Building of my Own - Movie.avi

It's a building, nothing neither more nor less.
Which was placed out to a real estate management fund along
with a financial corporation. I never really cared that much as
what one has invested in can either go down or go up. This one
went up and does do well - while the vacancy rate is one space
of merely 1,500. sq. ft.

It’s a small building nor huge.

A Sunny Visual Bundle

These days have not been all that warm, yet they are getting longer. This was a day in which it was rather nice as the sun finally did come out. In meeting someone within the school board here I was able to peruse within.

Years ago it had been a department store, which was called Eatons. This distinctive corner building has had three owners, but it still retains much of its original look. It was opened on December 4, 1928 as the T. Eaton Company's "most western" location, on the site of the 1903-1911 city hall. The building had mahogany counters, marble paneled stairwells, and the city’s very first escalator, made of wood, which is still in place. After Eatons relocated to Midtown Plaza Shopping Center in 1970, the building was home to the Army & Navy department store for over 30 years. Most recently it has found new life as the home of the Saskatoon Public School Board. Within the early 90’s when the economy declined for a few years the building stood vacant for years upon years and then a developer took it on with the assistance of the city and it became officially the headquarters for the School Board.

Buildings they are something I do love and what I loved with what was done here by the city was that several things were kept – while there was completely new things placed in all with the exception of an escalator which was far too expensive to incorporate. Yet it was rather interesting to obtain a picture of it. At lunch I headed over to one of the very first condo, which was built here. I recall while going to university within the spring of laying and studying and watching it being built. It was the talk of the town as then it was a more laid back city – yet now it’s one that is mover very rapidly. Brick and Mortar and the manner in which one makes decisions on how to redevelop are pinnacle to the landscape of any place.

It was a chilly day but a construction kind of day.

St. Joseph Basilica Cathedral

The Edmonton Catholics who built what is now called St. Joseph’s Basilica know all about tradition and patience. The grand building was erected some 45 years ago, but the dream actually began nearly 50 years before that when St. Joseph’s parish was founded. Early in the 20th century, English-speaking Catholics worshipped with Francophones at St. Joachim’s, which had been founded in 1854. But as English newcomers poured into the booming city, the need for another church became increasingly evident. And so St. Joseph’s was formed in 1913 by Most Rev. Emile Legal, first archbishop of Edmonton.
The following year, Father Alphonse Lemarchand, (brother of Rene Lemarchand, who was later to build the fantastic mansion apartment building on 100th Avenue and 116th Street), began to plan for a new church building just west of St. Joachim’s. A large basement was excavated and concreted over, but the First World War intervened and the project had to be abandoned.
It wasn’t until after the war, in 1924, that work began anew, but this time at a new location just south of Jasper Avenue and 113th Street. The cornerstone was laid November 4th, 1924.
A year later, the basement of the new cathedral was completed the cost of $140,000 and, services were held beginning March 22, 1925 in what came to be known as “the crypt.” It had room enough to seat 900.
That year, Archbishop Henry Joseph O’Leary chose St. Joseph’s as his cathedral church and it was also to become the cathedral of the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical province of Edmonton, which stretches from the 49th parallel to the North Pole. Plans for a $250,000 grand stone cathedral atop the original structure were prepared by Edmonton architect Edward Underwood, who had also designed the Misericordia Hospital just a few blocks away. The building contract was awarded to Edmonton’s Poole Construction.
By November, site preparation was underway for a structure that would have been the largest in western Canada, with seating for 1,000. It was to feature twin towers and steeples 190 feet high and a central tower reaching 220 feet into the air.
But the Depression of the 1930’s and the Second World War again intervened to postpone their best laid plans. It wasn’t until 1957 that the church commissioned Montreal architect Henri S. Labelle create a new vision for the cathedral on the site.

Labelle and associate architect Eugene Olekshy of Edmonton came up with a Gothic-style building.
The intention was to extend the crept upwards but, as it had been built on what had formerly been a slough, cracks had developed, especially on the north side. In early 1961, the superstructure started to rise from the crypt. It measured 265 feet wide and 142 feet long and rose 90 feet in the air. There was room for seating for 1,239. The floors were ceramic tile, laid in patterns reminiscent of the early Roman basilicas. Interior walls and pillars were clad with a synthetic stone called “Haydite” to subdue sound.
The finished architectural masterpiece featured some of the finest materials available, including $300,000 of stained glass windows and $15,000 of gold inlaid stations of the cross, all imported from Germany. The gold ceramic backgrounds of the illustrations of Christ’s walk to Calvary were originally ordered by Hitler as decorations for lampposts for one of his rallies in Nuremberg.
The exterior was clad in Tyndall stone from Manitoba, the oak pews and panelling from Quebec, the marble altar from Barcelona, Spain, the tabernacle candlesticks from Dublin, Ireland and the carved wooden statues from Oberammergou, Germany. The crucifix was made by a German immigrant, living in Edmonton at the time and working out of a converted garage on the south side. The gallery organ was built by Casavant Freres of Quebec.
With furnishings, the final construction cost came in at just over $2 million. The church was officially opened on May 1, 1963, the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker.
A fire, deliberately set in 1980, destroyed the altar and a large sculpted wooden cross, blacking the walls and stained glass windows and causing total damage of $500,000. Four years later, in honour of the visit of Pope John Paul II, the cathedral became the first designated Basilica west of Manitoba.

Among the many noteworthy events at the Basilica was the July 16,1988 wedding of Edmonton Oilers Wayne Gretzky to Janet Jones.