A view of Saint John's old north end
Julia Wright | CBC News | Posted: October 8, 2016 11:00 AM | Last Updated: October 8, 2016
Parts of Saint John’s old north end might look rough but tenacious residents are hoping for a revival
Saint John's old north end is on the cusp of a major transformation as developers are buying up buildings and trying to turn around the neighbourhood.
From the 1700s until the mid-1960s, the old north end was a thriving commercial district but over the years the buildings have emptied and been replaced with boarded up structures.
A man walks along a section of the old north end.
The neighbourhood was once full of young families, but many of those people have moved away.
This Albert Street building has been hit by graffiti as other houses have been boarded up
North end residents have maintained community pride, despite challenges that have cropped up in the neighbourhood over the years.
Former Saint John mayor Ivan Court said he once considered many of the homes in the old north end as "basically mansions."
But over time, those mansions were abandoned or damaged by fires or other vandals.
The decline of the old north end has been linked to an aging group of citizens and how many homes were demolished to make room for the Harbour Bridge in 1968.
Many of the homes that line Saint John's gritty north end are now abandoned with only passing links to a time when the area was full of life.
Developers are now purchasing many of these boarded up buildings, with the intention of renovating the ones that can be saved and demolishing the others.
Victoria Street in Saint John's old north end is starting to see developers come in and take over buildings that have been abandoned.
Bridget McGale and Catherine Sidney have restored the 146-year-old home, Tapley Manor, in the old north end.
McGale and Sidney's historic home has a panoramic view of the St. John River.
Over the past decades, the couple have painstakingly renovated every room of the big old house, which was originally built by the tugboat magnate Archibald Tapley in 1870.
Andrew Grady and his family are fixing up old buildings in Saint John's old north end.
Grady has run into difficulty financing some of his projects because banks are unwilling to financially back projects in the old north end.
The abandoned buildings that now dot Saint John's north end are now home to feral cats that are making themselves at home.
Daniel Gable, 36, a musician and former tree planter, left British Columbia and purchased a house on Victoria Street for $8,000.