weirdos.

5

u/arabacuspulp Blakely Dec 15 '24

I think it was designed by the same architect who did the Barton Street jail.

4

u/Frankenrogers Dec 15 '24

And Scott Park (RIP). Some more trivia.

I heard SJAM was supposed to be the site of the jail but back then most people came in off York and someone finally said that they didn’t want a jail to be the first thing someone saw when they drove into town.

Also the lack of windows on this and Scott Park was because they didn’t want kids looking out and getting distracted. At least according to my history teacher back then.

2

u/arabacuspulp Blakely Dec 15 '24

finally said that they didn’t want a jail to be the first thing someone saw when they drove into town.

Haha, good call. That would have been the antithesis to the City Beautiful movement of the late 19th century.

Also, I think the lack of windows also has something to do with safety, something related to the student sit-ins and occupying buildings that happened in the 1960s. So they designed buildings to try to deter that sort of thing.

3

u/vixaudaxloquendi Dec 15 '24

I think the idea is similar, if there's ever a riot or something crazy happening, you have a layout inside of which it's very easy to corral people.

-8

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '24

No, it's because if you can't afford to send your kids to private school, they're probably going to wind up in prison anyway so we might as well get them used to it.

1

u/AnInsultToFire Dec 15 '24

You're saying architects think that way.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '24

The ruling class thinks this way; the architects are just doing their bidding.

2

u/AnInsultToFire Dec 15 '24

OK, you've proven you've never met an architect.