Hamilton as I know it. Ontario.

[Ko.Fe.]

Hamilton in Ontario is post industrial city and one of the largest municipalities in Canada.
It makes me come and return to it. I feel it, it resonates with me and my memories comes of another country.
I'll try to tell about Hamilton here. What I know, before I will forget.

Taken with EOS300 and Tamron 28-75 2.5 on some ilford film...

As you see, some parts of this half-a-million city is not doing well.
Even local television company for sold for ... one dollar, some years ago...

 

[capitalK]

The Hammer!

Some of my friends who promised never to leave Toronto have been moving to Hamilton over the last few years — mostly because they are getting priced out of their former neighbourhoods.

Looking forward to seeing more.

 

[BLKRCAT]

I'm glad I own in the city. I couldn't handle driving the QEW every day. I swear it's worse than the DVP.

 

[Moto-Uno]

^ That makes it look more dismal than passing through on the train, and we all know what part of towns trains pass through 🙂 . Peter

 

[Bike Tourist]

Nice series, Kostya. Somewhere I'll probably never visit.

 

[robert blu]

It's always interesting to see these places, post industrial time can be difficult for many towns and of course for people living there. I do not know enough about Hamilton to make more comments but we had a similar situation in Italy in Turin which was a city all based around car industry (FIAT). And many smaller factories working to supply the main factory. Production decreased and the town faced a bad time, much unemployment included.
But than, and it took years the town reconverted itself in a design district and life became better, now it's ok with a new "face" and working opportunities.

Good B&W with Ilford (and with a good photographer!). Thanks for sharing.

robert

 

[grouchos_tash]

This is what it's like in the whole north east of England where I am, pretty bleak. I love to see people using ugly ducking cameras from the 90/00's though 🙂

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Thank you all for the comments!

Hamilton history is huge (in Canadian 150 years of official age for entire country) and municipality sprawl is wide. It is different city in different parts, I could only tell about places I have been. And I have seen... what I hear and know...

Hamilton reminds me post soviet industrial cities. First year we moved to Canada we met at get to know one big family which escaped from city similar to Hamilton. And I used to work on special metal making plant near Moscow. Summer practice for university students. I was getting to first subway train at six AM and I would met working class people. They were special and they were just like my relatives, who turn radio on at midnight, go to sleep and by six AM the radio will wake them up with Soviet hymn.
My relatives retired before collapse, but family we met here was still in working age. Their metal works dependant city turned into run down place. Instead of working as engineers some of them would drive hundreds of kilometers and get some candies to sell... Some of their neighbors became drug addicts...
Hamilton is about the same. It still smells bad, because steel production is old and toxic due to this. I hear it first from another Soviet steel worker and people who used to live in cities where major steel plants are. And then I smell it for first time...

But most of the factories are gone from Hamilton. I met once one person who was working in the bar kitchen. He told me what before if you don't like it, you walk across and they will take you to another factory. Now all gone and many lives on welfare in generations.
I don't know for how long steel production is going to be in Hamilton...

I used Bessa R2M with Summicron 50 IV and Ultron 28 1.9. Kodak Gold, Ultramax and Fuji Superia films, developed, scanned at home.

Some homes in Hamilton were build for returning after WWII. Some of them are just by the side of steel production plants...

Here is one story from Hamiltonian who used to work at one of those steel plants.
He was young and energetic. He has one job to do, but wanted to try them all.
One of his assignments was to bring heavy rolls of fresh steel to chilling lot near the bay.
This lot was in use for many years and oil was saturating the ground. One day after he put another fresh rolls of steel to chill, the oversaturated ground burst into flames. They were unable to stop it for couple of weeks...

 

[Steve M.]

I have a fondness for towns like Hamilton. They are all over the South. Over time, "reconstruction" arrived after The War (which should have been called what it was....punishment) and Federal money was cut off, leaving these places to slowly dry up and die. Businesses closed, roads went unpaved because there was no money to pave them, and it got pretty bleak. But to me, in that bleakness there was hope. Maybe it was simply knowing that it would be hard to imagine things getting any worse :]

Those old towns and building have skeletons that still tell tales. You can hear them as the wind blows through the broken warehouse windows. Light shimmers on old, crumbling brick. There's even a word for it I believe, when photographers go into modern day ruins and photograph old, falling apart places. As a kid, we loved places like that. No one bothered us there, and we could play imaginary games that seemed real, more real than our lives. You get a sense that people's spirits are still hanging around.

Of course, the best thing about old places was the stories that were told, and retold. How someone used to own half the place and had the biggest house on the hill, but when everything went to hell they ended up in the poor house. My favorite tale was the one about a river we used to go camp out by called The Singing River. Seems the last of the Indians there, probably the Biloxi Tribe, saw the writing on the wall and decided they were either going to fight a losing battle, or be pushed even further if they didn't fight. The way it was told to us was that they chose a third path....everyone of them, the whole tribe, marched into the river and drowned themselves, singing the whole way. And on full moons, if you listen closely, you can still hear them singing. Or is that just the night wind whistling in the trees?

 

[Ko.Fe.]

It is called abandonment, abandoned photography.
Hamilton is far from it.



I think, more people are coming than leaving. Just like it was mentioned in one comment, because it is cheaper comparing to the rest of GTA and immigration is major factor. In 2017 Italian as second spoken language in Hamilton was replaced by Arabic language.
One story about people moving in, having troubles and its outcome was triggering me to come and walk around in the part of the city where issues were and are.

 

[Out to Lunch]

Nice series and I am looking forward to more. I used to drive through Hamilton some 15 years ago and even then it was pretty grim.

 

[Big Ursus]

A few years ago, when I visited a friend who lives in Hamilton, I saw a lovely downtown (gentrification?), and the gorgeous landscape of the Escarpment. I never saw the areas you photographed, Ko. Fe., and I'm also looking forward to seeing more of your Hamilton pictures.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Thank you for sharing your connections to this city!
As I mentioned in OP, it is big, it is different and it is charging.
They renamed Industrial Drive to Nikola Tesla Drive. It is local elevated road to pass through industrial area. Like any industrial area it might looks grim.
On previous week they closed another metal factory and let go to 300 people and cut of retirees. It was more than hundred years in Hamilton...

The area of my interest is within industrial area and close. Downtown is getting back to normal. They want to build more high rise condos in Hamilton downtown. Where is talk about it on councils meetings and Hamilton mayor talks about redeveloping with more private business ownership to be involved.

Taken in downtown Hamilton on Main Street:

After fifteen minutes of walk from it on the same street it changes.

Only low rise buildings and it gets very empty on the street, but traffic is steady.
More I walked off downtown on Main, less traffic it was and less open stores it was.

and it is getting close to industrial area.

This store was selling books and else printed which is now usually possible to find in recycle bins:

But greeting cat and store owner are nice.

This area is still beautiful, I could see how many stores and else was open, but... I think, one of the reason for closures is huge shopping area.
Big box stores, banks, restaurants, pubs all in one new no name, same as everywhere single area... This is how grim of globalisation looks to me.
But here is strange twist in the story of this area of Hamilton...

 

[Big Ursus]

Thanks, Ko.Fe. Please keep them coming.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Thank you!

Hamilton po polsku:

My mother-in-law last name is polish one.


They made announcement about big investment into Dofasco steel mill.
https://www.thespec.com/news-story/8570278--151m-steel-mill-upgrade-at-arcelormittal-dofasco/

 

[Ko.Fe.]

So, why I went where in April?
Two streets were vandalised by some local group which is drinking expensive SB coffee and calls them self as anarchists.
They were terrorising local business and activists for more than one year. Open organized confrontation, open talk on FB. Reported to police and nothing was done. Local council told affected business to shut up and take it as cost of business until developers come and they make money on selling of properties.
Confrontation ignored by Hamilton police came to the point then this group went on two streets and was openly vandalizing local shops. It was covered on local and not so radio and Hamiltonians went to these streets to support those who were hit.
Finally one arrest was made...

 

[lynnb]

Nice series Kostya. Gentrification will probably happen; it's starting to happen here in some post-industrial smaller cities.

I agree about the blight of big box superstores and mall-type shopping complexes. They destroy communities and ultimately the money that usually circulates within a community is sucked out of it by the landlords of these centres, as rents are tied to turnover. Traditional high street shops slowly go out of business.

The other thing that is eating the future of local industrial areas (and therefore employment) is the increase of self-storage facilities, which occupy industrial-zoned real estate but employ hardly anyone.

It will be interesting to follow this series about Hamilton to see the changes as they happen. I hope you continue with it.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Thank you, Lynn.

Hamilton...
People are not always like else over where. Someone spotted me and yelled across the street - "what is it all about?". Some boy who walked with parents looked at me and - "Hello, mister".

Those two passed by and then yelled something, I hear only "pictures". I told them I'm here to take pictures. They asked me to take their picture,
because they didn't have one for sometime. I proceed with warning, what I'm bad on portraits...

I send this image, but never get reply...

 

[robert blu]

Interesting...thanks for posting more images...

robert
pS: not so bad the portrait 🙂

 

[dmr]

Thanks, Ko.Fe. Please keep them coming.

Yes, please ...

Kodak Gold, Ultramax and Fuji Superia films, developed, scanned at home.

You've captured the grit quite well!