The Financial Building

Peter Rukavina

Here’s the Apple Maps view of the corner of Kent and Great George from the summertime:

Apple Maps "look around" view at the corner of Kent and Great George, showing the Financial Building, the National Trust Tower, and, in the background, the Holman Grand hotel.

And here’s a photo that Lisa took while walking by the same corner earlier this week:

Photo by Lisa of the view at the corner of Kent and Great George, showing the missing Financial Building, the National Trust Tower, and, in the background, the Holman Grand hotel.

It’s a remarkable change to the neighbourhood, and one that seemingly happened in the blink of an eye: one day the buildings—the Financial Building and its neighbour, the former home of Hearts & Flowers—were there, and the next day, poof, they were gone.

The Financial Building was a quirky building, a model for how to make a non-accessible building, with stairs everywhere. I spent a lot of time inside it, for one reason or another. I can’t say I’ll miss it exactly, but it was a fixture, and part of the fabric of our neighbourhood, an example of a certain school of architecture that has since passed.

It will soon be replaced by a new 85-unit apartment building, being developing by a Homburg company.

Kent Street
Great George Street
Charlottetown
Development
Homburg

Comments

In addition to the accessibility issues, this was also a building that managed to not have a ground-level at all - the most valuable part of a downtown building.

I got my hair cut in the basement of that building though. RIP.

Submitted by Kevin on

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Was in that building too many times to count. In addition to the haircut (less frequent then compared with now), CFCY was in this building until it moved across the street to 141 Kent in 1981. I would walk or hitchhike from Stonepark to downtown regularly and spend too much time disturbing the staff and announcers while I waited for a ride home with Dad. Plenty of history and good memories of nice people.

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Photo of Peter RukavinaI am . I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.

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