Canada Guide
The Maritime Provinces
Prince William Street
After the fire of 1877, the city's merchant class funded a rebuilding programme that would, they believed, properly reflect Saint John's status as a major seaport and shipbuilding centre. Blissfully unaware of the hard years ahead, they competed with each other in the construction of grand offices and banks, brimmingly self-confident structures that line up along Prince William Street, south of the Market Slip. There's an extraordinary attention to detail here, the careful symmetries of each red brick facade patterned with individualistic designs – everything from angular stone trimmings and dog-tooth window ledges through to hieroglyphic insets and elaborately carved window arches. Amongst the predominate red-brick are the grandiose Neoclassical and Second Empire facades of the Old Post Office at no. 115, the Old City Hall at no. 116, and the Nova Scotia Bank's Palatine Building at no. 124. These finely worked stone extravagances, with their columns, pediments and arcades, were built as institutional confirmation of the city's excellent prospects. To the middle class of the time this was all in good taste, but there were limits. The Chubb building, 111 Prince William St at the corner of Princess, was – and still is – decorated by a singular series of mini-gargoyles: "We trust no more of our buildings will be adorned by such buffoonery," thundered the local newspaper.