Urbsite

With so much civic history invested in Sparks Street its long slow goodbye is hard to swallow. The first hundred years of development (1860-1960) was a glorious march of city building. The next half century was one of city resuscitation. What happened? Here's my version.

‘World-renowned Town Planner Jacques Greber flew back to Paris overnight to work on designs for a permanent year round Pedestrian Mall for Sparks Street. He hoped to have his drawings for his 'Mall of the Four Seasons’ as he called it in the hands of Lt. Gen. S F Clark, National Capital Commission chairman within two months. “General Clark and the Commission are most enthusiastic” reported Mr. Greber, but wanted to see the detailed designs before sponsoring the 'Mall of the Four Seasons' as they had the original summertime Sparks Street Mall. The globally famed town planner was convinced that such a Mall would bring a “commercial renaissance” to Sparks Street and ”revitalize shopping” throughout Midtown. Outstanding features of the proposed new permanent Summer-Winter Mall, as he specified them:1. Arcading of the shop fronts out into the 66-foot wide street as far as 18 feet on either side. 2. Reducing the width of the pedestrian promenade itself to 30 feet. 3. Surfacing of the 30-foot walkway with attractive varicolored terrazzo-style cement block tiles. 4. Underlaying the promenade with steam pipes to melt the Winter’s snows. 5. Breaking the monotony of the straight line of the 30-foot wide promenade with setbacks and scallops of varying widths. 6. Planting these scalloped setbacks with coniferous instead of deciduous trees, for a more eye-pleasing 'Mall-scape' in Winter.’ ‘Winding Garden Path Greber’s Mall Dream - Heated Sidewalks Too’ Ottawa Journal. February 28, 1962.
This was to be Greber's final trip to Ottawa (his 75th visit since 1937). He died four months later with his promised plans for the 'Mall of Four Seasons' unrealized.

Gréber had first mentioned the transformation of Sparks Street into a 'pedestrian promenade' in 1958, and it was the primary recommendation in that year's annual report to the National Capital Commission. Although his vision for Sparks Street would be under continuous refinement for the next three years, the initial scheme was for 'a promenade, lined by commercial establishments, with pedestrian shoppers protected from dust, sun heat, rain and snow by arcading of buildings, and free to move without traffic hazard'.

(Ottawa Journal, May 1, 1959)

He had been inspired by European streets closed to vehicular traffic, especially those in the Netherlands where they flourished in cities new and old. 'Such pedestrian streets in the centres of cities are not new. A good example is the Calverstraat [Kalverstraat] in Amsterdam. Commercially they are very successful.'

While the idea for a permanent pedestrian promenade had first been floated by Gréber, the actual creation of the Sparks Street Mall (intended as a summer trial) was driven by the street's retailers - then numbering in their hundreds, who formed the Sparks Street Development Association. They had been sparked by the removal of the streetcars from Sparks in the Spring of 1959, and the growing competition from the suburban shopping centres. The first step was to present a united front. It took some months to convince the City of Ottawa, which had an endless list of objections - traffic congestion on neighbouring streets, loss of loading and parking spaces, barriers to fire engines, the police, and ambulances.

To fire up the public imagination in mid-May of 1959 they published this before and after sketch by Watson Balharrie, republished by the Ottawa Journal at year's end once it had won the city's tentative approval

Kalamazoo, Michigan had been the first North American city to try out a pedestrian mall. In the summer of 1959 Watson Balharrie flew down in his own plane to to see it for himself. Kalamazoo's Burdick Street Mall, opened in 1958, has since been extended, shortened, and remodelled - and is apparently still in operation. At their peak of popularity there were some 120 pedestrian malls in the US and Canada.

'Will Sparks Street Look Like This?' 'Ottawa Merchants, who saw Toledo's new downtown mall on Thursday, were almost unanimous in their opinions that they wouldn't like to see Sparks street decked up like Madison avenue above. Mayor Nelms said he is writing to National Capital planner Jacques Greber for his opinions on just how the Sparks street mall he suggested might be developed.'(Ottawa Journal, September 4, 1959)
On September 3, 1959 Mayor George Nelms, accompanied by architect Watson Balharrrie and a 52-member delegation from the Ottawa Board of Trade boarded a TCA North Star to get a firsthand look at the Madison and Adams Avenues Pedestrian Mall in the City of Toledo, Ohio. In 1959 Toledo closed two blocks on two of its downtown streets for a 45-day trial. The experiment was continued on just one street the following year and never repeated. Nonetheless, it received great international acclaim - receiving over 30 delegations of municipal planners and politicians in its opening weeks.

While the Ottawa businessmen judged Toledo's pedestrian mall to be 'cheap, ...and circus-like' some of them were convinced that a pedestrian mall on Sparks Street was worth a try. It would be a scramble. The merchants couldn't agree on the general direction for a plan until mid-February 1960, and it took a further month for a cautiously skeptical City Council to give its guarded approval. Opening day was scheduled for mid-May.(Ottawa Journal, March 18, 1960)

With a budget not to exceed $30,000 (almost $5,000 of which was for paving over the streetcar tracks) the Sparks Street Mall was designed and constructed within budget, and delivered on time. The costs were split between the merchants and the City of Ottawa. Once opened the Sparks Street Development Association struck a Research Committee to report back at the conclusion of the first-year's trial.

Not surprisingly (its authors were the sponsors of the Sparks Street Mall) the findings of the Report of the SSDA's Research Committee were very positive - but this certainly reflected its widespread popularity and general commercial success. In spite of objections from a few merchants the City of Ottawa decided to continue with the experiment on a year-to-year basis.

A permanent mall was still just a faint gleam in the eyes of a few business leaders and architects, but those eyes were firmly trained on the untidy elements they believed contributed to unsightly street clutter - the remaining streetcar-wire masts, overhanging neon signs, and old buildings with garish storefronts.

As chairman of the Design Committee Watson Balharrie had assigned the task of designing the mall's individual components to an association of innovative local architects, artists, and landscape architects.

The Sculpture Wall (Michael Pine) and the Pool (by Peter Douglass).

The pool, equipped with underwater lighting and a fountain spray was a great success and water features (expensive to construct and difficult to maintain) were ongoing attractions in the mall's future designs.(Photo: Carleton Place and Beckwith Township Museum, via Lost Ottawa)

The speed of construction was remarkable - this photo of the pool being built was taken just days before opening. (Ottawa Journal. May 16, 1959)

James Strutt designed the Special Events Stand in the Metcalfe-O'Connor block.

John Leaning's NCC Display Pavilion (left photo, in the distance) and the children's play area by Brian Pye (right photo, middle distance).

There were display panels and a large showcase for scale models under the NCC's tent. Although the mall had been suggested by the National Capital Commission' planning consultant, it took no part in the planning and financing of the first seven temporary malls but did contribute the design services of its Chief Architect, John Leaning. (Photo: Carleton Place and Beckwith Township Museum, via LostOttawa)

In the mall's first season a model of the NCC's 1960 Ottawa Downtown Redevelopment Plan was displayed within it. This began a tradition of displaying a series of models in this location - the Parkin Plans of 1962 and 1967, the National Arts Centre and Confederation Park National Museum Complex, 1965, and models of many versions of the Lebreton Flats urban renewal plans.

With a fresh asphalt overlay on Sparks Street the designers could achieve maximum visual impact on a small budget, using stencils and pavement paint for running key and staggered brick motifs.

The pavement painting varied over the years - an Op-Art pattern for the 1963 Mall (left), and a 'Venetian' pattern for 1964 (right).

Alfresco eating and drinking in outdoor cafes under striped awnings was an absolute novelty for most Ottawans, and a boon to the street's restaurant owners - although as I recall most of the fare was limited to sandwiches, burgers and soft drinks.

The street furniture was a combination of hastily cast concrete planters and the style of Fiberglas and cement benches that the city was then installing it its parks.

In late 1959 the Board of Control chose Sparks Street as the first to have its old-fashioned 'White Way' streetlighting system converted to mercury vapour and/or fluorescent heads on aluminum poles. City engineers had long determined that the multiglobe standards were 'dangerous and obsolete', and Gréber likened them to a bunch of grapes. With the temporary mall makeover on the horizon the SSDA declined the offer for modern fixtures until it had been determined what the future street should look like and the ancient standards survived here long after they had been replaced elsewhere in the city.

The multiglobe standards were eventually replaced with modern highway style poles ca. 1964, only to be removed three years later. They old 'White Ways' were reimagined as modern interpretations during the mall's 1967-85 period, but restored with more historic cast iron versions during the mid-1980's rehabilitation. They were custom cast for the Sparks Street Mall - go have a look at the foundry marks.

When the Sparks Street Mall ('care-free, car-free... European Style') opened for its sixth season on May 14, 1965 it was expected that this would be the last of the summer malls, because plans for a permanent year round mall were well underway.

The transformation of Sparks Street from a seasonal mall to a permanent mall proved to be much more contentious than expected. Special enabling legislation from Queen's Park was required and new objections from business and property owners emerged that would slow down the process.

The first fully formed plan for a permanent mall was presented at the end of the 1963 season. 'Sparks Street is transformed into a glass-bordered courtyard in plans released today by the Citizens Committee for the Establishment of a Permanent Mall. The report calls the design that of a 'sophisticated outdoor room, in the heart of the Nation's Capital. The plans more than make permanent the last four Summers' temporary malls.'(Ottawa Journal, November 18, 1963)

It was partially a reaction to the extravagant 'Parkin Plan'for the area east of the Rideau Canal. Needing a masterplan of its own, Sparks Street did not want to miss the urban renewal train about to run over the ruins of the old Union Station. A grade-separated link was required to draw people under Confederation Square and up to Sparks. This sketch was provided by John Leaning as a suggested design.

'Sidewalks are to be eliminated, providing one plane of colorfully panelled concrete, with paving stones or brick used in selected areas for variety. Shying away from the 'rustic' the plans call for 'sophisticated, urban' landscaping including pots for trees, shrubs and flowers'. Mayor Whitton boasted that the permanent Sparks Street Mall might put the Parkin Plan to shame.

Like the 1962 scheme imagined by Gréber, canopies equipped with heaters to melt the snow from above and below would have run along the building frontages covering up the pedestrian travel zone (the traditional sidewalk). The chaotic commercial signage 'would be abolished in place of standard shapes hanging below the canopies at right angles to the store fronts.' Luckily, because of their high costs the 1967 design for the permanent mall had to abandon this desire to standardize and sanitize Spark's commercial storefronts.

In the 1963 plan the canopies could be broken up by translucent plastic vaults and halted in front of important buildings like banks. At each intersection they were elevated and joined by cross-mall canopies tall enough to permit vehicles to pass beneath. The 'Citizens Committee' was a creature of the Sparks Street Mall Development Association, and their plan for a permanent plan was devised by Stig Harvor of Balharrie, Helmer and Morin Architects.

From the outset weatherproofing, especially winterproofing, had obsessed the mall's backers and designers. When the first formal proposal for a permanent mall (a 15-foot model costing $15,000 - half the total price of the original temporary mall) was presented to the Board of Control on February 23, 1965 it featured a continuous row of canopies fitted with infrared and gas heaters. There were already rumblings from property owners objecting to the projected cost, and the City Solicitor assured the objectors would be given 'ample opportunity' to air their views at an Ontario Municipal Board hearing.(Ottawa Journal, February 24, 1965)

The legal protest was led by the developers of a new office building and enclosed shopping arcade at Sparks and O'Connor (upper right). which also required the demolition of one of the street's finest nineteenth century commercial rows (upper left). This delayed implementation of the permanent mall for almost a year and also eliminated the covered heated sidewalks.

Once the heavily engineered covered sidewalk plans of 1963 and 1965 had been discarded the architectural concept was thinned out and lightened up, producing the tree-form pavilions that would become the first permanent Sparks Street Mall's signature design element. Winter shoppers would have to face the elements in the open air. It was a rational decision from the perspective of urban design but may have sown the seeds for the mall's undoing. In the coldest weather the mall could be a harsh sunless space and the architects failed to provide even low tech solutions for mitigating the icy microclimate.

I remain in awe of the spare modernist delicacy, functionality and thoughtfulness of the Mall's 1967 design. The tree forms punctuated the vistas up and down Sparks Street, as pods for pay phones, drinking fountains, and shade. The old bunch of grapes light standards were translated into matchstick lollipops. Those who say that the Mall never worked were never there. Five years after the permanent mall opened it was at the peak of its success. And then it was inflicted with two fatal wounds. The Government of Canada expropriated the entire north side of Sparks Street, and the building of the Rideau Centre was announced.(Photo: CA)

The program for the permanent mall was based upon the most successful aspects of the summertime malls - outdoor seating and cafes, planters for flowers and trees, water features, without much understanding of how the space could successfully function between the end of October and the beginning of May when people might be less inclined to linger outdoors.

It was a complex piece of construction phasing. First the old streetcar tracks had to be dug up, a task that had been deferred in 1960. The profile of the roadway's centreline crown and elevated sidewalks needed to be regraded for a continuous plane with adequate storm water drainage. Before Balharrie's checkerboard paving (alternating squares of exposed aggregate and broom finished concrete) could be poured a tricky network of underground servicing was required. Most of the above-grade elements were fabricated off-site and assembled on the mall. Although opening day was a few weeks late, it's astonishing that all of this was accomplished in three months.

Loading was one of the operational problems. Gréber had specified that this should only occur from Queen and Wellington, but this proved impossible and the hours of 8-10am were designated for vehicular access.

In the 1980s redesign this was supposed to be controlled by timed fountains at each street entrance - at exactly 10am four-foot geysers of water started spurting out of the street. This never really worked and within a few years of being installed they were disconnected.

In the 1967 design the NCC's showcase at Elgin and Sparks was given a permanent home under a cluster of linked canopies. The National Capital Commission had opened a public information centre for the display of models and planning-related exhibits in the Scottish-Ontario Chambers at 48 Sparks Street.

These distended tulip lamp standards are one of the last surviving relics of a chapter of urban design that has held the Sparks Street Mall in its thrall for the last thirty years. By 1985, when the City of Ottawa needed to excavate the entire street for new water mains, Watson Balharrie's modernist mall seemed embarrassingly dated in a post-modernist era. The resulting international design competition producing a dizzying array of high-concept schemes - from sequentially-themed outdoor living rooms, to mythical gardens and staged 'paradisiacal' landscapes.

Out of this miasma of 1980s excess there emerged this, a dark-green metal forest of elevated planters and glass-roofed pavilions by the SWA Group of Houston, and Cecelia Paine and Associates.

Over time it became as unpopular as the covered sidewalks on the Rideau Street Transit Mall. There was no system to water the aerial planter boxes, which baked their contents to a sage brush consistency. The glass-roofed pavilions (two per block) became messy pigeon roosts and soon had to be wrapped in plastic netting. Element by element the Paine/SWA accretions have been scraped off the mall and today the street stands stripped bare, primed for another round of design workshops and visioning. The latest official vision-mission was for a 'linear urban park'. Will car traffic, as so many have suggested, really re-animate the Sparks Street Mall?

A few scraps that were based on the 1967 permanent mall design (Fancott and Bett, and Helmer and Tutton Architects, 1971) hung on in Kent-to-Lyon Phase II of the Sparks Street Mall until the early 2000s.

At the time the Bank-to-Kent block was passed over because it was due to be covered over by a two-section development flanking Sparks, an early version of the Erickson design for the Bank of Canada with a climate controlled atrium spanning that section Sparks Street - the last known attempt to winterproof the Spark Street Mall.

Circus ground locations can be as nomadic as the business itself. Ottawa has seen them on vacant lots, city parks, and variations in between - like the Plouffe Park at Somerset and Preston. It's a large piece of land that has gone from industrialized property to empty scrub land, and then from informal playgrounds to the urban recreation centre that is there today. In the early 1920s, for a day or two each year, it came alive with the scent of hot canvas and wild animals.

The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Combined Shows was the biggest and brashest. For three days in July 1922 (setup on the 4th, showtime on the 5th, and striking on the 6th) this legend of the American circus drew large crowds. It was a relatively new enterprise, the combined companies - a common practice in circusdom - having been put together in 1919.

Deep in the Department of the Interior photographic records collection at Library and Archives Canada is a set of six pictures labelled 'Barnum and Bailey's Circus, 1922. Ottawa Ont.' No indication of the precise location. That requires picking up on a few identifying clues like the boxy building and spire just to the left of the Big Top. (Photo: LAC)

It's the Devonshire Public School which had just been enlarged in 1920. The spire belongs to St. Francis of Assisi church on Wellington Street. That would confirm that the tent was pitched in the middle of Plouffe Park.

The photos were taken on setup day. 'Those who watch the building of the 'Big Top' will in addition to three rings and five stages note a trio of immense steel arenas. It is in these that the wild animals will be performed tomorrow. These many additions have so increased the task of putting up this great double show in place that it has become necessary to eliminate the street parade.'(Ottawa Journal, July 4, 1922) There were some rumblings about this from citizens who missed the standard circus parade. (Photo: LAC)

There were subsidiary tents for displaying the menagerie of exotic animals. Mindful of their Canadian venue Barnum and Bailey Ringing Brothers added a Red Ensign to the masts. A small flat-roofed building appears on the right just above the rear half of the team of white horses. (Photo: LAC)

It is the Ottawa Stair Works in the north side of Somerset, abutting the bridge.

The roustabouts worked quickly, getting the tents raised within a few hours. The diagonal pathway cutting across Plouffe Park will reappear in a later aerial photo in this post. The cluster of buildings with a smokestack in the distant right was on Breezehill Avenue - the other side of the tracks. (Photo: LAC)

This is the J. Oliver and Sons Ltd. Furniture Factory, which had its own siding along the Canadian Pacific Railway line. A real fire risk (stacks of slab wood, drying kilns, oil house and a paint finishing shop) that the Fire Insurance Atlas has carefully mapped.

Visitors to Plouffe Park on setup day could get a close-up look at the animals, like these one-humped camels. Above the muzzled beast raising its head is the Somerset Street West bridge crossing the railway lines. There seems to be a traffic jam of curious on-lookers on the bridge. (Photo: LAC)

In the previous photo the smokestacks, sawdust burner and water tower of the W.C. Edwards Co. lumber yards are visible beyond the bridge trestle.

The elephant herd is marshalled near the railway tracks that passed through the park, with rail cars standing behind them. Rather than the usual practice of unloading at the train station, forming up a parade, and proceeding to the grounds with fanfare, it seems that Barnum and Bailey and Ringling Brothers might have brought their circus cars right to the site. The Charcoal Supply Co. was situated on Loretta. (Photo: LAC)

The circus that performed in Plouffe Park on July 5, 1922 likely wasn't the Barnum and Bailey Ringling Brothers Combined Show's A-company. Nonetheless it was said to include over 700 performers like Miss Edna Rowana from a famous family of trick riders, Pat Valdo who had run away to the circus as a lad, and their horse 'Starlight III' whose forebears had 'long passed to that particular heaven to which circus folk believe all faithful horses go.' Joining the humans and horses were 100 elephants. (Ottawa Journal, June 24, 1922)

Gigantic circus posters (wonders of industrial lithography in themselves) were often pasted onto fences, barns, and buildings in the days leading up to the circus arrival. They also planted puff pieces in the daily newspapers during the week before the performance.

Next came the big parade from the railway station, where up to 100 special cars could be unloaded for a colourful procession out to the circus grounds. This is the Forepaugh and Sells Brothers Combined Show's trained troop of elephants trundling up Wellington Street around 1900. (Photo LAC)

The aggregated arenic, aertallistic, hippodromic Forepaugh and Sells circus performed at the Bank Street grounds, located at the southern end of Elgin Street.

The company was another example of a circus merger. They brought their Furiously Funny Sousa Clown Band to Ottawa.

The Forepaugh and Sells Brothers' Circus came to Ottawa in 1899, 1902, and 1904. This shot was probably taken on their last visit (after the fire and subsequent rebuilding of the Central Post Office. (Photo LAC)

The danger-deriding, death-defying, desperado dare-devil 'Diavolo' reached the limit of sensation by performing loop the loops on his bicycle.

The Seven Gaynells Cycle Wild Wheel Whirl Wonders (who also came to Ottawa) raced on an open track only five feet high and twenty feet in diameter pitched at an acute angle of 70 degrees. No pads, no helmets. This looks dangerous.

The Forepaugh and Sells Brother parade passes over the Dufferin Bridge. The trees of Majors Hill Park are in the distance. (Photo: LAC)

If the Ottawa advertisement for their 1902 visit to the Dominion of Canada is to be believed ('No Fake Figures. No False Statements. No Ridiculous Exaggerations.') they brought 100 acts featuring 1,200 people and 600 horses. The Prodigious Porthos executed flying leaps on a bicycle fifty feet in the air over 10 elephants.

The 1912 Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth performed in the Holland Avenue Grounds, a patch of land near what is now Island Park Drive where in 1895 Andrew Holland had brought back an early Edison Vitascope to exhibit the first moving pictures screened in Canada.

Until it was subdivided for lots it was a streetcar park operated by the Ottawa Electric Railway. The circus turned part of Holland Avenue into a 'bog hole' but the City of Ottawa had exacted permit fees from the promoters. At the City Council meeting of July 17, 1912 Alderman Forward proposed that 'some of the money the city received as a fee for the Ringling Bros.' circus should go towards putting Holland Avenue between Wellington street and the G.T.R. tracks in order. This street is badly cut up as a result of circus waggons passing over it, and at tonight's council meeting Ald. Forward will move that $150 of the amount received from the circus people be devoted to this.'(Ottawa Journal)

By 1921 Plouffe Park was designated for the circus grounds. By then the Bank Street Grounds had been subdivided for houses and landscaped by the Ottawa Improvement Commission, and the Holland Avenue Grounds turned into a housing estate. Forepaugh and Sells had become the Sells-Floto Circus.

Over time Plouffe Park was transformed from piling grounds to an open pasture. The pathways in this 1928 aerial view lead to footbridges over the railway line. The dark rectangle diagonally placed in the upper corner of the park is the Plant Pool, opened in 1922.

The site of Plouffe Park (marked 118) sat at the centre of a chain of lumber yards linked by rail lines that stretched from the Ottawa River to Dow's Lake.

The transformation was documented in two fire insurance maps. In 1888 it was the Export Lumber Co. Ltd.'s Rochesterville Yard, with block-long lumber sheds along Preston Street and a few acres of piled sawn lumber piled to 10 feet in height, surrounded by a raised wooden platform.

By January 1901 the piling grounds were vacant. It was here that Frederick Todd, the landscape architect who prepared the first city beautification plan for the Ottawa Improvement Commission in 1903, proposed a public park to be called 'Somerset Square'. The OIC did not act on this recommendation and the City of Ottawa assumed control over the Preston Street frontage of the land, while the Government of Canada took the balance once J.R. Booth's South Yard had closed. At this point a lot on Somerset Street was set aside for a future school but this was eventually built on Breezehill as Devonshire Public.

Plouffe Park became the city's largest playground and playing field. In the 1920s the skating rink made annually on Cartier Square was discontinued, and moved to the open spaces of Plouffe. (Photo: LAC)

After the outbreak of WWII the Government of Canada built a sprawling (over 1,000 in length) war materiel storage depot for the Department of National Defense which later became the Department of Pubic Works Oak Street storage complex.

The Oak Street Complex was demolished in 2015, recreating the grassy pasture that had once been Plouffe Park - ideal for a circus.

There doesn't appear have been any more circus activity in Plouffe Park after 1922 - the year that the City of Ottawa built the Plant Pool (Millson and Burgess Architects). The building rests on deep footings to carry the weight of the pool. The dotted diagonal lines below grade mark the outlines of the basin.

After decades of debate over its future, in 1999-2000 the old Plant Pool was converted into a recreation centre and a new leisure-centre style pool built alongside it (Griffiths Rankin Cook Architects). This is the space frame roof being hoisted into place.

Another place of amusement stood on the southeast corner of Somerset and Preston Street. Although it's labelled 'Moving Pictures' in the 1912 Fire Insurance Atlas this was no movie palace - just a big iron-clad unheated shed covering an indoor arena for hockey in the winter, and band concerts and men's clubs' smokers year round.

It opened as the Ottawa Roller Rink in 1907 to capitalize on that craze - air-cooled with electric fans for 'strictly select patronage'. The rink was soon converted to the Orpheum 'Theatre', which mostly featured wrestling matches.

Is it coincidental that this building looks like a one-storey slice of a much better known building that was once at the centre of Ottawa's longest running heritage storm?

That lost edifice was called the 'Daly Building' for most of its life, but this was an accident of history. From 1905 to 1992 this bluntly expressive stone+glass cage filled the full block of Rideau Street from Sussex to Mackenzie. For the architect Moses Chamberlain Edey it was a radical departure during a career of designing a full range of building types in the usual styles expected in the years to either side of 1900.

After the 6-storey Hotel Cecil on Wellington Street was heavily damaged by a fire on January 25, 1902 Moses Edey was engaged to prepare plans for the hotel's restoration. Unable to raise sufficient funds to rebuild, its owner, Ald. James Davidson sold the property to the Mortimer Company, Printers and Lithographers on June 11, 1904. Mortimer's itself had been burned out of its Sparks Street location a year earlier. The old hotel structure would be used for the engraving, photo-engraving, bookbinding, and shipping departments while a specially designed annex at the rear was constructed for the press room. This is the two-bay addition to the right of the arrow, with a steel frame clad in slightly darker stone. (Photo: LAC a042327)

Some time later an enlarged bookbinding department was added to Mortimer's. There's a clue to the date in the poster just to the right of the utility pole, an advertisement for at upcoming theatre attraction. This expanded the building south to Sparks Street. In 1937 the whole complex was demolished for the Bank of Canada. (Photo: LAC a042331)

According to this notice in the Ottawa Journal Frank Daniels performed in 'The Tattooed Man' at the Russell Theatre on April 27, 1908. The photo of Mortimer's extension was taken in 1909, by Topley.

Before heading to the Daly Building, here is a brief survey of Moses Edey. His best known surviving building is certainly the Central Canada Exhibition 'Main Exhibit Hall' (also know as the Manufacturers' Exhibit, the Aberbeen Pavilion and the Cattle Castle. (Photo: LAC a042375)

Assembled in six short weeks during July-August 1898, it was fabricated from trussed steel arches manufactured by the Dominion Bridge Company of Montreal, and sheathed in corrugated and pressed metal panels. At 310 feet by 130 feet it was the largest enclosed column-free space in Ottawa for over 100 years. (Photo: LAC a132244)

In his life as a working architect Moses Edey (1845-1919) was a late bloomer. A son of the Pontiac, Quebec he kicked around the building trades and construction business until the mid-1880s when he received most of his professional architectural training and accreditation. (Photos: Edey late in life, and at age 24- LAC e010941986)

Edey designed the Central Fire Station/Station No 2 at Albert and Lyon in 1895. It was demolished in the mid-1960s for the Skyine Hotel. (Photo: CA 022757)

The Rideau Ward Station No 9 at Sussex and John Streets in New Edinburgh (1909) was one of the last buildings designed by Edey. Despite being relatively small, political interference (W.C. Edwards insisted on better materials because it was assumed that this stretch of Sussex would one day form part of the Driveway system), cost overruns and construction delays turned it into a project fraught with difficulties for the architect. (Photo: LAC e010934852)

Moses Edey's wholesale dry goods warehouse for J.M. Garland and Son Co. (in its first phase on the right, 1898-99) stood at O'Connor and Queen. The mansard roof is part of a later addition, not designed by Edey. (Photo: LAC a042722 and Ottawa Journal, January 12, 1899

Among his numerous schools was the Elgin Street Public School (1890), with its four classroom rear addition (1895), both by Edey. (Photo: CA)

And the Archibald Street (later Glashan) Public school at Argyle and Kent (1892, addition 1897). The lower image is from the 1970s, just before its demolition, and shows the many later alterations, not by Edey.

Moses Edey's Town Hall building for the Township of Nepean (1896) on the Richmond Road in Westboro is still in use as the City of Ottawa's Churchill Seniors' Centre.

The McLeod Street Methodist Church at McLeod and Bank (demolished 1965) was a heavy Romanesque Revival house of worship. Edey was a practising Methodist. (Drawing and Photo: Ottawa Journal, May 11, 1896 and CA)

For lighter structures Edey could exercise a certain amount of whimsy, as in the cast-iron band stand on the Driveway at Somerset Street West. (Photo: Ottawa Improvement Commission Annual Report for 1912)

The Rideau Canoe Club House floated on the Rideau Canal at Fifth Avenue. The urban legend is that the boathouse was destroyed by ice damage in 1941, the year that the Rideau Canal was not drained because officials feared the water might be needed for fighting fires if Ottawa became the victim of a WWII bombing attack. (Drawing and Photo: Ottawa Journal, March 15, 1904 and LAC a009041)

In Aylmer, Quebec Moses Edey's design for the Victoria Yacht Club was even more fanciful. (Drawing: Ottawa Journal, March 6, 1901)

In January 1895 the city staged the Ottawa Carnival, a celebration of winter that featured ice castles and arches designed by some of the city's leading architects. This is actually the castle near Major's Hill Park by King Arnoldi, but you get the idea. For the Ottawa Carnival Edey contributed an archway over Maria Street. (Photo: LAC a013117)

Returning to things aquatic. For a cost of $1500 Edey produced this plan for a wood-framed bathing pool surrounded by a deck and changing rooms that was moored in the Ottawa River at the foot of Bank Street. It seems to have lasted only one season, because during the winter it was anchored too close to the shore and broke up with the river's ice heaves. (Drawing: Ottawa Journal, March 13, 1906)

The City of Hull's Land Registry Office (left, designed by Edey - 1902) was built on rue Principale next to the Court House following the Great Fire of April 1901. Both were demolished in the 1970s for Place du Centre/Place du Portage IV.

As a native of the Upper Ottawa Valley Moses Edey designed many buildings in that district. This is the second MacKay Block in Renfrew, Ontario. By now you may have noticed that a running bell flower swag in the cornice was a constant ornamental device for Edey. (Photo and Drawing: Faces and Facades - the Renfrew Architecture of Edey and Noffke, 1988)

Next door was MacKay's Department Store. Like so many of these buildings the picturesque silhouettes of turrets and pediments were the primary features. (Photo and Drawing: Faces and Facades - The Renfrew Architecture of Edey and Noffke, 1988)

This makes Moses Edey's avant-garde design for the T. Lindsay and Co. Department Store all the more remarkable for its time and place. (For a photo stream of this building see: Spacing Ottawa - August 15, 2011. 'The Daly Building Revisited' by Mike Steinhauer)

This commercial row on Wellington Street just west of Kent was the location of 'Lindsay's Corner', where Thomas Lindsay began his business. The photo dates to 1912, when the Government of Canada expropriated the whole north side of Wellington for future buildings To further explore this vanished neighbourhood please go to Andrew Elliot's great Uppertown series. (Photo: LAC e011168050)

Thomas Lindsay, born in Aylmer, Quebec had started out as a clerk in the Bryson Graham Department Store on Sparks Street. In 1889 he opened a small clothing and dry goods store on Wellington between Lyon and Kent, operating as Lindsay and Lang. The became the T. Lindsay and Co. in 1893, gradually expanding into 263-73 Wellington and eventually taking over the whole corner. He lived next door at 46 Kent Street.

By 1901 Lindsay was ready to expand again and join forces with a national retailer. 'The above cut presents a faithful picture of the proposed new departmental store of T. Lindsay and Co. to be erected at the junction of Sparks and Bank streets and extending through the whole block along Bank to Wellington street... The plans have been prepared by Mr. M.C. Edey, the architect and are under consideration. As may be seen, the proposed building is of mammoth proportions and of handsome design, intended to be at once an architectural ornament to the busy and important site... - and large enough to to accommodate the business to be transacted therein - the Eaton departmental store of Ottawa.' (Drawing: Ottawa Journal, February 9, 1901)

Architect Moses Edey's Romanesque-inspired design (with a cupola'd tower) for the Lindsay-Eaton's Ottawa franchise would have stood here. The plans did not materialize. (Photo: LAC a008843)

Lindsay and Edey then looked to Rideau and Sussex, a location that would combine the store's Rideau Street operation known as Larose and Co. At the end of 1904 they expected to be occupying their 'new and immense quarters' by March 1st 1905. (Ottawa Journal, December 31, 1904)

The design was conventional - heavy piers separating recessed window bays, with a protruding rusticated base and banding at the first and second floors. The original plans contemplated a main entrance centred on the Rideau Street frontage, a decision that didn't take into account the site's steep gradient.

The rendering published six months' earlier had been a little more truthful about the grade, creating an emerging basement storey along the Rideau Street slope. (Ottawa Journal, June 21, 1904)

As built the whole composition was more stark and skeletal. The percentage of glass is maximal, framed by strong horizontal and vertical lines. The underlying frame is expressed by a rigorous grid of boulder-faced Gloucester limestone blocks, and the banding is vestigial. Ornament is limited to the swagged metal cornice. Ultimately the store's main entrance had to be located under a recessed opening at the corner of Rideau and Mackenzie. (Photo: LAC a009116)

By the time that the store was expanded in 1913, under new ownership, three of the ground floor/basement window bays (on the left in this photo) had been altered by removing the lower limestone lintels and extending the glazing all the way down to grade. (Photo: LAC a042721)

At the height of the debate over the future of the Daly Building preservationists argued that it was the prime local example of the 'Chicago School' (see: the Carson Pirie Scott, Louis Sullivan or Marshall Field, Daniel Burnham department stores).

The closest competitor in that category would have been Murphy Gamble's on Sparks Street (1909, C.P. Meredith), which despite its full-bay glazing, on one side only, fails that test. Fussy grid, no Chicago windows, stepped pediment. (Photo: LAC a042395)

T. Lindsay's store under construction in January 1905 displays its bold early modernity. Where did Moses Edey, a local architect who likely had limited exposure to international trends, find his inspiration? Perhaps the building's relative plainness was simply a utilitarian solution. (Photo: LAC a025003)

Edey's rustic stone and glass block was planted in a cityscape that was still rough and raw. By promoting the 'comfort of employees' who would be well looked after Lindsay was attempting to overcome another image problem. He had been continually attacked for sweating his labour, often discounting their wages and paying them in 'bons' - coupons that could only be exchanged for his merchandise. (Ottawa Journal, June 14, 1905)

It was designed to be expandable. After the opening Thomas Lindsay announced that a three storey addition was under consideration, and within a few months he was seeking new investors. (Ottawa Journal, October 18, 1905)

At age 45 Thomas Lindsay died on September 19, 1909. In his final days he sold his store. (Ottawa Journal, September 15, 1909)

By October 1905 the business had passed into the hands of the A.E. Rae and Co. (Photo: LAC a045642)

Rae's illuminated roof sign - a gigantic Gothic 'R' set in a sunburst was a beacon on the skyline both day and night. (Photo: CA 02935)

The A.E. Rae and Co. fulfilled Thos. Lindsay's promise to expand by adding to more floors and extending the store four bays further south along Mackenzie. (Heritage Ottawa Newsletter, Summer 1984)

When finished store would contain seven acres of floor space, six passenger and two freight elevators, public waiting and writing rooms, and a lecture theatre that could be rented out for events. Although his design would be extended with few changes Moses Edey was passed over, and the A.E. Rae and Co., headquartered in Montreal, chose Ross and MacDonald Architects, who had recently completed the Union Station and Chateau Laurier (as Ross and Macfarlane). (Ottawa Citizen, February 18, 1913)

The addition, constructed with a re-inforced concrete frame had to be built while Rae's remained open for business. The remodelling would close the original corner entrance at Rideau, and create two new entrances from Mackenzie. (Photo: LAC a042734)

Lindsay's had been built without an interior light well, and the two storey addition was constructed as a doughnut on top of the old building to provide natural illumination. Rae's flaming 'R' went back up. Unfortunately the expansion occurred just as WWI was breaking out, and for a variety reasons the A.E. Rae and Co. went bankrupt in 1915. It was soon acquired by the store's third owner, financier Herbert J. Daly who continued the business under Rae's name until 1918. (Photo: LAC a042756)

Around 1917 the Government of Canada leased two floors of the building - primarily for the newly created Income Tax Office. Rae's also continued to operate here until the end of that year, and in February 1918 the department store was re-launched by H. J. Daly under his own name... 'At the former Rae Store you will find a new kind of department store - not a reorganized Rae Store - but really a new store in the Rae building.' Soon it would be known as the Daly Building, and that name stuck for a further seventy years. (Ottawa Journal, February 28, 1918)

In 1920 Herbert Daly, who had wide business interests, was named President of the Home Bank of Canada. In re-ordering his affairs the H.J. Daly Co. store on Rideau was closed, and relocated as the Daly Company to 194-96 Sparks Street.

This lasted only a few years, until 1923 - a fateful year for Daly and the Home Bank of Canada. (Ottawa Journal, February 2, 1923)

The Government of Canada purchased to Daly Building for $1 million on September 15, 1921. An expanded government bureaucracy needed to run World War I had quickly filled the Daly Building's floors, and continued after the war. It was first occupied by the Dominion of Canada Income Tax Office, a measure introduced to help pay for the war effort. It was later used by the Department of External Affairs. (Photo: Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada Bulletin, June 1982 - 'The Daly Building', Gregory P. Utas, Public Works Canada)

In October 1923 Daly's Home Bank of Canada imploded in Canada's worst bank failure. Millions of dollars in deposits were lost, and H.J. Daly was charged with fraud. Suffering a mental breakdown he died before seeing the inside of a courtroom but many of his fellow bank directors were convicted, and the whole affair uncovered a mass of business malpractice. (Ottawa Journal, October 3, 1923 and June 9, 1924)

Some time after the government office conversion the large Lindsay/Rae/Daly Cos. display windows were refitted with opening sashes. When the intersection of Sussex and Rideau was widened for vehicular turns, reducing the sidewalk width to a sliver, this very low-clearance pedestrian subway had to be carved out under the building's south east corner. (Photos: LAC e10934851-2)

On April 23, 1937 the Ottawa Journal announced 'Daly Building To Be Razed Under Scheme'. It was intended to 'provide the additional space for a most effective setting for the war memorial'. Plans were put on hold until Prime Minister King returned from his visit to London and Paris, the tour on which he met and engaged Jacques Gréber to prepare plans for the national capital. (Photo: LAC e010934850)

Both entrance canopies were removed, but in this 1950s you can still see one of the curbed glass display windows. After years of hard use and poor upkeep the building had turned into a soot-covered shell. (Photo: City of Toronto Archives)

One reason for the Daly Building's ongoing survival was the need for federal office space. It was expected that after the construction of the Department of External Affairs Building on Sussex Drive it could finally be declared surplus. But this was deferred as other government space requirements continued to use the building.

In 1964 a piece of the Daly's overhanging cornice fell off and killed a pedestrian on the sidewalk below. The rest of the cornice was soon removed, and the building was given a repainting. (Photo: James Acland)

The Daly Building had been under a curse from the outset. On June 2, 1905, two weeks before T. Lindsay and Co. opened the Government of Canada announced its intention to expropriate all of the land between Sussex and Mackenzie, from Rideau Street to Cathcart - including the Lindsay/Rae/Daly Building. (Ottawa Journal, June 2, 1905)

Upon seeing the Daly Building in 1937 Gréber immediately recommended its removal, and this recommendation was carried forward in his proposals of 1938 and 1949. In 1972 as planning for the Rideau Centre was getting underway the Daly Building was again scheduled for early demolition. (Ottawa Journal, April 22, 1972)

It still had a few lives left in it. By the mid-1970's plans for the Rideau Centre had been modified to include the restoration of the Daly Building. This concept was finally developed in the National Capital Commission's plan (left) for a multi-use project that encompassed a hotel, apartments, a shopping mall, underground parking, an office, and an aquarium. It was a use too far and the scheme foundered as the old building was being stripped out. The demolition was so aggressive that the building was deemed to be a safety hazard and the Daly Building finally disappeared in 1992. Refusing to develop an interim parkette or open plaza, the NCC simply fenced off the future building footprint which would ultimately get built on that site, while a wild urban forest began to reclaim the site.

The Blackburn Building at 85 Sparks Street is one of those landmark piles about much has already been written. That it was built in stages (most accounts say three) is generally well known. But how, and by what sequence of construction did it actually come together? The story of the Blackburn's complex progression will emerge in the following photos, drawings, and clippings.

Architect W.E. Noffke's colour rendering displays the finished building in all of its ornamented finery. And while it looks like a decorated layer cake that could have been designed in separate stages, the building's staged construction campaigns were following a preconceived plan. (LAC e010770184)

For some time this was Ottawa tallest and biggest office building. In fact, its height would not be surpassed until the 1960s. (Photo: LAC e10934923)

The Union Bank/Blackburn Building was expropriated by the Government of Canada in the early 1970s for future parliamentary expansion. By WWII it had become almost entirely occupied by the civil service.

When first opened the building's modern equipment included waste paper chutes for the ready disposal of office refuse, concealed wiring for telephone installations, and complete systems of telegraph bells. The proposed double-height top floor was set aside for 'society and assembly purposes'. (Construction Magazine, April 1919)

The origins of the Blackburn Building are buried within the Metcalfe Street facade. In 1907 Robert and Russell Blackburn purchased a lot (for the then astounding sum of $125,000) having 100 feet of frontage on Metcalfe, and 139 feet on Sparks Street - the ultimate dimensions of the completed building's footprint. Disputes in obtaining a clear title to the land and cancelling the leases in the buildings then existing on the site delayed their plans.

While awaiting the resolution of these legal matters the Blackburn Brothers decided to proceed with an eight-storey building on Metcalfe Street, adjoining the Langevin Block. The buildings still remaining on the site can be seen through the steel frame. (Photo: LAC a042704)

W.E. Noffke Architect was retained to prepare the plans and the option at the right was selected. (Drawing: NMC, sourced from W.E. Noffke, An Ottawa Architect, Shannon Ricketts, 1990)

First known as the Blackburn Building, it was intended to be a combined office and hotel with an entrance on Metcalfe Street. (Ottawa Citizen, March 16, 1912)

W.E. Noffke also designed the Hope Building (left) on Sparks Street for book printers and sellers James Hope and Sons Ltd.

With the corner finally available for development, in early 1912 the Blackburns began construction on Phase 2, a two-storey addition for the Union Bank of Canada. (Contract Record, April 1912)

By late summer of 1912 construction of the banking hall and office addition was well underway. From this point forward until the bank left in the mid-1920s the whole building would be known as the Union Bank Building. The inset architect's perspective drawing promised the building's final outcome. (Contract Record, August 28, 1912)

Windows installed, as it neared completion towards the end of 1912. (Contract Record, October 1912)

The while arrows indicate the location of Phase 2 within the Blackburn's total mass.

Phase three would be a big leap forward - five bays of ten storeys along Sparks Street at the eastern limits of the Blackburns' property. (Photo collage from The Industrial and Publicity Bureau of Ottawa Supplement, Ottawa Citizen 1913)

This is the Blackburn's third chunk.

Phase 4 was built on top of the Union Bank, matching the height of the Sparks Street portion. Why the third and fourth stages couldn't have been built all at once is a mystery.

Each accretion was seamless.

There was of course the matter of going back to the earliest eight storey section on Metcalfe, which had been built prior to the city's enactment of a ten storey maximum building height by-law. (Drawing: NMC, sourced from W.E. Noffke, An Ottawa Architect, Shannon Ricketts, 1990)

The eighth floor cornice was removed and two more storeys added, bringing the whole thing into conformity.

The fully realized Union Bank Building was featured in the August 1919 issue of Construction Magazine because it was said to be one of the comparatively few large commercial buildings erected in Canada during WWI. That claim was a little misleading - construction was substantially complete within the first year of the war, which was a bonus for the Blackburn Bros' rental income as the Government of Canada occupied most of the upper floors. (Construction Magazine, April 1919)

The article provides some details of the building as it appeared when new, like the main entrance on Sparks Street. (Construction Magazine, April 1919)

Not too much of it remains.

The lobby was finished with highly figured Paonazzo marble from Italy. For security reasons you can't get in today but I would suspect that there isn't much of this left either. (Construction Magazine, April 1919)

For a glimpse of the Blackburn's surviving interior go into the souvenir store at 17 Metcalfe Street, and look up. It's a bit of the ceiling from the first phase of the building.

On the ground floor there was a restaurant and bar (upper left hand corner) for the hotel in the floors above. To either side of the office building entrance on Sparks Street were five stores with recessed entrances and curved glass display windows. The two largest shops included mezzanine level galleries running along three walls. At the corner the bank's premises had bowed windows.

More of the ceiling beams with plaster triglyphs, metopes and dentils and a peak at one of the pilaster capitals.

This was the Rathskeller Hotel, opening at the end of 1911. It later became the Hub Hotel, and finally the Manhattan Hotel. The hotel operation in the original Blackburn Building did not stay. By 1916 it was closed and converted to offices. (Ottawa Journal, January 11, 1912)

The Union Bank of Canada departed its premises in 1925 after a merger with the Royal Bank of Canada. Liggett's Drug Store moved in and stayed here for many decades. (Photo: CA)

The Blackburn's nasty 1965 modernization (Ronald Ogilvie, Architect) simply buried the rich Stanstead granite details under large blocks of aggregate finish.

At its peak Sparks Street showcased confidently designed commercial buildings of every style from nineteenth century Italianate and Romanesque Revival to the early twentieth century modern office towers clad in their own melange of historic veneers. Take note of the building at the extreme right - the Standard Bank, an interesting little footnote in the street's development. (Photo: CA)

This block of Sparks Street is still a riot of styles, with some 1930s, 40s, and 60s interventions.

The view in the other direction, minus most of the telephone poles. There is something charmingly quaint about the Blackburn's canvas awnings, pre-air conditioning heat control that was in use until the late 1950s. (Photo: LAC)

As a result of the Central Area West Heritage Conservation Study (Michael McLelland, ERA Architects) Sparks Street from Bank to Elgin was designated as a Heritage Conservation District. This should have guaranteed preservation of its historic buildings, but the ones on the north side of the street are all owned by the Government of Canada which isn't bound by the Ontario Heritage Act.

Seen in a stepped profile, from the bottom to the top are the Standard Bank, the Hope Building, and the Blackburn Building. (Photo: LAC e010861887)

Here's the footnote: The Standard Bank Building (with the streaky-bacon striping along the top) was erected by Jackson Booth in 1916, incorporating the bank's existing three storey building in the midst of WWI to take advantage of the Government's insatiable need for office space. But it didn't last long. In 1936 all of the buildings east of the Hope Building were expropriated for Noffke's Central Post Office. (Photo: LAC)

At LAC this picture is captioned 'Civil servants in crowded office, Blackburn Building - March 1945'. From the window sizes I'm not sure if this is correct, but it's a good depiction of the machinery of government at work (Photo: Chris Lund, LAC)

Similarly captioned from the same series. Lots of paperwork. They are toiling over mounds of forms. (Photo: Chris Lund, LAC)

Civil servants of a more recent vintage in an upper floor of the Blackburn, ca. 1960 (you can see the Beacon Arms Hotel through the window at the right). Looks like it's summertime and the clock on the wall says 4:05. Almost time to go home. (Photo: LAC)

Although the Blackburn's two-storey base was grandly ornamented with pilasters and entablature, Noffke saved the best parts for the top two storeys. (Photo: CA022670)

Robbed of its flamboyant top and bottom and bronze window frames for more than 50 years the Blackburn has taken on the look of a forlorn hulk. This modernization did bring some cool commercial units - the Eastern, Iberia and KLM Airlines' ticketing office at the Sparks and Metcalfe corner.

And finally there was the metal cornice. There were seventeen large lions' heads planted under each anthemion. I can remember one of these big copper cats on display at the Bytown Museum in the late 1960s. Seen up close they were huge and snarling. I wonder if they still have it.

Sadly with each successive renovation the Blackburn has been gutted. Most recently several original store interiors were stripped of all detail. Nonetheless one can still look up at what's left and muse about the ingenuity of its architect and contractors in building this thing piece by piece.

A miniature golf craze hit Ottawa in 1930 when within a few months of that year no less than twelve mini-courses (eight outside and four inside) opened. They were built on land awaiting redevelopment, as ancillary entertainments for clubs, on top of a grocery store, and in basements. Most disappeared as quickly as they came. After WW11 miniature golf made a reappearance at local driving ranges and by the late 1950s some developers were offering them as added inducements in their subdivisions.

The National Air Photo Library collection of 1928-45 Ottawa flyovers is available on-line through the University of Ottawa. The early 30s are especially well documented which is helpful for miniature golf course searching. This 1933 view of the block bounded by Elgin, Laurier, Metcalfe and Slater reveals one of them.

The model for modern miniature golf course design seems to have been inspired by a garden feature at 'Thistle Dhu' ('this'll do') the Pinehurst, N.C. home of Mr. James Barber. It was a full 18 holes built on well drained sandy soil. The front and back nines were divided by walkways, a fountain and a summer house. The idea was developed from compacted sand putting, a pastime much favoured in golf crazy Pinehurst. (Popular Science Monthly, August, 1919)

The 'Tom Thumb' system of miniature golf was patented in 1927 and franchised all over North America. Its greens/fairways were formulated from a mixture of compressed cottonseed hulls, sand and green dye. (Ottawa Journal, July 16, 1960)

The Elgin Tom Thumb Miniature Golf course opened on July 16, 1930 in the rear and side yards of an old frame building at Elgin and Slater Streets. The parking lot on the right was the recent result of the first stages in the widening of Elgin Street.

Nearby was the Ottawa Amateur Athletic Association building at Laurier and Elgin (top-1889, F.J. Alexander Architect), demolished in the mid-1930s for a Champlain gas station. The tree-covered area behind the station was the site of the miniature course which had already closed by that time. (Photos: LAC)

A head on view of this block. The Elgin Tom Thumb was turned into a parking lot. By this point the land had fallen into the orbit of the federal government which would soon arrange for the construction of the Lord Elgin Hotel on these properties. (Photo: LAC)

The transformation of the site from ramshackle (but charming) buildings into the hotel is rather amazing. (Photo: LAC)

The first local Tom Thumb opened at Bank Street and Clemow Avenue. 'We never suspected that there were so many golfing enthusiasts in Ottawa. In 3 days over 3,000 have visited. And how they enjoyed this new and highly entertaining pastime. We supply clubs, balls, score pad and pencil. You don't need anything else.'(Ottawa Journal, June 18, 1930)

It was on a block of Bank Street shared with a service station. The station and pump island's hipped roofs are at the right. You've got to love those meticulously edged flower beds in Central Park.

Imperial Oil opened the station in September 1925. This photo was taken after the Clemow Tom Thumb was redeveloped. (Photo: Imperial Oil Archives IP-12-27a-6)

An unnamed miniature golf course and a baseball diamond were laid out on top of abandoned industrial land beside King Edward Avenue between York Street and the freshly opened George Street road allowance. This had previously been the location of a gas making plant.

The Ottawa Gas Works Company converted coal into coal gas. The site was dominated by three round gas holders. The circular outline of No. 3 and the foundations remaining from the purifying house can be clearly seen in the aerial photo. (MAP: Fire Insurance Plate, 1912.

Fire Hall No. 4 (Weeks and Keefer, 1910) stood close to hand.

The gas works definitely left a toxic brownfields legacy. The mini-golfers must have played on land that was still oozing coal tar - the residue of gas-making poured into the ground and left behind after the gas works was demolished and moved slightly further out of town to Lees Avenue. (Photo: LAC a012895)

During WW11 the Bank for Canada built their money counting building (1943, Marani and Morris Architects) on the old gas works site.

The less deluxe courses were built right on the dirt. The Maple Ridge Miniature Links were situated at the corner of Carling Avenue and Island Park Drive. Wally Smithers, the assistant pro at the Royal Ottawa Golf Club was in charge of the ball markers at the weekly putting match. Refreshments were available in their Log Lodge Coffee Shoppe. (Ottawa Journal, July 11, 1930)

The links were soon developed for some expensive houses and the landscaped traffic circle at the entrance to Island Park Drive was eventually buried under a multi-lane intersection.

On opening day the Standish's miniature course was covered with hundreds of golfing enthusiasts. Join the merry throng here tonight. (Ottawa Journal, July 29, 1930)

The Standish Hall Hotel, which had a bit of a racy reputation, had been created from the former E.B. Eddy house (Edgar Horwood, 1899) in Hull. (Photos: LAC a028224/e-002343711)

In the 1933 aerial photo there are wiggly lines and a few traps that suggest that the Standish Hall's miniature course may have been located in the walled area - or it may have been in the section at the lower left.

Further out on the Aylmer Road the Chaudiere Golf Club was building a nine-hole miniature course lit for night time play, embodying all the features of a regular course with a fountain. Here former Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden, an inveterate golfer is credited with importing the idea from the southern states. (Ottawa Journal, April 23, 1930)

It was noted at the 1930 annual meeting of the Ottawa Tennis and Bowling Association that a miniature golf course had been installed and that the 'members took a good deal of pleasure from it'. Because membership had dropped precipitously at the outset of the Depression the Cameron Avenue club was in financial straits, and would go bankrupt within a few years. This is a guess at the location - but it may have been directly in front of the clubhouse.

When Mrs. Allan Keefer applied to operate a miniature golf course at Lansdowne Park she was turned down by the City Solicitor, whose advice was countermanded by the Ottawa Board of Control. She was ordered to pay 10 percent of the gross receipts as rent. (Ottawa Journal, July 24, 1930)

Rooftop miniature golf was also popular. There were over 150 rooftop courses in New York City alone - but I haven't found any in Ottawa. This course which opened in 1930 was part of the Hanging Gardens at Selfridge's Department Store in Oxford Street.

Queen’s Hall on the northeast corner of Bank and Somerset Streets was built in the mid-1890s, home to ‘Dr. F.H. Norman’s Select Class in Dancing and Gymnastics - where no objectionable person is admitted’. They also offered fencing and bicycle-riding lessons. At every election the hall was filled for all-candidates’ debates. Prof. Stephen Leacock lectured on economics here. As it went downmarket the hall was briefly converted into a billiards room, and finally an indoor miniature golf course. After that it was remodelled into apartments. (Ottawa Journal, November 8, 1930)

Hard to believe that they could fit an indoor course into one of these buildings, but it was a small one - the Chateau Miniature Golf Course. 'One of the trickiest little courses you've ever seen, with all sorts of ingenious hazards' was in the basement of the Scottish Trust Chambers, where D'Arcy McGee's Pub is now. (Ottawa Journal, October 24, 1930)

The Imperial Miniature Golf Course appears to have been set up in an empty store beside the Imperial Theatre. They offered a driving net, archery and a competition for a Christmas turkey. After it was closed the space was turned into a used car sales room. (Ottawa Journal, December 13, 1930)

The building's been replaced, but this locale is still in the leisure activity business.

As the 1930 outdoor season came to a close Tom Thumb Golf of Ottawa announced the opening of its 18-hole indoor course on top of the Loblaws Groceteria at Bank Street and Carling Avenue. 'Miniature golf has taken such a hold on the public that it is unwilling to relinquish the fun and lose the skill acquired. Now you can play all winter under cover on this well heated, well ventilated miniature golf course. Numerous new hazards, attractive to the expert golfer as well as the starters. 18 Holes - 25 cents'(Ottawa Journal, October 29, 1930, Photo: CA AN-043820-008)

The history of Ottawa's apartment houses was written by their developers. In the pre-WW11 decades the field was dominated by a few rugged individuals. Through a myriad of land transactions and sharp deals they seized the opportunity to lure the middle class out of their houses into something that promised convenience and sophistication. Snear Miller came to the city in the early years of the twentieth century. Working as a bootmaker until the mid-1920s he first dabbled in real estate purchases until taking the plunge and becoming a developer of apartment buildings. Between 1928 and 1938 he built five of them.

After the construction of the Victoria Memorial Museum and its surrounding park the lower end of Elgin Street became a magnet for some of Ottawa's earliest apartment buildings: the Kenniston (1909); the Elgin and the Mackenzie (1910); the Warrington (1911); the Queen Mary and the Wallace (1912); and the Holbrook (1916) - all still standing. To this was added Snear Miller's Palace Court and Annex in 1928 (Cecil Burgess Architect).

Snear Miller emphasized this excellent location, which permitted the 'fortunate occupants of corner suites to have a charming outlook over the spacious and verdant grounds of the National Museum and National Art Gallery.'(Ottawa Journal, September 8, 1928)

Built at a reputed cost of $350,000 '...throughout the Court the equipment is remarkably complete, and it is doubtful if the most fastidious person could find one thing for which to ask.' In each kitchen 'a dumbwaiter, with call bell, permits delivery of parcels from below, thus obviating the trackage and disturbance of delivery at the door.'

Some of the contractors and suppliers. The Haley's Artificial Stone (manufactured at their Hurdman Road cement works) used at the entrances to both buildings promised dependable reliability. This proved to be untrue at the Court which has since had its door surround recast in recent years.

The Place Court (now called the Annedale) was designed in the pre-moderne era, when Adamesque details were still de rigeur.

'To a few people, appreciative of the refined and cultural atmosphere in the new 40 Apartments, we offer the remainder of the apartments. It will behoove those who are interested to enter their immediate reservations.'

Ornament was severely limited in Miller's next door building. Originally known as the Palace Court Annex, the present-day Royal Court Apartments is next door. It was constructed shortly after the Palace Court was completed. It is his only building without a date stone, so the cartouche in the main building has to cover both.

Miller's next apartment would be his only building project outside of Centretown. 'Embodying every convenience demanded in the home of today, the new Lucerne Apartments is one of the latest additions to the modern apartment houses in Ottawa.' Because there were only four units per floor every suite was unusually spacious (two bedrooms, some with separate dressing rooms). Each room opened off a large foyer. French doors led to the living room, an archway to the dining room and a swinging door to the kitchen.

The Lucerne (Cecil Burgess, Architect), 'a fireproof building of cream with stone trimming in a dignified architectural style' used the same buff-coloured Milton brick as the Place Court and Annex. Wiring was laid on for radio reception in every room, and there was indoor parking for 12 cars.

Like all of Miler's full-page Saturday advertisements in the dailies the Lucerne's promotion was sponsored by an array of the city's contractors and suppliers. The copy-writers made a virtue out of every ordinary detail. 'Nothing has been omitted that will simplify the work of the homemaker' ...ovens had regulators, ironing boards were built in, and the laundry tub and sink were set at 'the proper working height.'

The Val Cartier apartments at 61 Cartier Street was Snear Miller's first foray into the incised geometric forms of the Art Deco, a style that would mark all of his future apartments houses. It looks a little bit like a circuit board.

Miller acquired a building lot at the southeast corner of Cartier and Somerset Streets in early 1931. As the Ottawa Journal put it when announcing his plans for the Val Cartier, 'Some years ago there was a proposition to erect a high-class apartment on the corner, but the plans fell through after excavation had been started.' Those abandoned plans were for 'The Abancourt' an eight-story apartment to be erected in 1926 by a Montreal concern, likely named for one of the towns captured by Canadian forces in the Battle of Cambrai during WW1. (Ottawa Journal, August 14, 1926 and March 27, 1931)

Also designed by Cecil Burgess, it was a relatively plain H-shape with few additional deco details apart from the front door surround. This was his fourth and final Burgess-designed building.

The Val Cartier's incised door handles and art glass transom.

The forbidding Protestant Orphans' Home filled a large lot on the west side of Elgin between Cooper and Lisgar Streets between 1888 and 1930, when it moved to Carling Avenue. In 1935 Miller's fellow developer, the scrap dealer Louis Baker the bought the land and resold it for development.

Snear Miller picked up the rear portion for a pair of apartment buildings - The Manhattan on Cooper Street (1) and the Royal York on Lisgar Street (2). In 1937 the Elgin Theatre (3) was built part of the Elgin frontage, adjoining a two-storey commercial-residential row (4).

The Royal York was completed around September 20, 1935. Its 24 relatively large apartments were augmented by a suite of maids' rooms in the basement for those tenants with live-in help.

The usual lineup of contractors and consultants. As a signing bonus Snear Miller was ready to help with your moving costs. 'In building the "Royal York" and the "Manhattan" I have endeavoured to provide Ottawa with all that is best and finest in Apartment House Comfort and convenience. If you desire to lease a Manhattan Apartment from November 1, the problem of storage and cartage may have to be solved. I shall be glad to talk it over with you and offer assistance.' - S. Miller

The Royal York is one square block with light court slits let in to the two sides. It retains its original balconies, although the balusters have been replaced with ones that conform to modern building code height. A cinderblock garage linked it with the fraternal-twin apartment building to the rear.

The Manhattan was a larger E-shape. 'As is invariably the case in Mr. Miller's undertakings both blocks of the building are the last word in exterior and interior design and finish - the exteriors following the plain but massive style, now so much in vogue, while the balconies for each suite, the doorways and windows are "neo-modenistic" and, while decidedly distinctive, are notable for good taste and dignity.'(Ottawa Journal, September 12, 1935)

'Both buildings are a notable additon to the ever-growing list of Apartment houses in Ottawa.' They were designed by the prolific W.E. Noffke, who competed with Cecil Burgess for the apartment house trade.

The Royal York and Manhattan's stepped pyramidal transom windows over the front doors are especially strong. Like the date stone on top of his buildings, an internally lit canopy with downspouts was another Miller signature.

The pyramidal motif continues inside on the transom lights over the doors in the apartment buildings vestibule Raised and marquetry chevrons were applied to the door lintels.

Great gold leaf lettering at the steel and marble tread staircase with brass handrail. The hallways were finished with encaustic tiles.

Here's a tour of one of the Manhattan's tiny bachelor apartments. The double-door cupboard was equipped with a fold down Murphy bed and the front door is padded for sound.

The apartment's one room is separated from the entrance hall by this double pointed archway.

This unit happens to be in untouched original condition. The kitchen (before the days of fitted cabinets and countertops) still has its generously proportioned footed porcelain sink. The deeper basin was intended for laundry.

Still gleaming bathroom fixtures - pedestal sink, water closet and tub, with pearlescent subway tile walls and hex tile floor.

Moulded glass door knobs on brass escutcheon plates, frosted wall sconce, and the original intercom system (missing its earpiece) - the top button was calling the superintendents, the bottom one for answering the front door.

The floor to ceiling kitchen cupboard with a dentil trim and carefully detailed door panels.

Fold down table and built in ironing board cupboard.

The unit's electric fireplace and chandelier (matching the room's four wall sconces).

It's at the apex of 1930s design.

Symmetry, Symmetry, Symmetry.

The Kincora at MacLaren and Cartier Streets (1938, Walter C. Sylvester Architect) was Miller's final apartment building project. It followed the standard format, most of the ornamentation is focused on the front door entrance which was deco-inspired embellished with tendrils.

The forty apartments where 'convenience, modernity, and comfort have been happily combined' ranged in size from small studio units to large two-bedroom suites. The Kincora was wired for radio reception and included a heated garage and a built-in garbage incinerator. 'The outside metal covered stairway will be appreciated by tenants who wish to use the roof to hang laundry out to the air.'(Ottawa Citizen, September 10, 1930)

'Within easy walking distance from the centre of the city, and located in an area noted for its beautiful large trees and quiet coolness', it had been constructed in record time. On April 30, 1938 Miller announced that he had purchased the lot from the estate of W.H. McAuliffe. A building permit for the new $100,000 apartment house was issued on June 8, 1938 and it was ready for occupancy as of September 10, 1938.

Sunburst terrazzo flooring in the vestibule and a snappy handrail on the front steps. 'The apartment rentals, ranging from $35 to $75 a month, will appeal to a wide range of budgets, and are extremely reasonable in view of the convenience and beauty of the Kincora, and its quick accessibility from the heart of downtown.'

A brilliant little building - one of the best from the late 1960s - is about about to be demolished. Its removal from Ottawa's slender stock of outstanding mid-century architecture needs to be noted. The Canadian Medical Association headquarters at 1867 Alta Vista Drive, officially known as CMA House will be vacated by July 1st, ready to be torn down and replaced with a much bigger structure. The new design has yet to be disclosed.

For this post I am indebted to Jean Leroux for sharing his extensive research and recent photographs of CMA House. This is the forecourt of the Canadian Medical Association's building.

It's an exercise in solid masonry walls playing against expanses of glass and steel. The carefully selected materials, Canadian granite and Cor-Ten steel are exceptionally well detailed. This low slung building is equally suave and brawny. (Drawing: CMAJ, November 1968)

The oxidized patina of Cor-Ten steel is actually a protective outer layer produced by a recipe of alloys that inhibits ongoing rusting once the weathering has taken effect. The CMA building was one of the first in Ottawa to use it so extensively, and the material raised a lot of questions from onlookers who wondered when they were going to paint it. (Photo: John Leroux)

Before moving to Ottawa the Association was housed in much more traditional quarters, this small Georgian Revival building on St. George Street in Toronto.

The relocation was not without controversy. By a vote of 7 to 2 the CMA's provincial divisions had already decided to remain in Toronto, but on July 10, 1967 this vote was reversed by an overwhelming majority of the general council. It was suggested that an open competition of Canadian architects be considered for the new building in Ottawa, a city where the doctors would be able to press their interests in the ongoing Medicare rollout. (Ottawa Journal, July 12, 1967)

In fact, plans had already been prepared for a new tower rising behind Toronto's Georgian structure. Given the current circumstances, it seems ironic that fifty years ago they were prepared to preserve their historic building. After making the decision to move to Ottawa they sold it to the University of Toronto.

Within the year a finished design for the new CMA headquarters in Ottawa was ready to go.

Using the services of Duncan Green as architectural consultant the Association hired the Toronto firm Webb Zerafa Menkes Housden, a successor to the late Peter Dickinson Associates. Boris Zerafa (seated top left) was the lead architect for the CMA House building. At the time WZMH was in the midst a major project in Ottawa - the Department of External Affairs on Sussex Drive. (CMAJ, June 1968)

CMA House was divided into three distinct sections - the 'non-expandable' executive area on the left, general office space with potential for expansion on the right, and the entrance foyer in between. Dotted lines seen on the site plan drawing in the previous photos indicate the footprint of a future extension. (Photo: CMA Archives)

The glazed link that united the two halves was called a 'see-through building bridge'. (Photo: CMAJ, August 1969)

'The new C.M.A. House reflects the basic outlook of the association, a balance between respect for tradition and a strong emphasis on the future.' At the opening ceremonies on October 2, 1970 Dr. D.A. Graham, the oldest living past president of the association officiated by cutting the ribbon with a scalpel. (Canada's Health and Welfare, Jan-Feb 1971)

Completion of the CMA building was almost a year behind schedule. The design had to be approved by the National Capital Commission and the City of Ottawa's Building Appearance Committee. There was an Ontario Municipal Board Hearing. A wildcat workers' demonstration on the day of cornerstone laying was an ominous signal. Strikes continually shut down construction. (Ottawa Journal, September 21, 1968)

There are obvious sources of inspiration for Zerafa's design. (Photo: John Leroux)

The Ford Foundation building in New York by Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo had just been completed and in its time was extremely influential.

The Canadian Medical Association building as it exists today, with an addition known as 'The Pod' attached at the rear. Maintaining the natural setting, nestled against a wooded stream course was especially important to the architects, and surface parking was meant to be screened from Alta Vista Drive by a landscaped berm.

The CMA's butterfly shape divided the plan into two functions. What was called the 'Solid Block' (because it was mostly concrete block clad in granite) was intended for official uses, like the national meetings of its board and committees. On the ground floor it contained the library, dining room and lounge with doors to a terrace. Offices for the CMA Journal were in the other wing.

The open railings of Zerafa's muscular staircase have been tamed with with glass safety panels. Prior to construction donations were sought from the CMA's doctors to pay for the extra finishings and furnishings. Contributions could be targeted to specific areas and the donation 'be it large or small, will be most gratefully received and acknowledged in the Honour Book to be displayed in the Archives area.' (Photos: John Leroux and CMAJ, October 1970)

The CMA's executive quarters (board and committee rooms) were located on the second floor of the solid block, joined to the secretarial pool by an executive offices link with an open bridge over the foyer below.

A 1968 mock-up for the office furnishings for the President of the Canadian Medical Association, and only one ashtray in sight. (CMAJ, November 1968)

'BOARD ROOM - The "cabinet room" of C.M.A. House will seat 40 at the main conference table. With adjoining committee rooms, it will provide facilities for 30 C.M.A. committees and affiliated medical speciality bodies to study the problems of twentieth-century medicine and establish the policies for organized medicine in Canada.' For the record it was in 1880 that the first women in Canada (Emily Stowe and Jenny Kidd Trout) were licenced as doctors. (CMAJ, November 1968)

The CMA board room's very long light fixture was taken down and thrown out some years ago, but presumably their ceremonial mace is still in use and the many ashtrays removed. (CMAJ October 1970)

The exposed channel posts and cowled housing form an exoskeleton that screens window walls. Their irregularly spaced mullions set up a further layer of rhythms. The Cor-Ten has done its job and weathered into a variety of rich rusty hues. In this city of so much precast concrete it is a pleasure to see steel handled with such finesse. (Photo: John Leroux)

It's both gutsy and highly refined. (Photo: John Leroux)

The section of Alta Vista Drive north of Smyth Road had been set aside for institutional buildings in fulfillment of the Gréber Plan's goal of decentralizing offices away from the downtown. The land had been in federal ownership for many years. On the left you can see rows of vegetation - lines of trees and shrubbery in the Federal District Commission nursery. To the right are the cottages of the Rideau Veterans' Home, and foundations going in for a large military facility. (geoOttawa)

The location of the 'Tri-Services Hospital' (now the National Defense Medical Centre) may have prompted the federal government to dedicate the area to medicine-related institutions.

The land was ready for redevelopment with the completion of the road approaches to the Smyth Road Bridge. In 1968 the NCC sold three acres to the Canadian Medical Association for $75,000. While awaiting their new building some of the CMA staff were temporarily lodged in the National Defense Medical Centre. (geoOttawa)

At the cornerstone laying ceremony the CMA President had said that the association was extremely aware that its new headquarters would be located near one of the capital city's most desirable residential districts. 'A major criterion for the design of the building has been that it must be in keeping with and add to, not detract from, the residential atmosphere of the area. We are very conscious of our responsibilities to the National Capital Commission and our future neighbours.' By 1991 there was just one building site left at the northwest corner of Alta Vista and Smyth, eventually built on by another CMA enterprise. (geoOttawa)

The four storey 'Pod', an elongated hexagon fitted into the open wings of the 1968 building was added in 1993. Its taught reflective glass walls must have been chosen to act as a foil to the CMA's dense steel shell. (Photo: John Leroux)

Whether it is a jarring competition or a successful contrast with the older building is a matter of taste. The addition does occupy a large portion of the garden setting that was an essential element in the original site plan. (Photo: John Leroux)

In spite of its rugged exterior steel walls the wide expanses of window took 'full advantage of the surrounding National Capital Commission nursery gardens, well-treed lot and natural watercourse.'(Photo: CMAJ, November 1968)

The glass link to the pod expresses this desire for transparency and views into the landscape. (Photo: John Leroux)

The institutional and association headquarters buildings that followed the CMA onto this section of Alta Vista failed to live up to its high architectural standards. Here courtesy of Goggle Streetview are its neighbours.

The Canadian Medical Association will always be Number 1.

Number 2 in chronological order of construction is the Conference Board of Canada's arched brick box. It has always reminded me of a mosque without a minaret.

The CMA's other immediate neighbour is the Canadian Dental Association's headquarters (Number 3), about as much fun as going to the...

If you need painkillers there is the Canadian Pharmacists' Association - Number 4.

For fresh blood there is Eberhard Zeidler's bizarre campus of buildings designed for the Canadian Red Cross Society - now the Canadian Blood Service - Number 5.

Last in on Alta Vista Drive was the MD Financial Services building - a part of the Canadian Medical Association's family of companies set up for its member doctors' private wealth management. The thin brown stripe along the top of the two storey bump-out is a strip of Cor-Ten steel - a weak nod to the mothership across the street.

In a recently published article by Barbara Sibbald (News and Humanities Editor at the Canadian Medical Association Journal) about the decision to demolish the building, the CMA's Chief Executive Officer said that they might consider salvaging some of the old building's features for re-use in the new headquarters. A well intentioned gesture, but for modern architectural heritage - unfortunately too little, too late.

This is one of those fiendishly complicated histories about a row of buildings that most of us have never seen, how they disappeared, and the big bland monument that replaced them. Pictured here are Nos. 187-189-191-193-195 Sparks Street, a five door commercial block with offices and public rooms above. The building's construction was announced in the fall of 1895: 'NEW STORE IN SIGHT. Sparks st. to get a Handsome Addition Soon. Messrs. George L. Orme and A.J. Stephens and Messrs. Nicholas Slater and Major Sherwood are about the erect a row of stores on Sparks street. No details are yet arranged as to the style of the buildings, but they propose to make it one of the most handsome rows in the city.'(Ottawa Journal, October 30, 1895)

Orme and Son was the most notable name in the list of the building's backers. They were associated with the Martin Orme Co. - local manufactures of pianos, the authorized dealers for three major Canadian piano makers and retailed all manner of musical instruments, some made under their own name. (Ottawa City Diretcories 1896 and 1897)

Contracts for the Orme's portion of new building, which they shared with the A.J. Stephens' shoe store were awarded on February 21, 1896. The architects were King Arnoldi and his junior partner J. Albert Ewart. Taken all together the building had 146 feet of frontage on Sparks Street constructed of Don Valley pressed brick and Nova Scotia sandstone trimmings. The four storey facade was 'very ornamental in appearance, and will be surmounted by two towers that will rise 96 feet above the sidewalk.' To illustrate their opening advertisement J.L. Orme and Son zeroed in on the eastern half of the row. (Ottawa Journal, December 5, 1896)

The interior of Orme's music store in 1897 (top) and their delivery wagon in 1899. (Photos: LAC a027906 and a028092)

As their music business prospered Orme's added the Orme Concert Hall on Wellington Street (1899, F.J. Alexander Architect) to the rear of their Sparks Street establishment. Orme Hall had a seating capacity of about 800 and was 'modernly equipped throughout'. The Rolla Crain Printing Company presses were in the basement and the upper floor used by the Ottawa Business College. (Drawing: Ottawa Journal, July 30, 1900; Photo: LAC a042314)

Orme's music store was visited by disaster on November 20, 1902. 'A fire which started about five o'clock in a box of waste paper in the basement of the J.L.Orme and Son, music dealers, 189 Sparks stret [sic] last evening, leaped up the elevator shaft and spread with such rapidity that despite herculean efforts by the firemen, the whole building was practically gutted. The fire however was confined to the one building.' Within days Orme's was offering a salvage sale from their temporary location... 'Messrs. Orme and Son have secured the Liggett building and will resume business with as little delay as possible. The structure will also be rebuilt at once. Although the wood work is consumed, the main walls and girders are little injured and the work of rebuilding should not be a serious undertaking.' (Ottawa Journal, November 21, 1902; November 26, 1902)

They re-opened in newly rebuilt premises five months after the fire. Architects Arnoldi and Ewart took the opportunity to add a fifth floor on top of the old building's 'little injured' walls, which eliminated one of the turrets. (Drawing: Ottawa Journal, April 23, 1903)

The 1896 building had been designed in a version of the Romanesque Revival style, with the taller arch and spandrel bays punctuated by projecting bay windows. This style had become less fashionable by the time of the 1903 addition, which was more severely classical in nature. (Photo: LAC a042372)

In an 'immense Million Dollar merger' C.W. Lindsay became the successors to Orme and Son on December 1, 1909. Through this deal Orme's closed its St. Catherine St. business in Montreal, and Lindsay moved its Ottawa operations into the Orme's store at 189 Sparks Street. 'It is simply a move to eliminate the competition and cut down expenses' said Mr. C.W. Lindsay in an interview with the Ottawa Journal on November 20, 1909. 'By the present consolidation we shall be able to close two expensive stores in Montreal and Ottawa, and have the work done by one staff instead of two.' (Photo: LAC 042799)

The building at 187 Sparks Street that is now called Stephens Block (named for the shoe store) is a piece of the 1896 Arnoldi and Ewart design that has survived redevelopment. In 1982 its restoration was recognized by a City of Ottawa Heritage Conservation Award.

The extraordinary length of the building and the narrowness of Sparks Street has meant that it has been impossible to photograph the row head on, and it only appears in oblique views.

Looking west down Sparks Street past Bank from the top of the Booth Building the commercial block's three distinctive roof features - conical, pyramidal and flat-topped line up against Sun Life Insurance's dome and 'Mercury' weathervane.

Over the years it was variously called the Sherwood-Slater Block, the Orme-Slater Block, and the Sparks Chambers. (Photo: LAC a042687)

At some point the fifth floor was continued westward along the entire length and the remaining roof turrets vanished. Over time it came to be known simply as the 'Sparks Building'. To the left is the first phase of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Canadian Head Office, a building that would play a major role in the demise of this historic row. (Photo: CA035099-W)

A now-and-then comparison of the same location and Met's final build out, about which much is to be said later on in this post.

In 1925 a row of Sparks Street's Confederation-era stone buildings (picked up in a 1923 etching by David Milne while he was living in one of them) was cleared away for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's Canadian Head Office. The excavation exposed the side wall of the Sparks Building and the evidence of its fifth floor addition.

It would be a temple in both design and mission. 'While it is a monument symbolizing wealth, power, and responsibility, it is at the same time a "Temple of Health" recalling national humanitarian effort towards the betterment of social and health conditions in every Canadian community. Such are the moral and sentimental ideals attached to the new Canadian Metropolitan building.' In addition to the latest in automated file management and mail handling systems, the building included a hospital for employees, an ice-making plant, rooftop tennis courts, shower baths, three dining rooms, an immense cafeteria and a concert hall equipped with a Steinway grand supplied by C.W. Lindsay's. (Ottawa Journal, March 25, 1927)

When he first disclosed the Metropolitan Life's plans to open their Canadian head office in Ottawa Archibald Fiske (son of the President, Haley Fiske) promised that 'the edifice was going to conform with the Houses of Parliament. This did not necessarily mean that the Gothic style of architecture would be followed.'(Ottawa Journal, March 27, 1924)

Instead, Fiske suggested that the inspiration for the Ottawa building would likely come from the company's Pacific Coast Headquarters in San Fransisco (now the Ritz Carlton Hotel), begun in 1909 by Napoleon LeBrun and Sons Architects. It had been designed as a Greek temple flanked by rows of columns. For their Canadian head office Met Life omitted San Fransisco's temple front.

When the Wellington Street building was erected Dan Everett Waid was Metropolitan Life's house architect. A newly carved granite marker stone bearing his name (and local associate J. Albert Ewart) replacing the old one which had worn away, has been reinserted in the southwest corner of the building as part of the recent renovation. The cornerstone on the northwest commemorating the dedication of the building, laid by Metropolitan Life president Haley Fiske on November 4, 1925 was removed many years ago and never replaced.

Many of Sparks Street's storefronts on were modernized in the 1940s with chrome and vitrolite. Eventually the insurance company's presence on Sparks would extend to the dividing point between the Lindsay furniture store and Dover's Hardware.

Lindsay's was absorbed by Montreal's Woodhouse furniture store chain in the 1940s and continued doing business at 189 Sparks Street until moving to Rideau and Waller in 1960. This section of the building would be the last to go as the Met steadily expanded.

After the merger a breakaway company was formed under the name of Charles Lindsay and Son Ltd, opening at 286 Bank Street near Somerset in 1950 (where the Radio Shack/Source is now) and this 1960 advertisement includes a drawing of their former Sparks Street store. They later moved across Bank Street into the ground floor of the Imperial Building at 255 Cooper Street, and ended their days by returning to their origins and specializing in pianos. (Photo: Ottawa Journal, April 26, 1960)

Meanwhile, big things were brewing on the site of the former Orme's Hall which in 1952 had been bought by bakery magnate Garfield Weston for a modern 10-storey curtain wall office tower to be named after himself (Abra and Balharrie Architects, 1953). The Weston Building challenged the maximum building heights for Wellington Street opposite Parliament Hill decreed by the Gréber plans of 1938 and 1950. This had been established with a ceiling set by the cornice line of the Metropolitan Life Insurance building. Both the City of Ottawa and the Federal District Commission acted swiftly to halt Weston's project. (Ottawa Journal, October 5, 1953; Drawing - 'Wellington Street Building Control', National Capital Plan General Report, 1950))

Under the threat of expropriation by the FDC the Weston Building found a home elsewhere and the property was made available to Metropolitan Life for its expansion. It was a multi-phased project begun in 1956 with a one and a half-storey addition to the 1926 building, followed by additions along Wellington and Sparks Streets. Unlike the Met's mighty classicism of thirty years earlier the additions (Marani and Morris) were a dreary exercise in timidity. So much so that Ottawa's Board of Control held up the building permit, demanding a repetition of the Corinthian columns by requiring 'that the facade of the new addition conform exactly in architectural design with that of the existing structure.'(Ottawa Journal, September 18, 1956). Ottawa's request for columns was turned down by the Federal District Commission.

The Sparks Street section of the addition was built on the site of the Sherwood-Slater/Orme-Slater/Sparks Chambers building. Its elevation mirrored the elements of the Wellington Street side, with a row a flat spandrel decorations that mimicked the Met's original cornice line by extending it across the addition's eight window bays. (Drawing: Ottawa Journal, July 6, 1961)

But the Met wasn't quite finished with its Sparks Street extensions. Midway through construction they acquired an additional property - the Ormes/Lindsay building. With this they were able to add another three bays and meet up with the Stephenson Block.

The staging can be seen in these two construction shots - the completed building frame for the first section in the photo on the right, and the frame's full frontage on the left. (Photo: CA AN-NP-006626A-05; Ottawa Citizen, 1960)

Back in 1925 Fiske had promised commercial store fronts along both Bank and Sparks, but the Bank Street stores were omitted. The 1960 extension added more retail units at street level.

The half-billion dollar rehabilitation of the Wellington Building was carried out by NORR Ltd. It will provide 69 parliamentary suites, 10 committee rooms and swing space while the Centre Block is closed for renovations.

One of the worst aspects of the Met's 1957-60 renovation and addition was the removal of the bronze window frames in the original building. They were replaced with aluminum frames to match the modern wing.

The rehabilitation has restored the original windows in the 1926 section, and redesigned the addition's windows from their aluminum six-light casement effect to a four-light window in an innocuous taupe finish, with extra moulding details. This I think is the only misstep. Here it might have been more respectful to keep the 1960 mullion divisions.

Three separate land transactions were required for the expansion project. In order of acquisition dates they were (3) the Orme Hall; (2) the Sparks Building; (1) Lindsay's. The Met's original rooftop tennis courts can be seen in the upper left side of this 1933 aerial view.

The 2010-16 renovation has recreated a central light court on the top floor.

Looks like the new Wellington Building is going to have some very snazzy spaces. A bank of high-speed escalators rising through the full height of the building was the primary means of vertical circulation in the 1959 Sparks Street addition

For its era the Marani and Morris addition was seriously out of step with the times - the dawn of the 1960s. They fussed up the facade with thinly moulded panel decorations, neither modernist nor historicist, in a weak effort to lend the building some importance.

Cleaned up, the best that can be said is that it's a nice expanse of Indiana limestone laid in ever so slightly different course widths resulting in a set of faint vertical stripes that further distinguished it from the older section.

In 1973 the Government of Canada expropriated the Met Life building for future parliamentary accommodation and renamed it the Wellington Building. Viewed side-by-side the former Met's two halves (seen here in 2011, a year into what must be one of Ottawa's longest-running construction projects) clearly demonstrate that their extension, while efficient on the inside, was awkward, dismal...

and failed to live up to the power and monumentality generated by its 1920s head office. (Ottawa Citizen, March 25, 1927)

The glass and steel canopy escaped the Met's modern renovations, but it was removed by the federal government in the mid-1970s - likely for safety reasons. (Photo: EVOQ)

And it's back - bigger and better than ever. Restoration of the building's historic elements (including the canopy) was supervised EVOQ, Montreal heritage conservation architects.

To mark the upcoming publication of its book on the history of Ottawa's apartment buildings Heritage Ottawa kicks off its 2016-17 lecture series with an illustrated talk that surveys the development of post WWII apartments from the ubiquitous 6-plex, to the modernist towers of the 60s and the brutalist bulk of the 70s. The book in preparation will also document the emergence of the city's earliest apartment buildings and the boom of the 1920s and 1930s. It includes sections by Shannon Ricketts (the W.E. Noffke specialist), Mary McGregor who examines the controversy surrounding the first apartment buildings, Jane McGill, Christopher Ryan - chronicler-extraordinaire of the city's multifarious developers, architecture professor Susan Ross of Carleton University who launched the project with a wide-ranging survey of apartments in Ottawa, and the me (Robert Smythe) filling in the 1945-75 period. For full details on Heritage Ottawa's lecture series you can consult their website after Labour Day.

William Teron's Park Square at 151 Bay Street will be one of the Heritage Ottawa book's featured apartment buildings. It was the last project in a 20 year span that began with a small independent contracting business offering both custom-built and spec homes and design services, founded a new satellite town, and developed innovative offices, commercial projects and residential complexes. While there is no stylistic through-line in Teron's body of work it was often boundary-pushing and he made high caliber architecture into a marketing device that became his corporate trademark. (Photo: Google Street View)

Park Square (seen here outlined in white for a 1976 promotional postcard) with its sister buildings the Inn of the Provinces and the 350 Sparks Street offices was calculated to be a direct rebuke to the towers of Robert Campeau's Place de Ville. A project of Urbanetics, William Teron's final business phase, it was the first in Ottawa to use wind tunnel studies to anticipate the effects of downdrafts and use the analysis to model the buildings' shapes. The resulting design was a 'brown-brick brutalism' that softened the raw concrete edges normally associated with that style. It's the culmination of Teron's late period (although he was still only in his forties) earth tone buildings. A decade earlier he had been an all black-and-white modernist and before getting to a more detailed look at 151 Bay Street here's a brief survey of the Bill Teron style of the 1960s.

In 1960 Teron Construction Ltd. announced that it out soon be developing three new office buildings - an 11-story office at 251 Laurier Avenue West, a smaller version on Argyle Avenue near O'Connor, and the Ottawa offices of IBM at 150 Laurier Avenue West which would be designed by one of the city's young-gun modernist firms, Schoeler and Barkham. Architecturally it would be the boldest and the best of William Teron's office development ventures - until its glazed white brick side walls and finely proportioned overhanging wall of glass, which like so many minimalist moderns was under engineered and leaky, got covered up with something more practical but less elegant.

With most of the building pre-leased to the Bell Telephone Company of Canada, the office was completed within a year. It would also be the location of Teron's offices for many years until he moved out to Kanata. (Ottawa Journal, November 23, 1963 and November 17, 1961)

The building was reskinned in midnight blue, save a few bays at the rear which show some of the remaining 60-foot precast concrete I-channel piers which were hung from the frame. Fascinated by prefabrication Teron used the same technique in two of his other early 1960s office buildings, much later in his condo development on the former Morrison Lamothe bakery site at 111 Echo Drive, and pushed for its use at Somerset Gardens Multifaith Housing project at 138 Somerset Street W - where the precast system was abandoned due to cost. (Photo: Images of Centretown)

It was built quickly became there were no deep foundation slabs or underground garage. For a discussion of this phase of William Teron's career and more of Ted Grant's construction progress shots see Christopher Ryan's It's All Looking Up For Bill Teron. The eastern side wall remains unclad with a new skin.

On Teron's 5 story office at 219 Argyle Avenue the prefab concrete fins and glass spandrels are still in their original state. A specific architectural attribution for most of Bill Teron's buildings is hard to pin down. He came to Ottawa from Winnipeg in 1951 to work in the Architectural Services section of the Department of Transport's Aviation Branch and then became the chief designer for the C.A. Johannson construction company, leaving in 1955 to start his own business. Although he must have had a direct hand in the design of his buildings he was not a registered architect. (Photo: Google Street View 2015)

The Ottawa Journal (January 27, 1962) reported that a second smaller office on Argyle was being added to the Teron package. No prefabricated elements here but its crisp geometric details and white brick suggests that it might have been designed by the IBM building's architects, Schoeler and Barkham. It was built for the law offices of Dennis Coolican, who later became the Regional Municipality of Ottawa Carleton's first Chair. A few years ago 237 Argyle Avenue was reclad in grey stucco, which took the little building back to the 1950s. (Photos: Google Street View 2009 and 2016)

The third in the precast series was a 5 story office on the northwest corner of Nepean and Elgin Streets, which Teron named for himself. It was demolished just a few years later for Place Bell Canada. (Photo: CA022899)

William Teron's final black-and-white office, announced in the Ottawa Journal on February 25, 1964 was 170 Metcalfe Street, where doubled white brick piers stand in for the precast units and a wider bay length allows for greater expanses of curtain wall.

His modernist period had been interrupted by something unexpected, and Japanese inspired. The Talisman Motor Inn was jointly developed with Harold Shenkman, the long-time apartment building developer. They had visited Japan in 1960 and came back determined to build something with an Oriental motif. When the project was unveiled in 1962 Teron promised that 'It will be startlingly different'. (Ottawa Journal, July 11, 1963)

The Talisman's U-shape enclosed a specially designed Japanese garden, and included banqueting and connection facilities. The redwood siding and cedar shake roof were nods in Japan's direction. (Photos: CardCow and delcampe postcards)

William Teron's dream for Kanata was a self-contained satellite community, with carefully regulated residential areas to be based somewhat on the palette of materials and colours used at the Talisman. For the employment and industry a commercial town centre was to be mixture of modernist blocks. (Ottawa Journal, November 27, 1964)

That would be many years in the making, if it ever really happened. But by the time of Kanata's first tall building, the Varley Apartments (1968-69) the Teron corporate style had developed in Brutalist directions.

In 1972 this stepped-back brick tower was added to the Talisman Motor Inn, a hint at what was to come. (Photo: Google Street View)

The newly-formed Urbanetics development company has just completed the Carleton Towers hotel on Albert Street. Projecting parapet walls divide the principal elevation. At the corner they inserted an indoor 'sidewalk cafe', which quickly became the location for power lunches and after-work drinks.

It was sold to the Sheraton chain a few years later, and they gussied up the street level with canopy signs.

At some point during construction (too late to include an additional elevator stop) Urbanetics had decided to add a penthouse floor for their corporate headquarters - a glazed pavilion with sloping glass walls accessed by a circular staircase. They considered a roof garden but this never materialized It was from this aerie that Teron and his partners conducted their business, and developed the designs for the Inn of the Provinces and the Park Square. (Photo: Bing Maps Birdseye)

It also had an ample bar. The location and its view were satirized by the Ottawa Journal's 'Dow' in a cartoon. It's now used as the hotel's health club and can be rented for receptions.The once spectacular view has been mostly blocked by the World Exchange buildings. (Drawing: Ottawa Journal, August 10, 1972)

Some of Park Square's design elements are to be found at Urbanetic's preceding project, the condominium apartment at 300 Driveway which backs onto Paterson's Creek.

'Still More High-Rises for Ottawa - A 16 storey, 200-unit apartment-hotel will rise this summer on the block bounded by Queen, Lyon, Bay and Sparks Streets. Owned by Urbanetics Ltd. and to be erected by Teron Construction, the building carries a price tag of $3,231,000. Later, Teron Construction will build an 11-storey office tower adjacent to the apartment-hotel.' Above: the completed apartment, hotel, and office complex. In 1976 Urbanetics sold the Inn of the Provinces to Delta Hotels of Boston, which added a plainer double-loaded floor wing along Bay Street. (Ottawa Journal, March 9, 1974)

A precedent for brown-brick brutalism is to found at the Worlds End housing estate in London's Chelsea area. It was designed by London County Council architect Eric Lyons in 1969-73. There is no documentary evidence that this was a direct inspiration for Urbanetic's design, but there are many similarities.

The Inn of the Provinces was a saw-toothed tower of studios and one-bedrooms that were aimed at the business crowd, lobbyists, and Parliamentarians needing short term rentals. Each unit had a kitchen, seating area, and a work nook. After being purchased by the Morguard development company it operated briefly as the National hotel. The building is now empty and awaiting demolition for two very bland boxes.

The riot of angles continued inside - a diagonal through-block lobby with atrium and many 45-degree walls throughout. Chocolate brown brick screams '70s-Baby! and its passing has gone virtually unnoticed by preservationists and nostalgiacists.

Some places (like the Borough of Chelsea) still love their 1970s architecture, or it has come to be appreciated in a new light. Originally seen as a monstrosity the jarring chaos of Lyon's housing estate has mellowed over time.

Many of the Worlds End apartment tower blocks contained only four flats per floor, in a distinctive butterfly shaped floor plate.

The same pattern is evident at 151 Bay Street, although its wing span is much greater.

Initially the sales were disappointing. The marketing had focused on Park Square's uptown location, close to the excitement of the Sparks Street Mall. A year later the advertising campaign was revised under Teron's personal direction and played up the building's unique character. 'We've added new life and vigour to interior designs. The suites are spacious and interesting - a welcome departure from the usual rectangular box.'

After Park Square's re-launch (and an increase in the base price) Teron stressed the building's quality materials. Aside from the $2 doorknobs it featured cedar window sashes with draft-reducing ducts, flush-fitting door frames, easy-to-clean curved corners in the shower and 'the open weave hall carpets which actually clean dirty feet'. (Advertisement: July 2, 1977)

Despite its irregularity the symmetrical organization of brick silo towers and bands of balconies brings the whole energetic mass under control. The eccentricity is functional, serving views with varying orientations and sheltering the outdoor spaces. (That's a very grandiloquent way of saying that Urbanetics put a lot of thought into their building.)

The south wall of Park Square's Queen Street wing is virtually windowless, allowing for future development of the rest of the block.

The two and three-bedroom layouts all contain diagonal walls. ‘Our floor plans are not “typical”. Most apartments are boxes. Every wall at 90 degrees to the next… boring! This you can take for awhile when you are renting. But consider how you would feel owning one. We considered this when we designed Park Square. That’s why in our apartments certain accent walls are set at angles different to the norm. They create a visual intrigue and an individuality which your “typical” apartments quite honestly do not have.’

The Park Square's balcony walls, originally an exposed aggregate of beige stones in tinted concrete, have been rebuilt or patched and painted over in shell pink. Many were fitted out with sliding lattice panels. One can be seen five floors from the top.

Each unit is defined by a projecting brick prow partially enclosing the uniquely shaped apartment balconies, a departure from the standard slab building.

A better local example of 1970s design would be hard to find. The building’s Z-shape with saw-toothed edges generates a lively zig-zag rhythm of brick, glazing, and concrete. At grade this was repeated in a continuous planter around the base, which has since been removed and replaced with a plain wall. It also enclosed a large walled drop-off entrance court, leaving much of the site open to light and air.

Suites on the 12th and 14th floors (no 13th) had fuel-burning fireplaces. Lockers were located on each floor, and furnished areas near the laundry room were provided with a chesterfield and easy chairs ‘so suite owners do not have to tramp back and forth while washers and dryers are at work.’ The building’s lower level contained a swimming pool

and sauna.

Initially Park Square was not a financial success. It came onto the market at precisely the same time that Ottawa was awash with new condominium apartments for sale. A year after completion in mid-1976 only 50 of its 142 units had sold.

This had forced William Teron to take a leave of absence from his position as head of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to tweak some of the model unit designs and relaunch the marketing. The adventuresome design was never repeated, most local developers preferring to retreat to more conventional forms.

This post is a re-run of a talk given to mark the announcement of Heritage Ottawa's forthcoming book on the history of apartment buildings in Ottawa, to be published in the spring of 2017.
The history of Ottawa’s post-War apartment building is about quantity over quality - which makes architecturally distinctive buildings all the more exceptional. On the design scale they fall into two categories - mass housing as an investment commodity at one end, and a few ‘prestige’ projects at the other, with several variations in between.

What drove apartment building- speculation or regulation? Both, the boom-bust cycle was spurred by occasional government interventions and real estate fever.

Here is a brief survey of their evolution over 30 years, with a few observations on the developers and architects.

Setting the scene at the end of WWII:

A statutory framework for emergency powers to regulate the economy was enacted 10 days before Canada’s declaration of War, with the creation of the Wartime Prices and Trade Board, and it would come to regulate virtually every activity connected to the necessities of life, including housing. A standstill order froze rents at their January 1940 levels. Long-term planning for the respective roles that government and business would play in post-45 reconstruction was well underway before the war ended.

After 1940 builders wanting to construct an apartment had to apply to the Controller of Construction in the Department of Munitions and Supply which strictly controlled building materials, and prove that the building served some strategic purpose. Interestingly one of the few apartments built in Ottawa during the war was what’s come to be known as the Igor Gouzenko Apartment.

In January 1945 Ottawa was officially declared a congested area. People from other parts of Canada could not buy or rent a property in Ottawa without a permit from the Rentals Administrator stating that their presence here was ‘essential’

The shortage of apartments was exacerbated by the growth in the size of the civil service, by the returning soldiers, and the onset of the baby boom. This was a housing crisis. Let’s just say there was a pent-up demand.

And here was the initial solution - the 6-plex. In great numbers. Post-war housing policy is a complex topic so I’m primarily going to focus on the building types and patterns of land development that it produced.

The National Housing Act (1944), through the creation of the CMHC provided loans to builders and investment guarantees to life insurance companies for large-scale low rental developments.

While the CMHC issued pattern books suggesting model apartment bldg plans - they don’t seem to have had much direct influence.

Government programmes like the VLA and the CMHC were biased towards for new suburban development and home-ownership. For the most part apartment buildings would be left to the private sector. This was hampered by continuing building material shortages and high labour costs.

The 6-plex generally came in multiples. Were they an extension of the pre-War GARDEN APARTMENT movement - masterplanned low-rise clusters in a landscaped setting? For the most part no - Kingsview ‘Gardens’ Apartments, is a typical example - just a row of identical buildings plunked up and down a street in this case a cul-de-sac.

With public control there was a chance to implement scientific planning theory. Like Regent Park in Toronto and Benny Farm in Montreal the Mann Avenue project was born of good intentions.

From the Ottawa Journal, August 23, 1947 ‘New concepts of neighbourhood planning have been embodied with the integration of parks and pleasant living conditions. Generous open spaces between buildings ensure maximum light and air to permit adequate cross-ventilation. The site layout features ready access to the park areas, a minimum use of streets, complete restriction of through traffic, separation of vehicles and pedestrians, a central shopping area, off-street parking and a heating plant. The park strip along the Rideau River will be integrated within the overall Greber Plan for greater Ottawa.’

However the Mann Avenue project had a barracks-like quality, backing onto railyards, coal piles and a gasworks.

With favourable Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation mortgages the private sector could try something similar on a smaller scale. There is no doubt that the walk-up complex provided adequate and affordable (CMHC regulated) accommodation for families with young children.

Eastview was very fertile ground for the six-plex. Until 1945 large tracts of Eastview were unbuilt, industrial or agricultural. The land was ideal for large complexes. Although the town’s lack of water and sewer services was an obstacle, the problem was solved when the City of Ottawa needed to construct mains and trunk lines to serve its going east end. Through a controversial arrangement the town’s servicing was linked to Ottawa’s and building could begin. This was encouraged because before the advent of Provincial Building Codes, Eastview marketed the the fact that contractors could build more cheaply here because its standards were lower than Ottawa’s.

With 6-plex clusters numbering between 12 and 30 buildings apiece, and many more scattered developments of 1,2 or 3 buildings my guesstimate is that at least 1000 of them were constructed between 1950 and 1960. These are all from the West End along Kirkwood and Carling, and Byron and Baseline. For a really in-depth examination of these developments see the HistoryNerd.ca

Along with 6-plexes ‘real’ elevatored, multi-storey apartment buildings were being also being erected in the late 40s, and unless proven otherwise most were designed by. J. Morris WOOLFSON, some with innovative technologies like floating raft foundations and rooftop heating and air-handling systems, like the Russell Apts for James Beach (lower left).

Woolfson freely recycled his plans - Belgarde + Shaftesbury - for Kenneth Greene, another significant apt bldg developer. They used. the same drawing for each ad although an extra storey for was added to the Belgarde midway through construction. And the copy reads ‘Another step in the solution to Ottawa’s housing shortage…keyed to the beautification of Canada’s Capital (i.e. Greber).’ Two topical tie-ins.Almost every new building constructed in Ottawa in 1950 seems to have claimed that it was furthering the goals of the General Plan for National Capital.

The Tiffany was Woolfson’s Magnum Opus. A building permit issued on June 19, 1953, the same day that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed.

The site history is particularly layered.- It was once a Canada Atlantic Railway roundhouse and train shed which burned and was never rebuilt. Later a dogleg Elgin Street led to a subway under the railway tracks, and the lot was landscaped by the Ottawa Improvement Commission.

Its story is also connect to the housing crisis. In WWII it was requisitioned by the government to build the Argyle Barracks for the Canadian Women’s Army Corps, and then used as Emergency Housing after War, occupied by families who had to be forcibly evicted before it could be demolished.

In 1953, on one of his many annual visits to assess the progress of the plan, Gréber advised the Federal District Commission that this property should be made available to the Tiffany’s developers.

The Tiffany, Ottawa’s largest apartment to date, was an irregularly shaped building measuring 164 feet on each street frontage. And it stood on a floating slab. It had a 46-car underground garage with electrically operated doors, and 129 suites ranging from the ‘deluxe type’ with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, living and separate dining room, to small single bedroom units. Each unit featured oversized ThermoPane picture windows in the living rooms, free Venetian blinds, and ample closet space.

The Tiffany’s rooftop included a solarium recreation lounge with tv and a roof garden. There were other attractions - one-way safety mirrors in the entrance doors, lockers on the same floor as your apartment, and a modern laundry room with automatic washers and dryers. With the advice of a representative from Randall’s Paints prospective tenants could select their own colour scheme. Some of the most popular were raspberry red, cobbler brown, India turquoise and Sudan ivory.

After these advances of the rest of the 1950s would generally be one of conservative retrenchment. Most high-rises were not significantly different from the late-40s Woolfson buildings. And the walk-ups continued to multiply. Riverview Park was more akin to the garden apartment concept.

A slightly more modernist vocabulary (smooth pale brick, and projecting balcony slabs) emerges in the twin Sandy Hill apartments for the Bourque Bros. Although you can see from the original perspective that architect Phillip Dunne was forced to remove one set of balconies and the cornice for budgetary reasons.

At the same time Page and Steele’s 1956 scheme for three towers in Stathcona Park finally plants the flag of modernism into Ottawa’s soft soil. Peter Dickinson’s signature can be seen in the lower right of this perspective sketch. More on him later. For comparison look at Page and Steel’s contemporaneous Park Plaza Hotel tower (lower right), also by Dickinson.

While the first of the Sandringham’s planned three towers was being completed the GOVERNOR METCALFE was dramatically altering the look of Metcalfe Street with a block-filling slab building. It is transitional, but the long slab tower with projecting balconies, tightly fitted into the city grid has arrived.

Modernism is a slippery term, but if we take it to mean a radical break from traditiion I’m going to declare the ‘first’ full-fledged modern to be The Westbury on Cooper Street for Harold Shenkman… piecrust roofline, pilotis, mid-block, lot-line to lot-line. Its architect may be Sam Gitterman.

Meanwhile Robert Campeau entered the highrise apartment wave of the early 60s in typical braggadocio with his Colonel By Towers clad in della Robbia blue glazed tile, unusually steel-framed, and a zany porte-cochere supported by a wishbone/boomerang.

It was at the Champlain Towers that Campeau launched his long-running battle over height limits with Mayor Charlotte Whitton. She nominally won this one. But by setting them back from the eave line Campeau added a further two-stories of 2000 square foot penthouse apartments with fuel-burning fireplaces, four bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms and maid’s quarters on top of the Champlain Towers.

In what seems quaint today, in 1960 when the height limit was officially ‘cracked’ by all of an 10 additional feet it was front page news. Crang and Boake went on to design the Island Park Towers for Greene on the site of his 1951 Riverside Terrace, a complex of over 20 6-plexes that was razed just fifteen years after construction - That was one of the few examples of mass 6-plex redevelopment (the other big one was Alvin Heights) - a testament to their enduring tenacity as an apartment building type.

In addition to its ‘height’ the Kenson Towers was also notable because it established a model for the City’s future mixed-use Residential-Office zoning in this area.

The Juliana is remarkable because its bold massing, high quality materials (its architects made a speciality of concocting these recipes for daring aggregate pre cast panels), exceptional state of preservation, and its association with a legend of Post-war modernism.

Dickinson is know for three other Ottawa buildings - the Police Station (1954) , The Sandringham (1958) the Contractors’ Exchange (1960). The Julian’s developer was the colourful Sam Berger Q.C., Ottawa Rough Riders President, owner of hotel and real estate interests and municipal politician, and as a Controller he would have had frequent encounters with Dickinson on the Police Station construction.

‘People accustomed to large homes appreciate the spacious size of rooms at the Juliana - rooms that are larger than are usually found in modern ranch bungalows’

All of the apartments (including the bachelors) had eat-in kitchens with natural lighting from exterior windows, most had walk-in closets, and the large two-bedroom, two-bathroom corner units with the vast living rooms came equipped with en-suite washing and drying machines. The apartments were also pre-wired for five-channel television reception.There was a full time on-site manager, a furnished out-of-town guest suite, and optional maid service available.

Less sober than the Juliana was the Faircrest, isolated in landscaped suburban grounds. It’s in the aspirational class, as a nod to a more genteel era kitchens in the larger units had separate service doors - presumably so that you have to carry your groceries through the apartment.

The rush to build was partially driven by Ottawa’s impending Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw AZ-64 and renters were warned not to wait because zoning restricting apartment houses in some areas would soon by enacted. This left sore thumbs on narrow residential lots in areas where AZ-64 would zone apartments out. Compared to today’s relatively sophisticated developers this was the Wild West - contractors sometimes working without permits and constructing their buildings around and against the houses of those who refused to sell out.

1964 marks the first bulge in tall apartment building construction. The spike of the early 1970s was created condo construction and social housing projects.

For an historical perspective, an Ottawa Journal editorial entitled TOO MANY APARTMENTS? It was written in 1908.

There followed a building bonanza - the most intense period of construction since the pre WWI year of 1912.- With economies of scale, the speed of construction, new technologies and pre-fabrication many were completed in 11 months from foundation to opening. 1964 was a hectic year, and in 1965 construction starts for new apartments were up a further 30%. Added to the cadre of buccaneer builders, small-time investors taking a fly, and big suburban developers testing the high-rise waters was an influx of outside interests driving the commodification of rental housing into sure-thing investments. This overbuilding was ultimately shattered by a series of spectacular business failures and a shakeout that left the field open to familiar names like Minto, Assaly, Mastercraft, Urbandale, Glenview and Campeau.

’The skills of architect, builder and craftsman combined in perfect fusion’. The typical mid-1960s apartment building looked more like this. A word about the Finnish born Harry Ala-Kantti who started as a draftsman at Balharrie Helmer and Morin, worked as an architect for Sam Gitterman and opened his own practice in 1963. That year he designed at least 12 different apartment buildings, and averaged more per year after that. His Elfin is from 1966 Features: Drapes included, Party room, roof deck, indoor pool, darkroom. Left us with an endearing pop-cultural mascot. The T-shirts are available from Andrew King.

The amenities race between developers escalated with lotteries for six months free rent, complimentary moving services and more typical inducements. As whole blocks of Centretown’s old houses disappeared for his apartment buildings Assaly became the second largest develop in Ottawa (after Campeau).

They tried every angle. From an advertising campaign here was an uneasy marriage between new apartment buildings and Brobdingnagian fashion statements.

To counter this cheesiness there were some serious entries. What makes a developer seek architectural legacy? Ze’ev Vered, the owner, had encountered the building’s architects while his contracting company was constructing the Israeli Pavilion at Expo 67, a building designed in association the Montreal firm Rosen Caruso Vecsei. Despite its uncompromising and expressive use of concrete 10 Driveway was a popular address and it’s retained its landmark status, with a major assist from its spectacular setting.

Blander and mass-produced was The Watergate by the Cadillac Development Corporation . They had built scores of these things inToronto. There was a minor concern abut the loss of the 1894 Hayer Reed House designed by Hoppin and Koen of NYC, later ‘Glensmere', the home of Sir Robert Borden. In ‘Lament for a Landmark’ Conservative MP Heath MacQuarrie wrote: ‘On Wurtemburg Street the demolition squad is busy levelling one of Ottawa’s stately residences, a visible symbol of a great period of Canada’s history. It is now too late but perhaps what has been lost may be helpful in forestalling other assaults on our national heritage. Canada needs more housing, but in so large a country must they be built on historic sites?’

With the acute Post-War housing shortage finally solved city planners could turn their attention to the another issue - the perceived problem of urban blight and substandard housing. The site plan is from the City of Ottawa’s pamphlet distributed to 10,000 residents that said ‘Your house will be expropriated. You will have to leave.’ Lowertown’s redevelopment was fuelled by Fed/Prov programmes that would let the cities build new public housing with 5 cent dollars. The masterplan was prepared by Murray and Murray in 1969 .

Although the budgets were tight there was an opportunity for architectural experimentation and mild innovation. The carriageway evokes the memory of a street that has disappeared in a superblock and tries to mitigate the impact of this very long floor plate.

Brutalism on a budget with a skip-level section. The two-storey maisonettes had entrances on alternating floors.Its thrusting boxy shapes are faced with economical split block. was an attempt to house families in highrise buildings.

So far we haven’t resorted to blowing up our social housing failures with controlled demolitions (at least locally), but many have ended in tears. An experiment in communal living, free school, Pestalozzi was built by Campus Co-op Residences Inc. The Ontario Housing Corporation seniors’ apartments responded to the needs of the low-income elderly. Pestalozzi fell into bankruptcies, drug dealing and stabbings. As that generation of poor seniors passed on there weren’t enough to fill these buildings, and many are currently populated with concentrations of mixed-age single people with high needs. The high-rise apartment as efficient vertical ghettos for the poor is now considered to be a failure.

Planned or Unplanned. Like Toronto which has the second highest number of apartment towers in North America, Ottawa has a great number of high-rise apartments in the inner and outer suburbs. Some were developer-planned mixed use communities. Some just sprouted like giant concrete weeds.

The boom of the early 70s occurred at an unfortunate time in architecture when the favoured material was raw cement used for poured-in-place solid walls and balcony parapets at best relieved by some grooves.Where does it come from - its is not particularly rooted in Brutalism. No bush-hammering, exposed aggregate, gnarly formwork, precast panels or extreme sculptural shapes.

It finds its apotheosis in Queen Elizabeth Towers and Ottawa’s ‘first’ - the Prince of Wales, designed by Harry Ala Kantti.

400 Laurier Avenue East, by architects David deBelle and Leonard Koffman, for Ron Engineering is a one-of-a-kind building and gave rise to the freeze on any more high-rise towers in Sandy Hill.

The brown-brick brutalism of Urbanetics’ Park probably marks the height Bill Teron’s highrise creativity. Part of the Inn of the Provinces complex, this is a rebuke to the sheer glass curtain walls of Place de Ville, and the first to be tested in a wide tunnel to study the effects of downdrafts. For lovers of 1970s architecture a better local example would be hard to find.

‘Straight Walls are boring!’ ‘Our floor plans are not “typical”. Most apartments are boxes. Every wall at 90 degrees to the next… boring! This you can take for awhile when you are renting. But consider how you would feel owning one. We considered this when we designed Park Square. That’s why in our apartments certain accent walls are set at angles different to the norm. They create a visual intrigue and an individuality which your “typical” apartments quite honestly do not have.’

For antecedents look to the Worlds End Housing estate in Chelsea. Initially Park Square was not a financial success. A year after completion in mid-1976 only 50 of its 142 units had sold. It had arrived on the market just as a dozen other condos had been built. This prompted William Teron to take a leave of absence from his position as head of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to tweak some of the model unit designs and relaunch the marketing. The adventuresome design was never repeated, most local developers preferring to retreat to more conventional forms.

In 1969 Johnson Sustronk Weinstein + Associates Limited, landscape architects and planners based in Toronto were retained by the National Capital Commission to design a modern master plan for Major's Hill Park. Ottawa's first park had seen multiple re-workings since it was created from military ordnance land turned over to the city, and then back to the Government of Canada. In addition to the work of the OIC and the FDC, Bennett, Cauchon, Greber and Parkin had all produced ambitious schemes but none had been acted upon. By the late 1960s the park's historic elements - lagoons, pavilions and flower beds had fallen into disrepair or been demolished and Major's Hill was in need of resuscitation. It was worn out and a little bit dangerous.

The impetus for this post arises from the proposal to replace the Chateau Laurier's parking structure with a new addition that would join the two wings at the rear and radically alter the vistas of the hotel from the park. It's been hugely controversial and has generated alternative suggestions, like the one at the left - which would probably be very popular with the public but might make architectural purists cringe.

The Chateau's parking garage also had an impact on JSW+A's thinking about Major's Hill Park. When their study began it had not yet been built, and its construction came as an unpleasant surprise to the landscape architects. They regretted that they had not been consulted on its design and siting.

For years the Chateau Laurier had been using a surface lot on the Major's Hill Park side of the building. The Canadian National Railways, the hotel's owners had been considering a new multi-level parking structure for some time but disputes with the City of Ottawa over access (the CNR wanted to build a ramp over the old railway terrace with an entrance from Confederation Square) had delayed it. It was the opening of the National Arts Centre's underground garage in 1969 which would allow hotel users to park there while the old lot was being built upon that prompted them to proceed.

According to the consultants the major problem was lack of access. 'In spite of their central location and the considerable pedestrian activity which immediately surrounds them, Major's Hill Park and Lady Grey Drive remain virtually unused by resident and tourist alike.' The park was cut off from Parliament Hill by the Rideau Canal, from Sussex Drive by the Chateau Laurier, and from the Byward Market by the temporary buildings between Mackenzie and Sussex - a 'backwater'.

The JSW+A report and master plan was submitted to the NCC on April 10, 1970. To my knowledge they weren't rehired to do the detailed design work, but during the intervening decades many of their recommendations have come to pass - in bits and pieces.

Their landscape plan, shown here after the Chateau's new parking garage had been acknowledged would create pedestrian linkages from all directions with bridges and entranceways, and dot the park with feature attractions.

The landscape architects' circulation plan called for a physical connection between Parliament Hill and Major's Hill Park, with ancillary linkages to the Plaza Bridge, a crossing over St. Patrick Street to get you onto Nepean Point, and a stronger relationship with the Mile of History and the Byward Market. The removal of the Interprovincial Bridge with its replacement to be built on the other side of the point was still in the NCC's official plan for the capital.

Seen in profile the central pedestrian link would have to negotiate some major topography.

The primary challenge was getting across the Rideau Canal's Entrance Valley.

A funicular would take you half-way down the steep slope of Parliament Hill to a lightweight bridge crossing the Ottawa locks just at the height of the Bytown Museum's roof. A spiral staircase descended the rest of the way.

It was a golden age for twisting stairs, like the one joining the Mackenzie King Bridge to the Rideau Canal which the National Capital Commission had just built. (Photo: NCC Annual Report)

The pedestrian bridge landed at the railway terrace on the west side of Entrance Valley, where steps led up onto a viewing platform in Major's Hill Park.

Bisecting the park from west to east was Major's Hill's primary attraction - the Walk Through History. It was an assemblage of plazas containing historic objects and interpretive displays.

Here is an overview of the route. It swung northeast over to a realigned Sussex Drive which bulged out to create a wide plaza in front of Sussex's historic buildings.

The walk's eastern gateway was at Mackenzie Avenue. Something similar to the current entrance here but with a 1970s vibe.

The landscape architects might have been inspired by one of the Major's Hill Park sculptures installed by the NCC, a fiberglas family group titled '1929-35' designed by Walter Redinger. (Photo: NCC Sculpture Walk, 1976)

These stone foundations of Lt-Col By's house lay nearby. In 1973 Dr. Mary Burns, the NCC's historian conducted an archeological dig to unearth the ruins which were later incorporated into a freestanding group of history markers.

And the Noon Gun peremptorily cancelled by the NCC in the early 1980s. I still miss its startling effect when the firing caught you off guard. (Photo: Toronto Star)

Part of the strip of land between Mackenzie and Sussex was to be filled in with a triple deck parking structure that contained storefronts facing Sussex.

The block was still filled with temporary buildings which were scheduled for demolition at some point in the future. They were eventually removed but the property would serve another purpose. (Photo: CMHC)

The curve of Sussex Drive's proposed realignment bears a striking resemblance to the boat-shaped roof projection of the US Embassy which now stands here.

Alongside the western face of the Chateau they had hoped to create a pedestrian promenade from the Plaza Bridge into Major's Hill Park. This possibility was snuffed out when the hotel built its parking structure, blocking the entrance into the park.

That linkage would have to wait until the construction of the National Gallery's short-lived Contemporary Photography Museum (Rysavy and Rysavy Architects).

In the railway tunnel beneath the pedestrian way, cafes and shops overlooking the canal locks.

Although the railway terrace's replacement building made that view possible, it will never be enjoyed by the public. After the photography museum was dissolved it was converted into parliamentary meeting space. (Photo: Pastottawa.com)

The tunnels beneath the Plaza Bridge would receive a lick and a promise... repainting, new lighting and grade separation from the auto traffic. With the rehabilitation of the bridge it's been re-imagined as a much grander passageway (below right).

R and R's photo museum unceremoniously plugged up the end of the railway tunnel under the bridge (left) making it impossible to have a similarly grand below-grade pedestrian connection with the park, save for a precipitous flight of stairs with bicycle groove attached.

The master plan doesn't have a lot to say about Lady Grey Drive. It was left pretty much untouched, but the large plot of land above it on the other side of Sussex Drive was earmarked for a future expansion of the Ottawa General Hospital.

And finally, for those who recoiled at Larco Investment Ltd.'s notions for enlarging the Chateau Laurier - how's this? A project by G.E. Bemi Architects for the 'Chateau Health Centre' to be built on top and in front of the Chateau's parking structure. It was spearheaded by Paul Pogue, the operator of the hotel's swanky hair salon and would encompass a swimming pool, 10 squash courts, 2 handball courts, a spa with steam baths, a workout gym, a lounge, and a jogging track. After leasing the air rights from CN Hotels they expected to call for tenders in November 1973. (Ottawa Journal, October 1, 1973)

It wasn't one of Ottawa's most distinguished elementary school buildings but it was one of Centretown's most enduring community institutions. Percy Street Public School which opened with an enrolment of 254 on January 17, 1888 was going to be called the Wellington Ward Primary School, but the name Percy Street stuck. As a testament to the number of families living in the immediate district (the catchment area only extended from Bay to Bronson, south of Laurier) the school was enlarged in 1907 and again in 1930. By the mid-1960s it was deemed to be too archaic to serve the needs of modern educational science and it was swept up in the School Board’s determination to rid itself of all of its old buildings.

One of the school's classrooms in action in the early 1950s.

As the school got ready to close some of the Percy Street alumni got together for a farewell reunion, and rang the first school bell. On the display panel behind them under the 'We remember...' banner is a photograph of Joseph W. McNabb, Percy Street's Principal for 34 years. (Ottawa Journal, December 11, 1967)

When the end finally came on a freezing day in early January 1968 some 457 students bundling books were paraded the two blocks south on Percy Street, led by a bare-kneed piper, heading to their brand new school in the freshly expanded McNabb Park. (Ottawa Citizen, January 4, 1968)

The blocks haven't really changed much on this stretch of Percy Street in the intervening 50 years. (Google Streetview)

McNabb Park was one of Ottawa's first officially sanctioned playgrounds. It was originally known as the Gladstone Avenue Playgrounds, but was affectionately called 'Bully's Acre'. In the early 1960s the City's Department of Recreation and Parks had begun to think about expanding it, which was then less than half its current size. This would require closing most of Florence Street west of Percy and expropriating and demolishing all of the houses lying between James and Florence.

Work had already begun on digging for a new storm sewer line under McNabb. This old OTC bus, converted into a Zuccarini Construction site office is parked in front of houses on Florence that would ultimately disappear. (Photo: CA024140)

A range of alternative development scenarios was presented to City Council on March 1, 1965. One interim option had a new arena and community centre complex with a 'temporary winter facility arrangement' (outdoor rink and changing huts) crammed into the old park while the block of properties to the north was being acquired.

A comparison of aerial views from 1965 and 2011.

With expropriation proceedings successfully executed the Florence-to-James block of houses was demolished leaving the old roadbed, sidewalk and front walkways forlorn and exposed for a time. The clearance also required the removal of many mature street trees. (Photo: CA024143)

To help pay for this the City was counting on the co-operation of the City of Ottawa Public School Board, by joining the project and building a new elementary school to replace the Percy Street Public School. The negotiations were protracted and contentious as to who would pay for what. It was their first joint development (hoped to be the model for many more) and the discussions dragged on for almost two years. The City was ready to go it alone with this option.

With an agreement in hand this was the general concept of the layout for the new McNabb Park School and Community Centre development. As in the no-school option all of the buildings would be pressed to the Percy Street side of the park, leaving the maximum amount of open play area.

The razed Florence and James Street lots were ready for re-development. It's a reminder to those who walk by the park today and imagine that these open green spaces were always there that they were created at a high cost in dollars and dislocation. A similar City-School Board arrangement was undertaken to make Jack Purcell Park a few years later. (Photo: CA024142)

There were economies and efficiencies to be gained in building the school and community centre at the same time. They were designed by Craig and Kohler Architects. This construction shot is from a viewpoint on the floor of what would be the community centre's gymnasium, looking up towards the steel frame of the classroom block. (Photo: City Archives)

As the number of children in the area dwindled McNabb Public School faced a shrinking enrolment and Ottawa Board of Education closed it in 1999. Today there is talk of re-establishing an elementary school here. (Google Streetview)

The 'McNabb Park School and Community Centre' was officially opened by Governor General Roland Michener on October 8, 1968. The bronze plaque is still there in the corridor adjoining the two halves of the facility, and it's somewhat misleading because the complex doesn't have one compound name - each half was separately named, although there is a strong connection. (Photo: City Archives)

The park and the school were named on two different occasions thirty years apart - for the same individual. On May 18, 1938 Mayor Stanley Lewis unveiled a plaque at the base of a new 50-foot flagpole rededicating the former Gladstone Avenue Playgrounds in honour of Joseph W. McNabb. He had served on City Council as the Alderman for Wellington Ward for 17 years and the Principal of Percy Street Public School for twice as long. (Ottawa Journal November 30, 1935)

After Percy Street’s closure the Ottawa Board of Education dithered over the property’s future for a further decade. It was used as a storage depot while options for building the new Glashan Public School here, or a youth drug treatment centre, or some form of private sector development were debated. In 1978 the site was sold for $250,000 to the City of Ottawa which had the intention of creating a non-profit housing project. Previously the City had spent the first $400 of its multi-million federal Neighourhood Improvement Plan grant painting tennis courts on the former playground. The empty school’s 10 years in limbo was brought to a spectacular end when it was torched by an arsonist on April 17, 1979. The blaze took forty firemen six hours to bring under control. (Ottawa Journal, April 17, 1979 and photo: City Archives)

The site was finally cleared for redevelopment. By then the land had been offered on a 90-year lease to the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation for a cluster of 42 stacked two and three bedroom townhouses. The City’s agreement of sale with the School Board had stipulated that if more than 44 units were built they would have to pay an additional $6,000 per door. (Photos: City Archives/CCOC)

The non-profit housing corporation inherited the stored furniture not damaged by the fire and staged a 500 free desk giveaway day and they were quickly nabbed by nostalgia hunters. (Ottawa Journal August 27, 1979)

CCOC’s Percy Street development, designed by architect Wolf Mohaupt incorporated the foundations of the old school into a parking structure with a landscaped deck on top.

These kids who were playing on the Percy Street townhousing deck would now be old enough to have children of their own, and if they live in Centretown, and if the Percy Street Public School's replacement eventually re-opens life will have come full circle. (Photo: CMHC Habitat, 1982)

A condensed version of this post is published in the August 18, 2017 issue of The Centretown BUZZ.

Nostalgicists for the haute-1970s style should have been heartened to learn that the holding company which has owned the former Inn of the Provinces has halted its plans to demolish the building. Recent inspections of the relatively delicate deconstruction that is now taking place here might be further encouraging. Maybe a respectful resurrection of this earth-tone beauty? I needed to find out for myself and discovered a number of computer-generated drawings set up on easels about the abandoned hotel's through-block lobby atrium.

A Bill Teron/Urbanetics by chief designer Ian Johns venture, this chocolate brown brick cluster was seen as a more humane antidote to the thrusting soulless cliff presented by Robert Campeau's Tower 'C' at Place de Ville. Sawtooth edges, cutaway corners and sheltered open spaces broke up the mass with a thoughtfully composed series of sliding diagonals.

It was the city's first development to undertake wind impact studies using scale models set up in the NRC's wind tunnel at the Ottawa International Airport, and the Inn's inset balconies were part of the resulting analysis. The hotel's shorter wing at the left along Bay Street was added later.

The developers had wanted to fill out the southern block with a second office tower next to their Park Square condominiums, hence its blank rear walls. This was rejected by the City of Ottawa which wanted to see residential development here. Just as well because it was intended to be an L-shaped version of the complex's monotonously horizontal office building.

The demolition would have preceded this mixed use development - two chunky towers for an office, condo, hotel by WZMH Architects. A last-minute intervention for a serious heritage assessment from Sarah Jennings, the wife of the Inn of the Provinces designer Ian Johns came too late. The City of Ottawa had already approved the project. For various reasons (demolition of the Inn would have been prohibitively expensive and there was apparently some difficulty in finding a contractor who would take on the job) the city was spared yet another anodyne addition to the skyline.

The Inn of the Provinces first tower opened in August 1975. It was a hostelry unlike any other in Ottawa. Not only did each suite have a sheltered balcony but 'Every unit in the 188-room hotel has its own fully equipped kitchen. The operation is designed mainly for the long-stay businessman, and it's expensive. One bedroom suites will go for about $36 a day. There are smaller and less expensive units.' (Ottawa Journal, August 18, 1975). Within a year of its launch Urbanetics sold the Inn's operations to Delta Hotels of Vancouver B.C.

The Hilton Garden Inn and Homewood Suites is aimed at a slightly more value-for-money traveller. The retrofit's design is credited to Chamberlain Architects|Contractors|Managers, a GTA based architectural services corporation whose motto is 'Beauty Is Not Just Brick Deep'. Which is apt because they're not using any and they plan to cover up a lot of bricks.

It had been a mecca for 70s swingers. Le Quadrille, the entertainment lounge featured a 36-foot long dimensional wall sculpture of habitants dancers by Quebec wood carver Julien Bourgault , a revolving stage, and a DJ booth for disco nights. In the La Provincial dining room each table was cocooned by high-backed banquettes for maximum discretion. The lobby bar was famous for three-martini lunches and other assignations. After three decades or so Delta sold the hotel. It changed ownership a few more times, going ever more downmarket ending up as the National Hotel which closed two years ago. Their official colour was royal blue.

Delta's Inn of the Provinces wood-wrapped porte-cochere on Queen Street - the scene of a hotel workers' strike in 1981 (Photo: LAC)

It's being dismantled as balcony doors and windows are being removed from the hotel rooms above.

To give it a little more prestige the hotel's municipal address is on Sparks Street, but it was for pedestrians only because of the plans for extending the car-free Sparks Street westward to the Garden of the Provinces. The hotel's name would seem to be a no-brainer, but as they had done at their previous Carleton Towers on Albert Street Urbanetics struck a special committee.

The horizontal contours of the office tower and the hotel's podium will get wrapped in white cladding. Incidentally Morguard has had a relationship with the Inn and its successors for over 40 years. They bought the property in 1976 as the hotel operations were being transferred to Delta.

What's lost in the Hilton/Morguard retrofit is the dense texture formed by the intersection of brick piers - the angled tips of the building's projecting triangles and the precast balcony panels.

Perhaps the architects|contractors|managers were seeking the maximum contrast of colour and finish, but it's an uneasy marriage. Is this a 'It could have been worse' story? Certainly not friendly towards the aesthetics of Urbanetics.

The recessed 'V' terraces will be filled in, glazed, and made flush with the building wall. The original layouts made for oddly-shaped rooms which the new operator probably needs to straighten them out in order to make the suites larger, brighter and less eccentric. And balconies are likely a maintenance and security issue.

In designing their 1978-79 addition (Reno Negren, with Leonard Koffman Architect) Delta Hotels opted for a more practical floor plan, although there was a slight tip of the hat to the zig zag edge on the top floor rooms.

The two separate towers will allow Hilton two offer two types of accommodation. The Bay Street wing with standard hotel rooms will become the Garden Inn and the original tower's self-contained efficiencies the Homewood Suites.

In 1977 the Ottawa Society of Architects and the Federation of Citizens' Associations partnered to establish the Built Environment Awards for the area's 'finest visual turn-ons'. Urbanetics' celebrated Chief of Design Ian Johns was recognized for his work on the Inn of the Provinces which won praise 'for the way the hotel fits in between highrise office buildings and a residential area'. It was hoped to be the first of annual OSA/FCA awards, but the event was never repeated. This summer Mr. Johns returned to Ottawa from Boston, where he now lives, to receive the FCA's Builders Award in recognition of the high calibre of his architectural designs.(Centretown Buzz, July 2017 and Ottawa Journal, September 12, 1977)

Canada's Sesquicentennial of Confederation also marks the 90th anniversary of diplomatic relations with the USA, which brought another milestone - Ottawa's first purpose-built premises for a diplomatic mission. From the US Department of State's Office of the Historian: 'The American Legation in Ottawa was established on June 1, 1927, when William Phillips presented his credentials as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. The United States recognized Canada as an independent state with autonomous control over its foreign relations on February 18, 1927. This action followed the 1926 British Imperial Conference that produced the Balfour Declaration which stated the United Kingdom and the Dominions are autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs.' The building above illustrated en grisaille in a gouache perspective drawing, signed by Cass Gilbert, Architect and dated 1928, is the United States Legation Building that Minister Phillips hoped to move into soon. (CCA Collection)

Within a year of the American Envoy's arrival in Ottawa, during the waning months of the Calvin Coolidge Administration, the Foreign Buildings Office was at work on the planning of the new US Legation and Consular Building to be located in one of the capital's most prominent locations at 100 Wellington. But executing the plans would drag out over the full tenure of Herbert Hoover's time in office and an American Minister Plenipotentiary would not move into the new building until after Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration. The final cost was five times the original estimate.

On April 3, 1928 the legation announced that it would be erecting a handsome edifice of four or five stories on the site of existing Wellington Street buildings and that the choice of a competent architect was being carefully considered in Washington. It was expected that razing the old buildings would start within six weeks, construction to begin in the spring of 1929, and the new legation ready for occupancy by the end of that year. As of July 9 Washington confirmed that the building design was now in the hands of Cass Gilbert, an architect 'noted for.. simple, yet dignified and beautiful buildings' and 'second to none in this country'. Furthermore in accepting the US Government's 5% commission for federal buildings (instead of his usual 10%) Gilbert, best known for the Woolworth Building in New York, said that it offered him the opportunity to render a service to his country. The US Legation was expected to add to an already busy off-season construction boom in Ottawa. On September 12, 1928 the Journal enthused that 'Another important piece of work that is scheduled for this winter is the new United States Legation building on Wellington Street, facing the Parliament Buildings. This will cost $250,000 and keep 200 men busy all winter.'

By the end of the nineteenth century this section of Wellington Street prestigiously located directly opposite Parliament Hill's Centre Block had become known as 'Bankers' Row' because of the cluster of financial institutions wanting to present their Second Empire/Italianate faces to the seat of national power. Shown here are the three buildings pictured ca. 1900, between the arrows, that would be needed to construct the new US Legation. An additional three to the right (Banks of Ottawa, and Quebec, and the Union Bank) suffered differing fates at the Americans' hands. (LAC a008847)

The Americans didn't have too much trouble picking up the two brick buildings at 96-98 and 102-104 Wellington Street. By then the banks which once them had relocated or dissolved and they were being leased for various offices. By 1929 they had purchased both for $106,000. They would be leased out until demolition, which as it turned out took much longer than expected.

The largest and most imposing of the three (on the right) was proving to be a problem. Built for the Banque Nationale, it then become the main branch of the Canadian Bank of Commerce until that bank had other plans. (LAC a011821)

On February 7, 1921 the CBC announced that it would be moving to the southern half of the block and erecting a new main branch at 117-123 Sparks Street, directly behind their current building. A temple bank with a high dome designed by Darling and Pearson Architects would reach through to Wellington Street. But the plans were scaled back and by the time that the new building opened in May 1922 it was limited to the Sparks Street lot and the high dome was omitted. Nonetheless the Canadian Bank of Commerce held onto its Wellington Street property - possibly for an expansion north to the Wellington frontage at a later date.

Negotiations between the CBC and the American Government dragged on. It was rumoured that the bank was holding out for as much as $500,000. Prime Minister Mackenzie King recorded in his diary that he had been on the phone several times with Sir John Aird, President of the Commerce trying to break the impasse. It's unclear as to whether King's interventions had the desired effect. He was out of office before the property was finally sold in 1931. These aerial photos from 1931 (top) and 1933 (bottom) neatly bracket the construction of the US Legation.

More than three years after the design commission had been awarded to Cass Gilbert, on July 11, 1931 the Ottawa Journal reported that 'An important step in the proceedings that have been going on for some time in connection with the erection of the United States Legation on Wellington Street... when the United States Minister to Canada awarded a contract for the demolition of the buildings at present on the site.' By August 26, 1931 it was at last underway when 'specifications were submitted by Cass Gilbert, Inc., architect of New York.. and sent for distribution among 40 general contractors.' Bidding was strictly limited to American companies. President Herbert Hoover was expected to come to Ottawa to lay the cornerstone, but this did not come to pass.

When the new United States Legation was officially opened on November 18, 1932 Hoover had been trounced in that year's presidential election, the post of US Minister to Canada unfilled, and the American Chargé d'Affaires was assigned the duty of hosting the ceremonies. Once the new Administration's representative arrived in Ottawa on May 15, 1933 he 'expressed himself as greatly pleased with the architecture of the Legation Building'.' He was the Hon. Warren Delano Robbins, a career diplomat and a nephew of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Robbins died in Ottawa, just two years into office. (Ottawa Journal, November 18, 1932)

The architecture was and remains an Indiana limestone fish out of Ottawa's official Gothic Revival and Chateau Style water - a somewhat washed-out derivative of the Italian palazzo with a piano nobile level elevated above a rusticated ground floor.

Its cornice line respected the datum first established by the Rideau Club next door and repeated down Wellington Street by the Metropolitan Life Building, the Bank of Montreal, and the Bank of Canada. (LAC e010934832)

The building's antecedents are to be found all over the USA, such as at Cass Gilbert's Detroit Public Library which was completed just before he designed his Ottawa building.

The US Legation was built with one small parking lot at the rear accessed through a lanterned gateway. Eventually they needed much more. (LAC e010934832)

By the early 1960s they had gobbled up the rest of Wellington Street's Bankers' Row, demolishing two of the finest (the Bank of Ottawa, at the right and the Bank of Quebec) for a large surface lot - leaving only one surviving, the small Union Bank which was used for overflow staff and storage. (geoOttawa and LAC e010934925)

In 1928 Canadian officials were gratified to have a piece of American soil situated directly across from the Parliament Buildings - the choice of this location was deliberate. They anticipated that it would be the first of many and that the south side of Wellington Street would evolve into an embassy row. Mackenzie King said that this signified Canada's growing role in international affairs. As the country's confidence and sense of independence grew it seemed odd and inappropriate that our southern neighbours should be ensconced in a place that symbolized the heart of national government. By the end of the twentieth century they were happy to see the Americans go elsewhere.

While the ground floor of the vacated American Embassy was obscured by hoarding half of an historic plaque to the left of the front door was hidden from view. With the hoarding's recent removal it's been revealed.

The bronze marker states that 100 Wellington Street was 'Designed by Cass Gilbert, Jr. of New York'. This is not quite accurate. I may have played a role in perpetuating this misattribution when I prepared an inventory of historic buildings within the Parliamentary Precinct for the National Capital Commission in 1980, and assumed that Gilbert, Sr. must have been dead when the embassy was built and surmised that it had been designed by his son.

This is Cass Gilbert in 1926, just two years before his office was awarded the commission for the US Legation building in Ottawa. Gilbert died in 1935 and his son did assist in the design of some buildings, completing the US Supreme Court in Washington DC after his father's death. The correct attribution for firm's Ottawa building might be Cass Gilbert, Inc.

Gilbert the son remained an unreconstructed classicist, submitting this curiously domed capitol as his entry to the international architectural competition for the new Toronto City Hall in 1958.

Thanks to the miracle of Google Streetview you can trace the evolution of the former American Embassy's hoarding which was installed in 2006 to proclaim the aborted Portrait Gallery of Canada, painted over by the Conservatives with some form of logo to cheer things up, and repainted in the official government hoarding colours of grey and green by the Liberals.

One of the fringe benefits of the recent decision to offer the building to indigenous peoples for an aboriginal cultural centre has been the removal of those blighting boards which has revealed the ground floor and iron work for the first time in 11 years.

Given the growing strength of the US-Canada relationship as WW11 Allies their respective Chiefs of Mission were elevated to the status of full ambassadorship in June 1943, and the Legation building was henceforth known as the American Embassy. The first US President to visit here was FDR in August of that year. Truman followed in 1947. As relations became more contentious in the 50s and 60s the embassy's front door was the scene of many a demonstration. (LAC e008302902 and a093874)

The diplomatic staff vacated the building in 1999 and moved into its much larger embassy on Mackenzie Avenue. The development of the new building was even more fraught. They were first granted a site on 'Mile Circle' adjacent to the Village of Rockcliffe Park but the outrage of nearby residents drove them off. After many alternative locations were weighed they are now tucked away behind a ring of multiple security barriers in a building designed by David Childs/SOM Architects which is as determinedly defiant of its architectural environs as Gilbert's precious palazzo.

The US Legation was an expression of the more imperial aspects of America's small-R republicanism, channeling the full blown Cinquecento grandeur of the High Renaissance, which in itself was a conscious revival of the Roman Republic and Empire. That's quite a lot of historic baggage for one small building.

And the four years that it took to build is really not that much time for such a project.

It appears that Ottawa is about to lose another great pubic space... 'Dear Customer - Due to construction activities at 59 Sparks St. beginning September 30, 2017, we are moving this post office to a new site directly across the street at 58 Sparks St. ...All previous services will be available at the new location along with new services such as vending machines to provide quicker access to common mailing supplies, and a fitting room that gives customers the option [to] try on the outfit they bought online and ship it right back if it's not the right size.'(signed) Gilles Bourassa, Retail Business Manager

Everybody likes to watch stuff being built. In 1938 the Department of Public Works invested in streamlined hoarding that hinted at Moderne elements of the structure that was rising behind it. To shield the building's 2017 rehabilitation from our Canada150 celebrations (or is it the other way around?) the Sparks and Elgin elevations were wrapped in an impenetrable tarpaulin. I've peaked behind it - the construction activity is not particularly messy. It might have been more fun to watch the progress through the usual netting. But the Government of Canada gets an 'A' for trying to animate its empty storefronts and current renovation projects elsewhere on Sparks Street. (Photos: LAC and Front Page Media Group)

The Central Post Office was an endearing mash-up between the Classical Revival, Art Deco and Chateau Styles, made all the more distinctive because of the bull-nose corner that was generated by the trapezoidal site. It was built for a time when customers didn't need to try on their online outfits right at the stamp counter, Retail Business Managers were called Postmasters, and traffic cops wore white gloves instead of fluorescent vests. From the description provided in a 1940 JRAIC article: 'Each of the floors above the ground floor has been laid out according to the requirements of the Post Office Department, and consists of air-conditioned, well lighted offices with acoustically treated stenographers' rooms. The top floor is top lighted through skylights and will be used for files. The stairway continues up to the roof and a promenade platform has been provided.'(Photo: Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, June 1940)

The bull-nose shape was repeated on the ground floor where 'Stamps, money orders, etc., are received over marble counters with nickel silver wickets.' Lighted directional signage indicated the different departments, and the space behind the counter was equipped with vaults. (Photo: LAC)

Three street entrances (affording the opportunity to install three pairs of lions) were fitted out with revolving doors that lead to, in clockwise order, the rental mailboxes, the public space, and the elevator lobby for the offices above. Beyond the latter was a continuous staircase running from the ground floor to the roof with a newel post made from internally illuminated tubular glass. (Photo: Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, June 1940)

'The floors, walls, columns and pilasters of the Public Space are marble. The floor marble is cream and sienna coloured, forming a pattern with a border of silvertone black marble. The walls from floor to ceiling are faced with polished buff coloured marble with pilasters and columns of polished silvertone black.' The strip lighting was incorporated into the ceiling's ornamental paster cornices. (Photo: LAC)

The tip of the counter has been chopped out. Rather than providing freestanding tables in the middle of the public area the window sills were extended over the nickel plated radiator grilles to provide a convenient writing space for addressing envelopes, dashing off a quick note, or filling out Post Office forms. (Photo: Charles Akben-Marchand)

One last look at the soon to be vacated Postal Station B as it appeared just before opening to the public in 1940. (Photo: LAC)

Not being a mail box holder, first day stamp collector, or a devotee of Amazon and L.L. Bean, I confess to not needing to use the station very much in the last thirty years but I know several people who will miss its now cluttered marbled confines.

Sliding doors now seal off the mailbox lobby when the post office business hours end.

The revolving doors were originally enclosed with buff coloured marble panelled half-walls and a circular nickel plated canopy. (Photo: Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, June 1940)

These were removed at some point, and the door surround replaced with polished black granite.

With the exception of the wall clocks, thanks to the enduring quality of their materials the Post Office's wealth of finely milled details has survived intact. In the office lobby the vertical joints were inserted with nickel strips to accentuate the marble panelling. The high security cordon here blocks the access to the spectacular elevator doors and the wall tablet 'with the names of those involved in the conceiving and building of the structure' where W.L. Mackenzie King and W.E. Noffke feature prominently.

Thanks to the Department of Public Works photographers the construction of the Central Post Office is well documented. This previously unpublished example, the excavation as of September 14, 1938 shows the foundation wall remnants of the old buildings that were demolished for the building. Peaking over the fence is the Imperial Bank of Canada which was spanking new at the time, and to the left the lower floors of the Ottawa Electric Building where Canada Post Corporation's new vending machines and fitting rooms will be located. It seems odd that with the plethora of federally owned vacant space on Sparks Street they would rent one from the private sector. (Photo: LAC)

The traffic cop at the intersection of Sparks and Elgin Streets was a permanent fixture. Less so the cluster of buildings at the corner pictured here in 1926 as the Government of Canada was contemplating the creation of Confederation Square, where the Central Post Office would play a prominent role by shaping its western edge. (Photo: LAC)

Demolition was swift. This shot was taken on August 25, 1938 just two and a half weeks prior to the previous excavation photo. A ghost sign re-emerges on the stone wall being nibbled away - _ALMER DRY GOODS HOUSE, from a Confederation-era building turned into an Italianate row in the 1870s, and remodelled as the brick-faced Standard Bank of Canada in 1916. (Photo: LAC)

When they are finished the construction will Station 'B' be moving back into their landmark? Doesn't sound like it. No one could accuse the Canada Post Corporation of being sentimental about the old ways. (Photo: LAC)

In addition to the troubling mixed messages and its curious history, the Sharpshooters Northwest Rebellion Monument is also an artifact from Canada's earliest mass-medium war. The mid-1880s was the first time when endless column inches of fresh copy engendered a new, more virulent nationalism. This was made possible through the vehicles of the widely proliferating penny dailies, the advent of high-speed printing presses, newly invented Linotype machines, cheap newsprint and most importantly the telegraph lines that fed the Eastern newspapers with instantaneous dispatches from the scenes of battle.

When it was over this journalistic fervour focused on the conflict's victors and vanquished. The casualties (mostly the non-Indigenous or non-Métis ones) were turned into martyrs to the Dominion's dominion over half a continent.

A memorial to the two Ottawa Sharpshooters killed in action on May 2, 1885 at the Battle of Cut Knife Hill was suggested shortly after the company's return to the city later that summer. An August 1885 public meeting at City Hall appointed a committee of one hundred citizens 'to go on with the matter'. The monument was the culmination of over three years of fund raising efforts that included lacrosse matches, glee club concerts and band recitals. Individual contributions and proceeds from public entertainments totalled $4,169.00 with bank interest of $164.77 and they spent all but $40.00. That's a staggering amount in today's money. Using historic labour and material cost conversion tables that's well north of $500,000. Who were these guys? (Photo: LAC a048142)

William Brough Osgoode was born in Buckingham, Quebec in 1861. An only son he was employed as a machinist at the Paterson and Law iron foundry just prior to the outbreak of the Rebellion. While glorified in death, his demise was apparently gruesome. 'On the hasty retreat from Cut Knife Hill the Ottawa Sharpshooters did not have time to locate and retrieve Osgoode's body. A month later, a search party went looking for his corpse and found it mutilated and desecrated.' This is taken from the diary of the Company's Commander Captain Todd, as quoted in Enshrined in Golden Memories Eastern Ontario's Commemoration of the Northwest Resistance. 1885-1939, by Elliot Worsfold, Canadian Military History, 2015.

John Rogers was born in Barbados in 1855. In 1882 he joined his brother Christopher by coming to Ottawa, and followed his brother's example by signing up for the Governor General's Foot Guards. Rogers was a civil servant. He was shot in the head. At his funeral Captain Todd recalled that Rogers' glengarry cap 'was saturated with blood from where the bullet came through at the top'. Due to the bloody, disfiguring nature of Roger's fatal wound, he decided to bury the cap with him rather than returning it to his relations in Ottawa. (Worsfold, 2015)

Carrying the disinterred remains of Osgoode and Rogers back to Ottawa, the Sharpshooters' long journey from Battleford by rail and steamboat was chronicled almost daily in all the Ottawa papers, their progress running alongside lengthy accounts of the Louis Riel trial. They were feted at several stops - pausing for a group shot at Smiths Fall (bottom) and ending up in front of the Drill Hall on Cartier Square (top). Historians have pointed out the significant role of the newly opened Canadian Pacific Railway in transporting military forces from the East to the Northwest. (Photos: LAC a066832/a027055)

As the train carrying Ottawa's contingent from the Northwest neared City Council met to resolve that it 'join a body to receive our gallant volunteers as they arrive home'. And the Mayor issued a proclamation calling upon the citizens to decorate the city with flags and banners. Places of business would be urged to close for the funerals of Privates Osgoode and Rogers. (City Council Minutes - July 13, 1885)

Merchants on Sparks Street complied with this request and bedecked the street with streamers. On Sunday July 19, 1885 the official party would join the soldiers bearing the coffins of Osgoode and Rogers on Parliament Hill, and proceed to the Drill Hall on Cartier Square where a funeral was staged. The fallen men remained there for a time so that the public could file by to pay its respects. (Photo: LAC a027053)

Two days prior to the ceremonies City Council met in special session to approve the spending of $250 to purchase burial plots in Beechwood Cemetery. (City Council Minutes - July 17, 1885)

And there they lie, in Section 24. However the City's contribution was not sufficient to purchase headstones which proved to be controversial. On the second anniversary of the Battle of Cut Knife Hill a number of the officers and men of the Sharpshooters visited the graves and decorated them with flowers. They were only able to find the plots because they were familiar with the location and 'could still discern the names faintly traced in lead pencil upon the rough wooden tablets at the head of the graves'. (Ottawa Journal, May 3, 1887) The newspaper added that two years before thousands had crowded the Drill Hall to view the coffins and then tens of thousands had thronged the streets to see them borne with honours to their present neglected resting place. This came in the midst of a protracted public debate over how and where to permanently memorilize the two.The rough wooden grave markers were eventually replaced with this double headstone funded by contributions from the citizens of Ottawa to the Sharpshooters Memorial Fund, which paid the Beechwood Cemetery Co. $18.00 for the granite marker.

The Monument Committee retained the services of English sculptor Percy Wood, the son of Marshall Wood who had made the highly regarded white marble statue of Queen Victoria that stands in the middle of the Library of Parliament. Wood Jr. told the committee that he could have a bronze monument of the size required placed in position for the sum of $3,500. 'Mr. Wood also stated that he would make the principal feature of the monument a volunteer dressed in uniform, in some striking attitude, and not a simple representation of a sleeping figure. He would make it indicative of life and activity.' (Ottawa Journal, November 26, 1886) As the deliberations of the committee dragged on a completely contrary vision unfolded - a soldier in repose, rifle pointing to the ground, eyes closed in private reflection.

Percy Wood's reputation was sailing high because of his Brant Memorial in Brantford, Ontario which had recently been unveiled. (Photo: The Brant Memorial, Corporation of he City of Brantford, 2001)

While waiting for sufficient funds for the bronze monument to come in the Ladies Soldiers Aid Association of the Governor General's Foot Guards paid for this engraved brass tablet installed inside the doors of the Drill Hall. It was unveiled on May 2, 1887, the second anniversary of the Battle of Cut Knife Hill. This also marked the beginning of a tussle between the GGFGs and the Ottawa Rifles (not credited on this tablet) as to who owned these heroes.

On the same day a stained glass window memorializing an angelic halo'd Osgoode was dedicated in St. Bartholomew's Anglican Church in New Edinburgh. A year earlier a stained glass memorial window to Rogers was unveiled in the Holy Trinity Church in Ottawa South.

Early on the Sharpshooters Memorial Committee unanimously decided, upon due consideration, to have the monument erected in the crotch between the bridges over the Rideau Canal linking the two parts of Ottawa. 'It is thought this would be the most appropriate and conspicuous location. The Government will be asked to assist in the building of an elevated abutment at the lower [eastern] end of the bridges even in height with the level of the street upon which the monument will be constructed'(Ottawa Journal, November 30, 1886). When McLeod Stewart endorsed the plan The Journal heartily agreed in an editorial dated June 2, 1887 saying that 'Mayor Stewart's idea of making a single boulevard between Upper and Lower Town by uniting the Dufferin and Sappers' bridges and erecting thereupon the Sharpshooters' memorial is a magnificent one. It is sincerely to be hoped that it will become un fait accompli'. (Photos: LAC a027742/a009303)

However a schism developed as to the location and members of the Monument Committee who favoured a Major's Hill Park setting prevailed. Sir Hector-Louis Langevin as Minister of Public Works made this prominent site at the head of the park available just after responsibility for Major's Hill was transferred from the City of Ottawa to the Government of Canada. Surprisingly for a national capital, apart from a few on Parliament Hill, the city had a limited number of public monuments of any kind and the Sharpshooter was a notable attraction. (Souvenir Book of Ottawa, 1903)

With an honour guard, soldiers' march past and a military band in attendance the Sharpshooters Monument was at last unveiled in front of a large crowd on November 2, 1888. Despite the initial post-Rebellion outpouring of emotion from the citizens of Ottawa it had taken over two years for public subscriptions to put the monument fund over the top. (Photo: a012416)

Lord Stanley (the man carrying notes in his left hand), newly arrived in Ottawa as the Governor General of Canada officiated at the dedication ceremonies in Major's Hill Park. Some histories suggest that Sir John A. Macdonald was present but there is no evidence of this. Major-General Sir Frederick Middleton (in the plumed hat) Commander of the Canadian Militia was also in attendance. He had been knighted for his services in quelling the rebellion but was later forced to resign his appointment after being held responsible for seizing stolen furs owned by a Metis, an action which the Canadian government found to be 'unwarrantable and illegal'. Upon his return to England Middleton was made Keeper of the Crown Jewels where he died on duty in the Tower of London. (Photo: LAC a027139)

With the money finally raised, the pose agreed to and the site settle upon those departing the ceremonies on a crisp November day, leaving the Sharpshooter frozen in thought might have expected him to remain here for a long, long time. For another version of his future travels visit the Sharpshooters' Ambulatory Memorial by Christopher Ryan. (Photos: LAC a009084/a027147)

The pensive soldier would not hold onto his solitary perch in Major's Hill Park for too long - unable to resist the powerful forces gathering to bring a railway terminal and hotel to the centre of Ottawa since the early 1900s. The land was needed for the new Chateau Laurier. He was reassigned to City Hall Park on Elgin Street between Queen and Albert. While the City of Ottawa was pleased to accept this gift they weren't prepared to pay the moving costs and was 'inclined to think that the Grand Trunk Railway authorities [the Chateau's builders] should be expected to look after this, they being interested in the site where the monument formerly was.' (Ottawa Journal, July 14, 1911) (Photo: LAC a066757)

At Ottawa City Hall the Sharpshooter joined a fellow combatant from one of Canada's other Imperial adventures - the 1903 South African (Boer) War Memorial by Hamilton MacCarthy, RCA reputedly financed by the pennies of thousands of Ottawa school children. Similar in scale and and materials it was if the pair was destined to go together, with this symmetrical balance heightened by the contrast between their stances - one is triumphant and the other reflective. (Photo: a034341/a034342)

The back squares mark their respective locations in City Hall Park. Their backdrop would be dramatically altered twenty years later. (Ottawa Fire Insurance Plan, 1912)

When Ottawa City Hall suffered a fire in 1931 the partially burned building was demolished. It was a timely event which cleared a lot of open space for Confederation Square. The Boer War and Northwest Rebellion monuments held their positions facing out towards Elgin Street. They flank a 12-pound gun, a relic from the South African campaign's Battle of Leliefontein. (Photo: LAC)

In 1939 the Sharpshooter, the Boer War soldier and the cannon were relocated further east to accommodate the widening of Elgin Street and the creation of a grass boulevard. (Photo: NFB)

Here they are looking south from Elgin and Queen Streets in the mid-1950s.

Still in view in this shot of the newly built British High Commission ca. 1962-63, but changes were a coming.

In early 1965 they were hoisted off their plinths in preparation for the huge excavation about to be dug for the National Arts Centre. They were bound for spots in front of the Canadian War Museum on Sussex Drive, but a spokesman for the NCC said that they would be back on Confederation Square by Centennial Year. A glass bottle was found in the Sharpshooter's stone base while it was being dismantled. It had already survived three moves without discovery. It contained 'some coins and a piece of paper'. On October 26, 1988 a few days before its dedication the Ottawa Journal reported that 'Records of historical interest will be placed in the stones of the pedestal, hermetically sealed'. (Photo: Ottawa Journal, February 1, 1965)

The old soldiers never made it to the War Museum. Instead they were set down ('posted') on the spot where the Driveway once entered Confederation Square. (Ottawa Journal. March 6, 1965)

The black arrow points to the temporary locations during the NAC's construction. (Photo: NCC Library)

Initially, location number five (or seven if you count the discarded options) was intended to be temporary as well. In 1969-70 the freshly landscaped Confederation Park was still under active consideration for the new National Museum.

By 1974 the boys in bronze had permanent homes (diagonal arrows) in Confederation Park near the Lt-Col By Fountain (one of a pair moved from Trafalgar Square designed by Sir Charles Barry of Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey) fame. (Photo geoOttawa 1991)

The Sharpshooter remained in repose and at rest in Confederation Park for a further 36 years, his longest stint in one spot - so far. (Photo: NCC Sculpture Walk)

Percy Wood had thrown in the dedication plaque on front of the monument for free, but his wording only acknowledged the participation of the Governor General's Foot Guards, and not the Ottawa Rifles (from whence Osgoode came). Because of this omission members of the Ottawa company refused to attend the official dedication ceremonies. In 2006, when the Sharpshooter was uprooted yet gain and moved from Confederation Park to a place in front of the Drill Hall (home of the GGFGs), the Foot Guards may have had the final word.

Percy Wood arrived in Ottawa with his bronze statue on September 15, 1888. In the bright sunshine you can see the foundry mark, crisp as ever. It was cast at the Coalbrookdale works in Shropshire, England, birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and until recently home of the AGA cooker.

The public mania that surrounded the two men's deaths was repeated for other casualties elsewhere in Eastern Canada. Thus far the monument has not fallen into the current controversial statue debates. The sleepy Sharpshooter's 1880s indifference to the conquering Christianizing cause which elevated him to martyrdom is a 21st century teachable moment.

'THEY WERE THE FIRST OTTAWA SOLDIERS TO GIVE THEIR LIVES IN COMBAT FOR THE DOMINION OF CANADA' says the Great Canadian Profiles plaque that is installed near the Osgood(e)/Rogers double gravesite in Beechwood Cemetery. Is this an archaic view that perpetuates the myths that accrued to the Sharpshooters Monument? Today the Northwest Rebellion or Resistance is seen in much more complex terms.

Seems inconsistent with these plaques from the same series of Great Canadian Profiles at Beechwood. A machinist and a public servant, Pvts. Osgoode and Rogers were likely young bucks up for adventure, but not battle hardened. Davin and Scott bear a different responsibility for their actions and deemed to be in another category. Perhaps it's time to add contextual details to the Sharpshooters Monument.

One side of the monument is still blank and there's room for another plaque. No need to move him again.

Make no mistake - public art in public spaces is a good thing. And the public should pay for it, without being spoon fed, pandered to, or dumbed down. You should expect these installations to inform their surroundings, heighten perceptions, and provoke fresh ideas. A little wit and humour helps - nothing too self-important. The City of Ottawa's Public Art Program is currently in love with shiny objects that perform interactive extras - blinking lights, changing colours, making sounds, all in accordance with convoluted theories that underlie those artworks. But there's a critical problem. Frequently the results are not all that interesting and the electronics that are needed to make these things function according to plan are prone to failure, leaving them permanently on the fritz, disabled... empty vessels.

I have to confess that for several weeks when looking into Ogilvy Square at a distance from Rideau I thought that this was a temporary utility structure wrapped up in yellow-and-black hazard tape. There is something going on here. It's called Ludic Fields. The media release says: 'Supported by OC Transpo as an initiative to bring cutting edge public artwork to important spaces on the transit network, the City of Ottawa Public Art Program is excited to present new interactive artworks produced by Ottawa’s own creative talent. This project is a unique collaboration between Artengine, Lateral Office and Andrew O’Malley.' Cutting edge for sure, those yellow strips have razor sharp edges.

'Ludic' for those who don't know is an adjective describing spontaneous and undirected playfulness derived from the Latin noun Ludus for games, jokes and toys. As an example of metal fabrication the piece is admirably finished.

I appreciate wordy didactic labels but they can go astray. There are some howlers in the Ludic creators' statement posted beside the piece. Like most of these declarations of intent, in trying to explain it they have reached too far, inflating rather slight concepts into a manifesto that is pretentious and frankly silly.

The installation was ready in time to get itself included in Downtown Rideau's 2017 version of their annual 'Commemorative Living Flag Exhibit' (Photo by Christopher Snow). This is a cultural initiative of the Rideau Business Improvement Area which bills itself as the Arts, Fashion and Theatre District of Ottawa. Now those are some pretensions.

You may recall the City of Ottawa's ill-advised decision to eliminate benches from the Ogilvy Square design for public safety reasons. This was sensibly overturned. The plaza is an attractive well-scaled urban space enclosed by a reconstructed portion of W.E. Noffke's 1913 department store and the podium of George Bemi's 1965 Rideau Trust/One Nicholas building, with good views north and south. Did the artists have any thoughts about this arbitrary siting in this setting? My photo is probably a little too flattering. In life this jagged yellow wall, out of synch with its city context, is an infelicitous barricade.

The piece also takes up a lot of plaza real estate. It's an arrangement of five acute triangles set onto diamond loading dock decking and you're invited to stand in them and move a little 'like a pebble in a pond of light and colo[u]r.'

The telltale cord snakes out of the cellular communication device's pedestal box. It looks like a slender thread that may not be up to harsh treatment from sidewalk plough blades.

Ludic Fields actually does light up via an LED organ set into the top of the steel frames. But it's a pretty wan effect, and the messages pinging back and forth between Ogilvy Square and the OC Transpo stations at Baseline and Blair don't have a lot to say.

Although it doesn't need to be plugged in there's a sad object lesson for Ottawa's public art located nearby. Justin Wonnacott's incised disc was originally set into the Rideau Street sidewalk near Waller. After being cracked into pieces by heavy vehicles the granite circle which is inscribed with a spiral of suggested words taken from a surveyor's diary in 1826 was moved into the Waller Mall, a through block passage leading to George Street.

The City of Ottawa had acquired the land when it planned to extend the roadway to the north, but in the 1980s it was suggested that this become a pedestrian mall. It was finally achieved in 1992. A few years later security concerns led to it being gated and locked overnight. As of February 2017 it was closed 24 hours a day, putting the artwork behind bars.

This is not the most creative solution to a security problem (street people hanging out) and shows how little the City values its open space. Not to say inconveniencing pedestrians by forcing them to detour around a long block.

Justin is best known for his photography including a series on Ottawa's public art. Curious that the artist should have chosen 'loss and replacement' as the theme for his work - although it ended up being the other way around, first replacement and then loss. The City of Ottawa Public Art Program also mentions a second element of the 1992 installation '...monument to a lost opportunity' on the south side of Rideau near King Edward. That was another sidewalk inset. It's been lost.

This is across the street from the locked gates. 'Cube' is the first station in a four-part artwork by glass artist Mark Thompson (2015). From the City of Ottawa's web page on its art collection: 'The four glass and light sculptures installed along Rideau Street explore how we perceive colour, light and motion. The art installation conveys a range of symbols and associations relating to the cultural and natural environment of Rideau Street. The glass artworks are lit by pre-programmed lights that slowly change colour and intensity transforming the streetscape and expand our sensory experience.' As its plaque explains 'Here at Waller Street, the energy of downtown glows red in Cube.'

And continues... 'Further east, in front of the Rideau branch of the Ottawa Public Library, many colours of Lattice represent interconnected knowledge.'

In the daylight when most people will see it, you're staring into static glass boxes. It works by the dark of night when 'Strips of glass housed inside each artwork are lit by pre-programmed lights. The lights slowly change colour and intensity causing shifts in perception as we travel around the object.'

'The values of community, integrity and health radiate from the green Sphere near Cobourg Street.' These installations are sturdy and remain remarkably unscathed by scratches, tagging, or postering. Like the Ludic piece the quality of the materials' construction and assembly is engineered with some finesse, and the artist's statement is ~~irrelevant~~ optional for understanding the piece. You can just acknowledge the object for what it is. The relationship to Rideau Street is moot, and that's ok.

At the terminus 'A blue wave announces the Rideau River and the natural world just beyond Wurtemburg Street.'The natural world? I thought that was Vanier. The City notes that 'Light is important to the work of Mark Thompson. He is interested in the way glass refracts light and how the eye perceives it.' These objects are not exactly heart-warming but I have heard many people say that they like them. My concern is about their probable lifespan and some day they may just be reflecting in the daylight.

Although it requires no moving parts or special electronics this installation has failed on its own terms. The City of Ottawa's Public Art Program states that The Listening Tree 'welcomes visitors to St. Luke's park with outstretched branches that complement the arched tree canopy framing the entrance pathway. Referencing both the natural and cultural worlds, the piece establishes a visual and sonic link between the park and the surrounding urban environment. The Listening Tree is a musical instrument that is played by the wind: At certain times, slotted pipes channel the wind, creating a series of shifting tones. The local artists behind Mixed Metaphors, Jesse Stewart and Matt Edwards, come from interdisciplinary backgrounds in music, art, and architecture. They share a common interest in sound and sound art.'

I have walked by it hundreds of times, in all wind and weather conditions, and have never heard a peep.

This once popular art installation is Visual Instrument Paradigm where sound-producing electronics and a motion detector created by Michael Bussiere are set into concrete forms designed by Mark West. One of Ottawa's first computer-based artworks it was commissioned by the former Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton. As people walked along the pathway V.I.P. produced startling bursts of synthesized sounds. You could stand in front of the motion detector (on the tall pole) and compose music by waving your arms. Occasionally the piece would compose music on its own without any human interaction.

Sometime around 2005 it stopped working and fell silent. Following a reboot of the electronic guts in 2015 V.I.P. was expected to spring back to life, and the City of Ottawa installed a new plaque nearby. It was a false restart.

After a few days of increasingly faint noises the cement encased speakers clammed up again. Since then they've been dead quiet.

The paying-tribute-to-the-wrong-guy schmozzle in Centretown's Jack Purcell Park is well known. In designing the park rehabilitation the landscape architects (Corush Sunderland Wright Ltd. specified raquet-shaped lighting features thinking that the park had named for a badminton champion (never trust Google). They were quickly renamed 'tree elements'. That's not the point. The interior curves of the racquet/tree-canopy contain holes meant to emit light. For a very brief time they produced some intermittent flickers, but then fell dark and remain so.

The City of Ottawa set the record straight when plaques were installed at the park's entrances in October 2014. 'Jack Purcell Park is named for a long time resident of Cartier Street who organized recreational activities for Centretown children, especially hockey. Affectionately known as the Stick Doctor, Jack Purcell repaired and donated hundreds of hockey sticks to young players. This park was created by the City of Ottawa in 1974 after Lewis and Waverley Streets were closed to provide the community with much needed green space.'

For the failure of its lofty intentions I would have to cite Celebration of Growth on King Edward Avenue. 'Karl Ciesluk's artwork celebrates the continuous process of growth and renewal and he has introduced these concepts in a sculptural series of seed pods and plant growth for [the] King Edward Avenue Renewal.'

It's a well made piece but this was an idea that did little to humanize the relentless pounding traffic that roars by these 'symbols for the natural cycles of dormancy and regeneration.' Sometimes words are not enough.

Nothing actually busted or missing here - just the sad irony of these steel fronds contrasted with the memory of King Edward's once forested central promenade, and you can only view them from the window of a whizzing car. 'Elegant lilies and fiddleheads sprout from metal stems as if growing from the concrete below.' Actually the fiddleheads are 'growing' from a wide median with real dirt; the lilies are stuck in cement.

The real thing long before King Edward was denuded. Maybe planting more trees would have sufficed. Ottawa's Public Art Program plaque says that Ciesluk envisions his sculptures as 'capsules awaiting the right moment to grow and flourish into their glory.' Not likely.

Kinetic statuary carries its own risks. Andrew Stonyer's Sparks Street timepiece Legacy (1989), which nobody seemed to like, suffered from the Mall Authority's failure to maintain and explain the thing. The clock had three rotating triangles rotating to flat positions at 15, 30 and 45-minutes. A complete hour was signified when Legacy's full rectangle was formed. An explanatory plaque might have been useful. Unfortunately it was frequently bashed by large trucks, hence the four concrete bollards installed at a later date.

It came a cropper during its earliest years and remained frozen. As they say about broken clocks - at least it told the correct time twice a day. A few years ago it was quietly removed by the Mall's management and dumped in a farmer's field. The City of Ottawa (which owns the clock) has no immediate plans to repair and re-install this work, although the promise of a new design for Sparks Street (announced on the 50th anniversary of the permanent mall) doesn't preclude its reappearance - if anyone wants it back. I'd be happy to give it another chance although the estimated costs for restoration are said to be eye-watering.

There was a time when the City of Ottawa frequently turned to national architectural competitions for its buildings. The outstanding example is the Ottawa City Hall on Green Island (Rother Bland Trudeau, 1957). So it wasn't unusual when on January 2, 1960 the Board of Control authorized funding of another national competition for the new Juvenile and Family Court Building to be built on a city-owned site at the southeast corner of Bronson and Sunnyside Avenues. While a few Board members grumbled that it would be cheaper for the city staff to design it, Mayor George Nelms and Controller Sam Berger insisted they should follow the city's policy of seeking outstanding designs for its new buildings, and they expected to be pleased by the results.

The Family Court's spectacular blow up on October 29, 1963 just six days after its official opening was the culmination of a building project bedevilled by construction problems, cost overruns and continuous redesigns. It was also closely associated with the short career of a promising young architect - Brian Barkham.

Schoeler and Barkham's winning design for Ottawa's new Juvenile and Family Court was as dry and reductive as it gets. In summary the competition judges said 'The exterior design is restrained without being dull. It relies on a pleasing balance of good fenestration and clean simple wall surfaces and a knowledge of suitable building materials.' This drawing seems to suggest large stone or precast panels laid in a staggered brick pattern, but during the drastic cost-cutting process that followed it turned out to be just plain brick, buff-colored and actually quite dull. The judges liked the 'vista through the entrance area into an inner court, a most attractive feature providing a prepossessing rather than a forbidding atmosphere'. (Journal R.A.I.A. September 1960)

The side elevation along Hopewell Avenue, which was distinctly more clunky, demonstrates their plan's winning ingredient - a total separation between the 'dignity of the court' on the left and the detention centre on the right which they euphemistically termed the 'observation section'. The competition judges rewarded this because it 'provided for separate entrances, segregation, secluded recreation areas [aka an exercise yard] and an atmosphere as far removed as possible from the impersonally judicial and prison-yard like' which 'interpreted the spirit of what was required.' Ominously they also recommended that 'the building be terraced to approximately three or four feet above the street level to obviate what might be a criticism of placing a one-storey building on low lying ground.' That low lying ground would almost prove to be the project's undoing.

By unanimous decision the winner was announced on July 7, 1960. The competition's Board of Assessors included Maxwell Taylor, City Architect; Charles Comfort, Director of the National Gallery of Canada; Ian MacLennan, Chief Architect CMHC; E.A. Gardner, Chief Architect Department of Public Works; Gordon Hughes, Chief Architect Department of Health; and Arthur Davison, Chief Architect DVA.

Second prize winner by Dickinson Associates was an example of the New Formalism, the most courthouse-ish of the finalists and in the opinion of the assessors 'a compact plan using a split level motive which was considered a very good solution... but not practical in its plan.'

'Furthermore, it did not appear to be as well studied, inasmuch as elevations, plans and perspectives do not correlate in all respects; columns which came in embarrassing positions in one plan were omitted; fenestration varied, and walls were moved in perspectives in order to enhance the drawing.'

Charles B. Greenberg's third place design was deemed to be the best of the runners-up, but 'lacked what was felt to be some important feature.' However the jurors failed to name that feature.

Damning with faint praise they ruled that his submission 'was a fairly competent architectural solution although some traffic flow routes appeared tortuous.' All three finalists placed a clerestorey on top of the roof to provide indirect daylighting to interior courtrooms below. Like Schoeler and Barkham's design it segregated the judicial and detention wings, but to a lesser extent, and included an enclosed exercise yard for the young detainees.

It's deeply frustrating that I haven't been able to find a photograph of the real building to illustrate thispost. Compressed and low-slung it wasn't so prepossessing and is lodged in Ottawa's modern architectural history for the events that followed its construction

As built, Schoeler and Barkham flipped the judicial/administrative block, with the courtrooms on the lefthand side and the courtyard on the right. The City of Ottawa sold the property to a developer some time before 2000. It's now a dense cluster of townhouses built on what's called Carraway Private. From the spelling I guess that this has nothing to do with these fragrant seeds.

A biographical entry for Brian Barkham. In 1958 after interning with Gilleland and Strutt he formed a partnership with Paul Schoeler, who would become one of the lions of Ottawa's architectural scene. (Briarcliffe Heritage Conservation District Study and Plan, City of Ottawa 2012)

Schoeler and Barkham's 1960 entry in the Ottawa Builders' Exchange competition was not successful, garnering only an honourable mention behind Dickinson Associates' winning design, and Balharrie Helmer and Morin's second place submission. For me it was the most brilliant of the three, floating the offices over a walled courtyard. But the judges felt that the spaces on the ground floor, which were to contain the plan examination rooms and bid-tendering depository, were 'niggardly'.

The Butler House at 1 Kindle Court in Briarcliffe, a woodsy enclave of well preserved modernist domestic architecture now designated a City of Ottawa Heritage Conservation District, typifies Barkham's finely tuned geometry. Although this era of strictly rigorous shapes set down in the bush is often described as houses that are living in harmony with their surroundings and connected to their natural settings (and that must have been in the architect's mindset) the connection is esoteric. I think that it is true that the architects didn't want to mess up a site's native landscape and liked to nestle them amongst natural features. (Photo: Briarcliffe Heritage Conservation District Study and Plan, City of Ottawa 2012)

The cantilever of their IBM office building at 150 Laurier Avenue West (1961) with Bill Teron acting as the developer, evokes the forward thrust of the Builder's Exchange project. Before it was left to rot and then reskinned with reflective glass, this was one of the best small office buildings in Ottawa.

The rear of the IBM building wasn't exactly a throw away either. These architects had a great sense of proportion. This wall has now disappeared from view. (Google Streetview, 2009)

The partnership of Schoeler and Barkham was brief - only five years, cut short by Brian Barkham's death at age 35. For a look at the portfolio of the work of Schoeler and Barkham, Architects and Planning Consultants visit the website of Schoeler and Heaton Architects Inc.

Perhaps because it was an initiative established by her predecessor Charlotte Whitton fought the new Family and Juvenile Court project at every turn. She arrived back in office just as the building was getting underway. The original cost estimate was $350,000. The lowest bid came in at almost double that. The building was halted, then cancelled, and upon reconsideration after looking at various alternatives (another design, a different site, a field trip to Toronto's new Family Court) re-started with a directive to the architects to save money in every way possible. Barkham was called before the Board of Control on more than one occasion to defend the use of broadloom in the judges' chambers, explain the absence of a sink in one of the kitchens, and delete the specifications for $38 wastebaskets, which the Mayor found too extravagant. She condemned the building as 'reckless and space-wasting', calling it 'a costly architectural monument'. As Whitton explained to the Attorney-General on opening day, October 23, 1963, there had been 'a lot of problems'.

It had all begun with the site selection, some marshland that the city had previously used for a dump. Soil testing was not undertaken until after the winning design had been selected. It was bottomless ooze that required significant pile-driving, an item not budgeted for. This was made all the more expensive by the architects' spreading floor plan, and the two separated wings so highly praised by the architectural competition jury. Their desire for a raised terrace to elevate the building from its low lying position proved to be impossible.

At 7:30 on the evening of October 29, 1963 a huge explosion rocked Ottawa South. The cause turned out to be a faulty valve in the gas burner in the boiler room. As she did at every disaster Whitton rushed to the scene, ready to impose her special powers as Chief Constable to declare a state of emergency. The situation was brought under control so this was not necessary. There was no loss of life, because the blast had initiated in the judicial wing and the detention centre's inmates were able to escape. So perhaps the separate sections was a good idea after all.

The Fire Marshal's investigation took over six months to return the findings. It confirmed that the explosion had been caused by gas leakage. Legal charges for liability were never pressed, but the City of Ottawa received over $250,000 in insurance compensation. It was not permitted to rebuild the Juvenile and Family Court until the investigations were concluded and tabled at City Hall.

On May 4, 1964 Ottawa City Council approved the court's reconstruction. Brian Barkham died of cancer on March 19, 1964. The following year the Ottawa Chapter of the Ontario Association of Architects announced its awards. Of the eight prizes and honourable mentions Schoeler, Barkham and Heaton received a total of five - including the Juvenile and Family Court and the IBM building.

Eight years ago URBSite posted a round-up of local comfort stations, the genteel term for public toilets. There is some fresh information on two of them. Both were designed in the same era. One is playful, one is serious.

This image of the Strathcona Park comfort station, built primarily for children using the park's wading pool has come to light. It was published in a 1961 issue of the Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and shows the lively mosaic that once clad this building. (Photos: Lingard Photo Features Ltd.)

When it was remodelled the randomly patterned background mosaic was chipped away, leaving just the figures which were painted over.

The Strathcona Park comfort station was designed by Ted Fancott, who was also responsible for the the design of the continuous mosaic that wraps around the building. In 1959 W.E. Fancott was chosen to head the Ottawa offices of Green Blankstein Russell and Associates while the Lorne Building, the new National Gallery of Canada was being built. As a sideline he was tasked with seeking out other commissions for GBR.

In its present state, heavily armoured with security cameras the toilets have lost a lot of their innocence and whimsy.

A futurist bandshell, also designed by Ted Fancott, was another part of the Strathcona Park make-over. Its clamshell form proved to be no match to an Ottawa winter snow load.

The little round structure was an ingenious design comprising three splayed equally sized wedges interlocked to form a circle. A low parapet wall concealed the extract ventilation and skylights from view.

In addition to the girls and boys toilets, it was also a maintenance equipment storage facility for the park and wading pool. Outdoor plumbing, or at least that which has to be drained and shut down for the winter months is notoriously finicky. A service access corridor behind the lavatories, toilets and urinals could solve that. It also held the vent stacks.

Laying the outer wall's concrete blocks into perfect curves must have required some skill. It was then parged and covered with a mesh to support the glass tiles. The building's cost ($24,300) was shared between the National Capital Commission and the City of Ottawa.

Inside, the terrazzo floors, fully tiled walls, and fixture installation were designed to be as vandal-proof as possible. (Photos: JRAIC, 1961)

Now for something more monumental - the public bathrooms that were integral to the Garden of the Provinces' layout. As of 2009 when this picture was taken they had been closed and boarded up for a very long time. The stone wall, actually just a facing for the reinforced concrete wall behind it was also showing signs of deterioration.

After two years of reconstruction a new wall and restored entrances have been revealed.

The new wall's stone coursing is much less irregular and less boulder faced than the 1960s original (seen here) but that's a quibble.

Shortly after my June 2009 posting the plywood coverings received a faux stone painting, which was a thoughtful touch.

The bathrooms beyond remain sealed, but seeing this history-nodding gesture, an original component of the Garden of the Provinces severely modern design, at least partially restored is comforting enough.

Although the area was suggested as vaguely landscaped in the 1950 National Capital Plan, it wasn't until 1958 that Jacques Gréber recommended a two-block deep park (it was to reach back to Queen Street and enclose the churches) as the western terminus for his Sparks Street Pedestrian Way from Elgin to Bay. The comfort stations' pointed arch portals are meant to evoke the large central window in Christ Church Cathedral above. (Sketch attributed to Emil van der Meulen, co-creator of the Garden's fountains with Norman Slater)

The entrances are fitted with portcullis-style gates, except these don't raise. They are hinged on one side, and roll inwards via a swivelling wheel at the bottom.

For the first time in many, many years the gender assignments carved into each arch have been uncovered.

The restrooms have inset vestibules faced with finely dressed stone panels. Their joints can been seen behind the mesh of the gates.

Given the high maintenance costs and security concerns of these things, it is unlikely that they will ever be returned to their intended function.

It was one of few examples of Modernist landscape architecture in Canada. The design for the Garden of the Provinces is credited as an early work by Donald Graham, who would eventually become the NCC's Chief Landscape Architect. For a more detailed analysis you will want to read John Zvonar's paper on the Garden of the Provinces from the Conserving the Modern in Canada Conference Proceedings (May 5-8, 2005). (Drawing: NCC 1961 Annual Report)

Shortly before opening day on September 24, 1962. The Garden of the Provinces was criticized for being out of the way and not particularly useful. It was described by some critics as more 'architecture' than 'garden'.The meticulously spaced little-leafed linden trees (exactly 30 of them - three for each province) have grown up to obscure the paved plaza and its strictly assembled composition of hard-edged squares and rectangles. (Photo: City Archives AN 2659)

You can see that by 1965 the grassed area surrounding the lower flagpole grouping had been replaced with cobbled pavers. The fountains were a story in themselves. Norman Slater's 'tin can tree' fountain released a drenching cloud of heavy mist that soaked those nearby. It was retuned during the recent restoration (Robertson Martin Architects) and now works a treat. The five basins of cascading water on the upper terrace are permanently out of action (Postcard: Ken Elder Collection)

One wonders if the designers foresaw future tree growth and might have wanted them pollarded. Now that the leaf canopy covers the garden all of that early 1960s geometry is obscured and the park's once great vistas to the north and west obstructed. So now it is a shady respite, although still underused. (geoOttawa 2009)

Before the Garden of the Provinces (and Territories) Sparks Street was bifurcated at a point midway between Bay and Bronson, with the section at the right dipping down the hill to travel into the Flats. (Photo: LAC e010900555)

This is the Wellington-to-Sparks block that would become the garden, when it was filled with businesses like Alexander Fleck's Vulcan Foundry. (Photo: 1931 Aerial)

When the site was cleared of its mostly industrial buildings, it was levelled and terraced. The lower section of Sparks Street beyond the gore disappeared. Note the two gabled buildings just west of the north end of Bronson Avenue. (NCC Annual Report, 1961)

These were the two houses built for second generation members of the Bronson family in the 1890s, demolished in early 1965, on the site of patriarch Henry Bronson's 1870 home. (Photo: Ottawa Journal, January 9, 1965)

You can see Gréber's original intention developed in the upper righthand corner of this photo of the model for the NCC's 1961 Ottawa Downtown Development Plan. Sparks Street would be closed off as a plaza overlooking the Garden of the Provinces, ending at Christ Church's Cathedral Hall, with a serpentine pathway leading into a park on top of the promontory once known as Bronson's Hill.

Some of the stones from the retaining wall separating the two halves of Sparks Street may have been recycled for the Garden of the Provinces. (Photo: LAC e010900554)

The fork in the road is just a faint memory hiding behind the brand new stone wall. Probably much more stable in holding up the remaining portion of Sparks Street, but distinctly less picturesque.

As the stylish little garage at 37 Flora Street begins its new life as a destination for Centretown foodies and craft beer followers it's time to remember that this building is also the last surviving piece of a local business legacy. When the doors opened 90 years ago it was reported that 'A conspicuous new feature of the automotive electrical and radio business of Welch and Johnston is the handsome new service station which has been constructed by this enterprising firm. The new structure faces Flora Street near Bank but it is contiguous with their extensive store store premises which are well known to all motorists.'
The de-industrialization of this Bank Street neighbourhood, the crook below Gladstone Avenue, is now complete and holds the promise of other adaptive re-habs and hip new-builds. Flora Hall Brewing obviously loves this building and from the time, money and effort that it has taken to insert some heavy duty beer-making operations into these old cinder-crete walls it has been a long road to romance. Here's what happened before the brewers came calling.

The new brewery's logo pays homage to some of the building's key design elements.

Through 50 years of progress Welch and Johnston grew from a 500 square foot storefront on Bank Street run by the two young founding partners to 60,000 square feet of floor space, with over 100 employees.

At the top is the oldest image of the Flora Street garage (some time before 1950) that I've been able to find. At that point Welch and Johnston was using it as the truck servicing building. The offices of the stoker and oil burner department were also here after they branched out into home heating systems. But when first built in 1927 it was intended for the leading automotive technologies. 'This handsome and spacious building incorporates many novel ideas in lay-out and equipment, and is a model establishment. It is completely equipped for battery, electrical, speedometer and carburetor services.' The new premises also featured an up-to-date radio repair department. It was heated too, apparently another novelty innovation for service garages. From the old photo it appears that the original garage door was once slightly recessed and accessed by a ramp. And the eyebrow canopy looks like it extended somewhat further over the sidewalk with a glazed roof section.

Welch and Johnston Engineers began on March 1, 1920 in one small shop at 476 Bank Street. The partners first met when they were both studying engineering at Queen's University. They enlisted after the outbreak of WWI, but never crossed paths again until an encounter near the war's end in a convalescing hospital in England. Both soldiers had observed the rapid evolution of electric equipment technology in cars and trucks which rekindled a mutual interest in electrical engineering that they'd discovered while in Kingston. Before returning to Canada Henry Welch and Clifford Johnston made a pact to start a business specializing in servicing automotive electrical systems. Within a year of opening they had to expand into the store next door at 474 Bank Street, adding another 500 square feet. (Photo: LAC a056300)

Cars could only be serviced one at a time, through the front door. (Photos: LAC a056313 and a056313)

There would be no documentary evidence of the early years of Welch and Johnston had Clifford Johnston not turned his enthusiasm for photography from a hobby into lifetime passion. He began by photographing locales in Belgium, France and England during his war service, then scenes from around Ottawa and regions of Canada, and his world travel. In 1929 he started to enter his work into international salon competitions. He was an active executive of the Camera Club of Ottawa and an important force in establishing major photo exhibitions at the National Gallery of Canada. In 1936 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. I haven't used any examples of his art photography in this post, but hundreds of them are on-line at Library and Archives Canada. (Photo: LAC a056300)

You can see by the photo in this clipping that by 1927 they had expanded into a third storefront on Bank Street. And they had also grown around the corner onto Flora. Welch and Johnston celebrated the opening of their 'Fine New Garage Building' on Flora Street, a 'Handsome Service Station for Automotive Electrical and Radio Establishment' with a full page promotional advertisement in the Ottawa Journal on December 17, 1927.

W+J was a pioneer at the dawn of the radio craze. Within a year of opening Welch and Johnston was busy in the evenings giving pubic demonstrations and eventually established a new department to sell the equipment. As the 1927 article said, 'In 1921 when radio devices were of the primitive sort and when KDKA was the only broadcasting station the line-up of interested spectators after five o-clock at night was a testimonial to the fascination of this new science.' This photo of their display window is from a few years later when the technology had advanced from listening by earphones to horns mounted on the receiver. (Photo: LAC a056313)

In the beginning it was an expensive toy - sometimes costing as much as a car. And complicated. Welch and Johnston offered the 'Wireless Course in 20 Lessons' so that you could understand your set.

To advertise the business they paid for billboards set up in strategic locations along the principal roads entering the city. (Photo: LAC a056311)

After Welch and Johnston's business closed the Flora Street garage was leased to a number of enterprises - notably Cycle Salvage, home of the Hog and many colourful bikers, and then Uptown Automotive.

In 2004 Pawel Fiett of Atelier 292 produced a plan for an adaptive re-use of 37 Flora Street.

A low-profile apartment building would have been placed on top of the old garage building.

Due to the owner's personal difficulties and eventual death the project remained unrealized.

Although it is not obvious from the street the footprint is not a true rectangle. In the apartment building the ground floor would have been used as a parking garage with one commercial unit on Flora Street.

As Welch and Johnson grew it expanded to pretty much fill the end of the block with its various auto-related businesses. (Fire Insurance Map, 1948 - Plate 131)

The Welch and Johnston 'Official Electrical Service' truck being driven up a ramp at the rear of the business in the mid-1920s. (Photos: LAC a056316 and a056317)

Here's a picture of their Vesta Storage Battery service truck parked on Flora Street, in front of the garage. In the background looking east beyond Bank Street you can see the Parker Cleaning and Dye Works (now the Studio Argyle lofts) and the Victoria Memorial Museum. (Photos: Google Streetview and LAC a056230)

37 Flora Street was on the real estate market for a long time, and at some point it was painted mustard yellow. For a look at the major interior work (new floors, insulated walls, a mezzanine, fermentation tanks, etc) you can track the brewery's progress on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

The new owners have returned it to a more neutral colour, approximating the original stucco finish.

They have also extended the two window bays (seen here in 2009) down to grade. At some earlier point doors had been cut into them.

The new second floor windows replicate the mullion divisions of the 1927 originals, and the required access ramp has been added. The concrete bumpers to either side of the garage door appear to have been there since the garage was first built.

They weren't able to reproduce the quirky roll up 'door-in-a-door' for human access when it was pulled down.

The upper portion had never been reglazed and the anti-burglar security wiring in these segmental arch windows was still in place.

It's a piece of original building fabric that the Flora Hall's designers have chosen to preserve.

Clifford Johnston appears to have prospered from the business's phenomenal growth. He was a keen sailor, and photographed all manner of ships on his travels. (Photo: LAC a056884)

His wife Alice Johnston (née Welch). Curiously Welch and Johnston married one another's only sisters. (Photo: LAC a056350)

Johnston's house (ca. 1930) in the Dow's Lake area. He died in May 1951 at the age of 54. Later that year a public exhibition of 250 of his photographs and his library of many hundreds of volumes was presented in the Welch and Johnston premises. They were later donated to the Public Archives of Canada. His son Donald carried on with the business until the early 1970s when it was sold to a national auto parts supply chain. When this closed their Bank Street frontage was turned into the Tommy and Lefebvre sporting goods store. (Photo: LAC a057810)

If it's not too corny I think that at some point it would be a nice idea for Flora Hall Brewing to recall Clifford's presence here by naming a brew or menu item for him, or perhaps using one of his photographs on a label. There are 1000 to choose from. And maybe add something for 'Hank' Welch too - a nickname given to him by one of their classmates at Queen's University - the young Charlotte Whitton. (Photo: Flora Hall Brewing Facebook)

THE MAULING OF SPARKS STREET'S PERMANENT MALL

PLOUFFE PARKS'S BIG TOPS

MORE MOSES CHAMBERLAIN EDEY: TO THE DALY BUILDING AND BEYOND

THE BLACKBURN BUILDING'S BLOCKS

TOM THUMB TEES OFF: EARLY MINIATURE GOLF IN OTTAWA

SNEAR MILLER'S MANY APARTMENT HOUSES

CANADIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION HOUSE TEAR DOWN

PEELING BACK THE LAYERS: 120 YEARS OF RENOVATION

TRIPLEX-TO-TOWERS: BUILDING OTTAWA'S APARTMENTS 1945-75

From TRIPLEX to TOWER: OTTAWA APARTMENTS 1945-75

DREAMS OF MAJOR'S HILL PARK

PERCY STREET PS ON THE MOVE

AN IAN JOHNS FACELIFT: THE NEW SKIN INN

THE UNITED STATES LEGATIONAL LEGACY

PUSHING OUT THE POST OFFICE

SCULPTURE WEEK I - TIME TO WAKE UP THE SHARPSHOOTERS NORTHWEST RESISTANCE MONUMENT?

SCULPTURE WEEK 2: SAMPLING NEW CITY OF OTTAWA PUBLIC ART... FRESH STREET BLING, AND WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

BRIAN BARKHAM'S JUVENILE AND FAMILY COURT (1960-1963)

REPRISING TWO COMFORT STATIONS

BATTERIES-TO-BEER AND TRUCKS-TO-TANKS: WELCH & JOHNSTON TURNS FLORAL