Posted with permission from the Hamilton Spectator
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March 19, 1988
Paul Wilson
Street Beat
IF THERE'S a smaller street in Hamilton than Dexter, I haven't walked it yet
And the tiny dead-end lane between Beach Boulevard and the lake is getting bullied by the big boys at city hall
In the beginning, there were only four homes anyway. Eight years ago the city took its first poke at Dexter and bought the house belonging to the Norris family, who'd moved to the Beach Strip years ago from Nova Scotia
Wreckers levelled the little home, part of plan to knock down all 550 houses for a park.
A few years later the city bought another home on Dexter, this one from the Norris' daughter. And ever since, the white two-storey house has sat empty.
Mary Barnes lives next door to the ghost house She used to look over to well-kept home and its veranda full of greenery. She often traded plants with the Norris girl
But for these last five years or so her view has been of windows barricaded by weathered chipboard, a sagging fence,1 rotted awning. A house abandoned
And she has to chase off vandals A few days ago kids pulled off some of the eavestroughing.
"There should be a family living in that house," says Barnes, 76. She arrived on the Beach Strip from Wales 40 years ago and loves it - despite the city hall strongmen.
She remembers when the Beach Strip was run by its own commission. There was a three-man police force, bank, drugstore, restaurants. And the Bell Cairn school was full There were 10 kids living on Dexter alone
Except it wasnt called Dexter back then. The lakeside lane was Albany. But when the city swallowed the Beach Strip, staff, said the name would have to go. Hamilton has an Albany Street of its own, they told residents, and it's bigger than yours.
Barnes doesn't know how they picked the Dexter name Neither does Fred Sartain, the only other homeowner with an address on the street.
Sartain, a retired electrian who's 80 and goes rollerskating on service roads under the Skyway, is unofficial custodian of the empty house
He lives across the street and after he's cut his own lawn he plays out enough extension cord to do his neglected neighbor. "Someone with a mower comes from the city about every six weeks, but that's not enough," he says.
He keeps repairing the fence of the city-owned house And he removes the flyers that still get dropped on the doorstep. "If things look derelict, the kids will make it worse"
Each Wednesday, as the sun's coming up, Sartain heads out in his big Ford and picks up paper around the Beach Strip, just ahead of the garbage man.
The proceeds from sales to a recyeler help pay the rent at the old clubhouse where residents hold their Save-The-Beach meetings. "That's where we try to figure out how to work against the 'official vandalism' coming out of city hall," says Sartain.
He says a lot of people have tried to rent the empty Dexter house It's in limbo because the city, the province and the local conservation authority started to rethink their plan of clearing away every last house They'd bought 175 homes for $4 million and torn them down, but the money was drying up.
Four years ago alderman Shirley Collins tried to get a motion through city council so that acquired homes could be rented out instead of being immediately demolished. But it got defeated.
That day alderman Bill McCulloch said the houses were being bought for parkland "and I object to using conservation as a masquerade for providing low-income housing."
The house-buying binge has now come to a full-halt and officials are trying to write a new plan for The Strip. Everyone on Dexter Street wants the city to hurry up.
______________________________________________
March 19, 1988
Paul Wilson
Street Beat
IF THERE'S a smaller street in Hamilton than Dexter, I haven't walked it yet
And the tiny dead-end lane between Beach Boulevard and the lake is getting bullied by the big boys at city hall
In the beginning, there were only four homes anyway. Eight years ago the city took its first poke at Dexter and bought the house belonging to the Norris family, who'd moved to the Beach Strip years ago from Nova Scotia
Wreckers levelled the little home, part of plan to knock down all 550 houses for a park.
A few years later the city bought another home on Dexter, this one from the Norris' daughter. And ever since, the white two-storey house has sat empty.
Mary Barnes lives next door to the ghost house She used to look over to well-kept home and its veranda full of greenery. She often traded plants with the Norris girl
But for these last five years or so her view has been of windows barricaded by weathered chipboard, a sagging fence,1 rotted awning. A house abandoned
And she has to chase off vandals A few days ago kids pulled off some of the eavestroughing.
"There should be a family living in that house," says Barnes, 76. She arrived on the Beach Strip from Wales 40 years ago and loves it - despite the city hall strongmen.
She remembers when the Beach Strip was run by its own commission. There was a three-man police force, bank, drugstore, restaurants. And the Bell Cairn school was full There were 10 kids living on Dexter alone
Except it wasnt called Dexter back then. The lakeside lane was Albany. But when the city swallowed the Beach Strip, staff, said the name would have to go. Hamilton has an Albany Street of its own, they told residents, and it's bigger than yours.
Barnes doesn't know how they picked the Dexter name Neither does Fred Sartain, the only other homeowner with an address on the street.
Sartain, a retired electrian who's 80 and goes rollerskating on service roads under the Skyway, is unofficial custodian of the empty house
He lives across the street and after he's cut his own lawn he plays out enough extension cord to do his neglected neighbor. "Someone with a mower comes from the city about every six weeks, but that's not enough," he says.
He keeps repairing the fence of the city-owned house And he removes the flyers that still get dropped on the doorstep. "If things look derelict, the kids will make it worse"
Each Wednesday, as the sun's coming up, Sartain heads out in his big Ford and picks up paper around the Beach Strip, just ahead of the garbage man.
The proceeds from sales to a recyeler help pay the rent at the old clubhouse where residents hold their Save-The-Beach meetings. "That's where we try to figure out how to work against the 'official vandalism' coming out of city hall," says Sartain.
He says a lot of people have tried to rent the empty Dexter house It's in limbo because the city, the province and the local conservation authority started to rethink their plan of clearing away every last house They'd bought 175 homes for $4 million and torn them down, but the money was drying up.
Four years ago alderman Shirley Collins tried to get a motion through city council so that acquired homes could be rented out instead of being immediately demolished. But it got defeated.
That day alderman Bill McCulloch said the houses were being bought for parkland "and I object to using conservation as a masquerade for providing low-income housing."
The house-buying binge has now come to a full-halt and officials are trying to write a new plan for The Strip. Everyone on Dexter Street wants the city to hurry up.