On a Hillside North of the Harbour

For both visitors and St. John's residents under 40, the location from Carter's Hill to Springdale Street (from east to west), and from John, Central, and Livingstone Streets to New Gower Street (from north to south) is merely the site of City Hall, Mile one Stadium, the Fortis Building, and the Delta Hotel. 2 The area is less than one kilometre in length and less than 200 metres from north to south. It is one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in St. John's. However, in 1945 this was not the case. This small geographical area was home to nearly 1,500 individuals -most of whom were working-class descendants of Irish Catholics who came to St. John's in the early nineteenth century. 3 It was characterized as a "slum, " "congested, " or "Dickensian" by commentators from Newfoundland (Horwood, 1997) and elsewhere Most of the area was on a hillside overlooking the wealthier water Street commercial district and harbour below; over the course of the first three decades after Confederation in 1949 the area was "blasted" and "bulldozed" in conjunction with rehousing the poor and urban renewal. This is a story of that transition

Archaeology · Geography · Harbour · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · History · Scottish History and National Identity · Geology · Oceanography

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  Stephen O Murray, Donald H Clairmont et al.•Contemporary Sociology A Journal…•1978

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