Moving from the east to the west....

This post originally appeared on OpenFile Hamilton, but I thought I'd repost it here as well - please let me know your thoughts.

This is it – this is the month that this former Torontonian officially became invested in Hamilton.

Since we arrived here in the winter, my husband and I have made it our goal to get to know our new home by becoming ingrained in the Hamilton culture in small ways. We joined the Art Gallery of Hamilton, a gym and go to as many events, festivals and restaurants as possible, trying to get a sense of what the city has to offer, and find our new favourite spots.

By invested, however, I mean that after six months or so of living, learning and experiencing Hamilton, I have now taken the plunge and become a property owner in the city.

When we moved to Hamilton from Toronto, we didn’t know much about the city, and needed to find a place to live pretty quickly. After looking at a few rental places, we settled on an apartment in the east end, not far from Gage Park, in a neighbourhood called Delta West.

Notwithstanding the fact that it was January, our first impression was that the area had a nice neighbourhood feel to it, there seemed to be a lot of pride of ownership and the neighbours were quick to say hello, and even help push our car out of a snowbank or two.

This part of town definitely has a lot going for it. Gage Park is a gorgeous green space, Ottawa Street and the new Centre Mall are not too far away and a lot of families have settled here.

Very quickly, however, the difficulties with walkability in this neighbourhood became apparent. For nearly the last decade, we had always lived in urban neighbourhoods (in Ontario and the UK) where nearly everything we needed on a daily basis – anything from the grocery store to the optometrist to the drugstore or coffee – was only a five or ten minute walk away. Until recently, we didn’t realize how essential this had become to our way of life.

As a one-car family in Hamilton, (a car which I rarely use, as I work from home), I often felt stranded in our new place, especially in the winter, with the only things to walk to being the convenience store and No Frills. Sure, the bus and taxis are readily available to take people wherever they want to go (and I did use them often), but there’s something to be said for heading out to the coffee shop for a break or taking a stroll to pick up something fresh for dinner.

With walkability at the top of our list of wants, we ended up putting down our permanent roots in the west end, with the shops and services of Locke Street or downtown now just a short walk away, and the hope that this will make all the difference to our quality of life in Hamilton.

This is not to say that a car will always be essential for those in the east end – I have every reason to think that my experience will not be the reality for much longer.

Things are constantly brewing on Ottawa Street, which seems to present the greatest potential for walkability for the neighbourhoods to the east of downtown, with new coffee shops and restaurants springing up regularly. It was also recently named one of the best streets in Canada.

Even closer to home, if the same type of amenities begin to move onto Main Street East, the residents of gorgeous south central and east neighbourhoods like Delta, St. Clair and Stinson will gain the opportunity that those in the west end have to shop local and stay out of the car more often – a concept which I’m sure is at the top of many people’s lists.

Art Crawling

Since arriving in Hamilton a few weeks ago, multiple people have taken the opportunity to tell us about the James Street North Art Crawl, and how great an event it is.

Silly me, I thought this Art Crawl was a summer event - you know, people strolling down the street, looking at art on a sunny summer's evening. Wrong. Much to our delight, its held on the second Friday of EVERY month!

Anyway, one Friday night earlier this month (the second Friday, obviously), we were sitting around, weighing our options for fun Hamilton things to do. Lo and behold, someone on Twitter reminded us about the art crawl. Perfect opportunity to check it out!

So, we headed down to James St. N. It was a chilly sort of evening, and there weren't too many people out and about....we initially wondered where the art crawl was...I thought it would be one of those Toronto-style events where they close off part of the street and throngs of people are wandering around (silly me, again! I don't think I've seen a throng of people since we've been here).

Anyway, after parking the car, we started to wander up James St. N, and went into the first art gallery we saw. It was full of people, talking, looking at art (obviously!) drinking wine and snacking. Wonderful! After soaking up the atmosphere there, we continued on our way, meandering through boutiques, musicians playing and even an art installation in what we assumed is usually an empty building. (Also fascinating to get a look inside these places from an urban design perspective, says my hubby).

Now, I'm not going to pretend to critique art here (definitely not my forte) - lets just say it was all very thought-provoking and interesting.

What I am equally as fascinated with is the art crawl concept itself. What better chance to get to know a part of Hamilton we had never been to, get a look inside several galleries in a short period of time, and interact with other appreciators of art. It was also through this crawl that we discovered the Mixed Media store, Mulberry Street Coffee House and Acclamation.

I didn't take any pictures while in the galleries (I didn't know if it was allowed and I didn't want to be THAT person!) but I can see us going back to this event again, perhaps on a warm summer's evening :)