Towards Pier 6

Ground Zero, where the SS Mont-Blanc exploded, is next to where Pier 6 stood at the foot of Richmond Street. This location is now within the Halifax Shipyard, Irving Shipbuilding Inc.

At the time of the explosion, the HMCS Niobe was tied up at the Hospital Wharf at the north end of the Dockyard, and was being used as a depot. When fire broke out on the Mont-Blanc, the crew of a small pinnace (boat) set out from the Niobe and tried to board the burning boat, hoping to pull it away from Pier 6. The crew members were all killed moments later, when the Mont-Blanc exploded into 100,000 pieces. The Niobe’s anchor chain broke, and the anchor was lost on the harbour floor until 2014, when it was found during work on the seawall. Encrusted fragments from the surface of the Niobe anchor are now on display in the NiS+TS exhibition at the NS Archives.

No photos can be taken here since the graving dock is still in use. It is also a National Engineers’ Historic Site. ‘Graving dock’ is another phrase for ‘dry dock’; to ‘grave’ something is to lay it down. The graving dock survived the explosion, with very little damage. The first image shows the graving dock just after the explosion. The second photograph, taken in 1905, is of the Niobe in the graving dock. The last photograph shows the graving dock under construction. These photographs are courtesy of the Nova Scotia Archives, Notman Studio collection.

There are six Halifax Relief Commission houses employing Ross and MacDonald designs along Veith Street. Two of them, at 3252 and 3195, have been renovated by Halifax architect Peter Henry. The other Ross and MacDonalds are at 3266, 3189, 3185 and 3179 Veith St. They were designed as part of the Halifax Relief Commission program, but not constructed of the distinctive hydrostone blocks that were used west of Novalea in the Hydrostone District. There are many houses throughout Halifax and Dartmouth, beyond the Hydrostone District itself, that were designed and built with blueprints, and funds, from the Halifax Relief Commission. The Nova Scotia Archives houses over 400 architectural drawings for these houses, in the Halifax Relief Commission Fonds. See: https://novascotia.ca/archives/explosion/

One of these homes was built on the site where the Frizzell family lived at the time of the explosion, and part of that foundation can still be seen in the back garden. Good design is built on what we know of the past, and makes for good neighbourhoods. Can you locate these houses that were designed almost 100 years ago, as part of the Relief Commission reconstruction?

Mulgrave Park and Acadia Park were popular green spaces in Richmond at the time of the explosion. They were destroyed on December 6, 2017, and much of this area remained vacant for many years. Temporary housing for military personnel was built on the hillside around the time of WWII, and it remained in use by veterans and their families in the post-war decades. In the 1960’s, the Mulgrave Park area was redeveloped by CMHC (Central Mortgage and Housing Canada) as the public housing neighbourhood that we know today. It was a showpiece for “urban renewal” in the late 1960’s, and was part of the same government effort that led to the destruction of Africville. Many of the first residents of in the new housing in Mulgrave Park were relocated from central Halifax; they had lived in older houses and tenements on streets that were cleared to make way for the Cogswell Interchange, Scotia Square, the arena and other major developments. The past, present and future of our city are represented at this crossroads. This detail from a 1989 plan drawing shows a community centre that was never built, and trees that were never planted.

In the summer of 2017, students from a Dalhousie Faculty of Architecture and Planning Design and Build Freelab worked with youth from Mulgrave Park, Blackbook Collective urban painters, and other collaborators, to create a lighting project for the murals in the neighbourhood.

This part of the Halifax harbourfront has remained relatively undeveloped, with a number of local and small businesses located in a commercial strip established after the explosion. These replace the many local businesses and homes that were destroyed in the explosion. In behind this strip of buildings is what’s left of the concrete abutment for a pedestrian bridge that once connected the bottom of Duffus Street to the shipyards below, until the explosion.

Mulgrave Park is now home to a collection of contemporary wall murals.