THE USEFUL LIFE OF ONE-NINETY-NINE RIDEAU STREET

November 21, 2019, 8:49 am

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This house was posted on Lost Ottawa a while back and it seemed vaguely familiar. The full inscription read '199 Rideau St. Ottawa - 1874 - Dr. Sweetlands Residence'. We see a fanciful stone dwelling with carefully arranged people (and a horse) standing in the full sun holding their respective poses, but the burning question was what were those crazy things on top of the third floor dormer windows? Bowls... big plates? As it turned out there was a lot more to Dr. Sweetland's residence. (Photo: Adrienne Jones)

There it was in this 1947 photograph of a section of the north side of Rideau Street approximately mid-way between Dalhousie and Cumberland. The glass block, plate glass and Vitrolite storefront is a brand new addition and the triple dormer riddle is solved. They are honking big cylinders. The building was stone-fronted with less costly brick side walls because they could expect to be obscured by neighbouring buildings at some point. (Photo: LAC e01074447)

And again taken from further back in a 1963-64 photo. The cylinders albeit in a deteriorating state were still there, the compound flue chimney had been partially shorn, and the storefront's glass tiles were covered up by a neon sign with a large '199' perched on top. (Photo: LAC e011074442)

Those numerals were still shining out as 199 Rideau Street burst into flames on the evening of Tuesday, July 14, 1964. (Ottawa Journal, July 15, 1964)

It was a dramatic event that drew crowds of 'thousands' packed twenty people deep on Rideau Street. 'Six firemen made a terrifying dash for their lives Tuesday night when a smouldering basement blaze at Commercial Television and Appliances, 199 Rideau St., exploded like a napalm bomb... The main floor exploded into a huge fireball, bursting windows and shooting huge fingers of flames up the front of the store.'(Ottawa Citizen, July 15, 1964)

The ruins of the building had been cleared away by the time of the May 15, 1965 First Annual Tulip Festival Parade leaving this dark gap on Rideau Street. (Photo: LAC e01108381)

The chronology of 199 Rideau Street's seventeen-year commercial history can be summarized thus, from Delroy Sales Ltd.'s table radio to the Rideau TV and Appliances 21" TV and the Commercial Television and Appliances AM/FM stereo combination. (Ottawa Citizen, December 12, 1950 and December 16, 1955;  Ottawa Journal, November 16, 1962)

Before that it had been in continuous use as a succession of medical offices with an attached residence, hence the two front doors - one for the surgery and the other for the doctor's house. Since it was one of the first substantial residential buildings in this block of Rideau it's set slightly further back from the street and was rarely captured in oblique views but two of the dormers are visible in a ca. 1917 photo. The big stone block on the other side of Rideau Street was the Order of the Sacred Heart (Grey Nuns) convent school for girls. (Photo: LAC 009190)

The date of construction was firmly established by this 1869 notice published in the Daily Citizen stating that as of September 25th Dr. Sweetland had removed his residence and surgery to the new stone building opposite the Grey Nun's School on Rideau Street. (Ottawa Daily Citizen, October 5, 1869)

Rideau Street was raw and unpaved when Sweetland first opened his practice in the Spring of 1866 a few blocks to the west of where that 'New Stone building' would be erected. He advertised frequently in the Daily Citizen. 'John Sweetland, M.D., Physician, Surgeon and Accoucheur, attending Physician to the Protestant Hospital. Office and Residence, corner of Rideau and Mosgrove Streets nearly opposite Workman and Griffin's. Entrance on Mosgrove Street.' The building is visible in this late 1860s photo of Rideau. The north side addresses were evenly numbered until 1875. An 'accoucheur' could best be described as a male mid-wife. (Photo: LAC a012540)

His biographies declare that Sweetland arrived in Ottawa in 1867, but this article puts the arrival a year earlier. Dr. Sweetland's ascent into the city's elite was meteoric. He was soon made the Physician to the Carleton County Gaol where he attended Thos. Darcy McGee's alleged assassin Patrick Whelan his on the way to the gallows. Within a year he was being urged to run for the Mayoralty of Ottawa, headed a local committee to condemn the murder of Thomas Scott in Manitoba, and later would become a Waterworks Commissioner instrumental in the building of the city's first water plant, founder and President of the Beechwood Cemetery Company, and a force in the building of a new Protestant General Hospital. Of course he also had a street in Sandy Hill named after him. (Ottawa Citizen, March 12, 1866)

Finally he was appointed as Sheriff of Carleton County in 1880, however you shouldn't start thinking about something like the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The position of County Sheriff was a high honour, but played a purely administrative role in the justice system overseeing legal actions and court proceedings. This article goes on to add that Dr. Sweetland was also a founder of the Ottawa Ladies' College and the Lady Stanley Institute for Trained Nurses, past-President of the St. George's Society, the Ottawa Reform Association, the Rideau Club, the Children's Aid Society, and the Amateur Orchestral Society. (Ottawa Journal, July 30, 1904)

With those round-headed windows, the lobed lintels, trefoilated lights within the arches over each double door and those dormers Dr. Sweetland's building was a playful departure from what had been typical for Ottawa's domestic architecture in the Confederation era. Up until then most stone houses were of the plain late-Georgian variety, and they would head in a Gothic Revival or Italianate direction in the next decade. The house at 199 Rideau Street was definitely architect designed, but by which of the usual suspects (King Arnoldi, Henry Horsey, Augustus Laver or William Hodgson) in still unknown.

In addition to the five figures and one horse posed out of doors there are two figures lurking by an open window in the central dormer.

What of the man himself? Dr. Sweetland was photographed at the age of 35 by William Topley. Wearing a very natty shirt and sporting an impressive set of mutton-chop whiskers he appears to be brooding and handsome. (Photo: LAC e010945733)

John Sweetland was married two times. His first wife Isabella, daughter of the Sheriff of Packenham and sister of Robert Lees (of Less Avenue) died of consumption on February 6, 1872. (Photo: LAC 006581137)

Two years later in a quiet, and one might say secretive given the time of day, wedding at 6 o'clock in the morning on August 11, 1874 he was married again to Mrs. N. Sparks -Catherine (sometimes referred to by the newspapers as Caroline), the widow of Nicholas C. Sparks with three children of her own. (Ottawa Citizen, February 6, 1872 and August 11, 1874)

The blended Sparks-Sweetland family in 1883. The second Mrs. Sweetland died in 1887 after a lingering illness, leaving Sheriff Sweetland a double widower for a further thirty years. (Photo: LACe0006581136)

According to Courtney Bond John Sweetland built a new house on the south-east corner of Cooper and Cartier Streets in 1885. These notices suggest that it was somewhat before that. In 1881 a Dr. Powell advertised that he was moving to 199 Rideau Street, a residence lately occupied by Dr. Sweetland. A year later 'Mrs. Sheriff Sweetland' was seeking a housemaid for the residence on Cooper Street.

Regardless of its date, and known variously as 160 Cooper, 150 Cooper, and 29 Cartier Sweetland's house was a large foursquare stone building which was surprisingly unstylish for the 1880s. It was known as 'Kilmington Place' (a village in Wiltshire) but the name's association with Sweetland is unclear. Its construction involved the laying of new water mains and sewerage under Cartier, which Sweetland's prior position as Waterworks Commissioner doubtlessly eased.The top-hatted 'Bryan' is John Pollard Bryan who served as the Sheriff's coachman for many years, probably the same fellow posing with the horse in the 1874 photo of 199 Rideau Street. (Photo: Adrienne Jones)

With magnification this detail from the 1895 Panoramic View of Ottawa is a little indistinct but it does pick up Kilmington Place at Cooper and Cartier (above and to the left of the black arrow) a block away from Cartier Square and the largest house in the area. 

Lumberman John Gilmour bought Sweetland's property ('the large, handsome and substantially built stone residence') in 1904, renaming it Trafalgar House. His sudden death forced its sale in 1912. It was big - 174 feet of lot frontage on Cooper, a drawing, sitting and billiard room, 10 bedrooms, four bathrooms, servants' hall, cold storage rooms, garage, carriage house, and stabling for six horses, etc. The building was bought by a contractor and stood empty until 1918 when it was purchased by the City of Ottawa and rented to the Great War Veterans (which became the Royal Canadian Legion) for a dollar a month. (Ottawa Citizen, August 17, 1912)

By 1964 the old Sweetland-Gilmour house had fallen into serious disrepair and after some debate the City of Ottawa evicted the Legion, demolished the house and sold the property to St. Theresa R.C. Church for an expansion that never happened. The Legion had always retained Gilmour's name for the building, and when they built a modern new Bemi designed branch at 110 Argyle Avenue they brought the old name with them. (Ottawa Citizen, September 22, 1966)

Sheriff Sweetland moved to 141 Cooper Street which he purchased from Lady Bourinot in 1904, and ended his days here. Previously it was the home of Sir John George Bourinot, Clerk of the House of Commons and an expert in Canadian parliamentary procedure who is still followed to this day. (Photo: LAC027136)

When he died on May 5, 1907, still holding the position of Sheriff his obituary was headlined 'USEFUL LIFE IS ENDED - A WORTHY MAN - Late Sheriff Was Moving Spirit in Many Institutions'. He left a considerable (actually astonishingly large for the time) estate to be divided among his children and step-children, with a $1,000 bequest to his faithful coachman. (Ottawa Citizen, May 23, 1907)

Some time just after 199 Rideau Street was destroyed by fire in 1964 the City of Ottawa acquired the property for a possible Waller Street extension. It was turned into a parking lot for the Ottawa Police Department - you can see the fresh asphalt and concrete curb stones below the black arrow. The City then picked up the two properties marked by the red arrows. The white arrow points to the back of a large stone building at 183-87 Rideau Street, which forms the next chapter in this story. (Photo: CMHC 1968-143)

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HERITAGE PRESERVATION SEVENTIES STYLE

November 28, 2019, 7:09 am

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This building doesn't get much love these days. Some of the stone window surrounds on the second and third floors are getting loose and had to be boarded over. The ground floor tenant is cheerfully oblivious to its historic setting. Looking beyond these small blemishes this expanse of dressed stone still projects a solid dignified front to a sort of sketchy block of Rideau Street. It's a tangible symbol of the dawn of heritage preservation in Ottawa. The outcome could have been very different, but the right people, in the right place, at the right time made a difference.

It was reported as just another fire in an old building that started to burn in the pre-dawn hours of Friday, March 28, 1975. The actions of a quick-thinking motorist who spotted smoke coming from the windows and drove directly report it at Ottawa Police headquarters (only three blocks away) probably saved some lives. Twenty people living in seven apartments were left homeless. At the time of the fire the lot next door - you can see three bollards at the right - was vacant. After a 1964 fire in a nearby building at 199 Rideau Street it had been bought by the City of Ottawa for a future Waller Street extension. (Ottawa Citizen, March 29, 1975)

While the tenants were forced out of the upper floor apartments the stores at ground level continued to operate. After the fire the building owner applied for a demolition permit. There was a silver lining. Clifford Ham, the City of Ottawa's recently hired heritage planner called the façade the most attractive and historic on the street, and important because of its proximity to the upcoming Rideau Centre and the Byward Market. Fresh to heritage preservation the City of Ottawa was ready to step in, very cautiously. As a show of good faith they resisted using the powers of the newOntario Heritage Act for enacting an initial 90-day freeze on the demolition request, which could be extended for an additional year if need be. (Ottawa Citizen, May 27, 1975)


The results are there to be witnessed today. (Google Streetview, 2012)

Six months after the Good Friday fire it was revealed that the City of Ottawa had come to an agreement with Ron Engineering and Construction Ltd., the building's owners. This complex deal would save 183-185 Rideau Street. They had intended to tear it down and put up a high-rise. Instead, in exchange for saving it Ottawa agreed to lease the city-owned land next door (acquired for a possible Waller Street extension from Rideau to George) to the developers at below market value, allowing them to build their new high-rise adjacent to the old stone building at some point in the future. 
With two spelling mistakes on December 7, 1977 after the building was restored the City of Ottawa posted the legal notice of its Intention to Disignate [sic] 183-185 Rideau Street under the provisions of the Ontario Heritage Act (1974). Statements of Reason are a statutory part of the procedure. The rationale included 'In its limestone material, general proportions, corner quoins, and severity of detail, the building is reminiscent of Ottawa's earlier architectural character and its Georgian antecedants [sic].' 

Most of the credit for saving the building goes to Lorry Greenberg, the first Mayor to support heritage preservation. After a year of negotiations and some cajoling with Ron Engineering the owner Ze'ev Vered said 'We both are happy. The Mayor convinced us to do something for the community. Without him we probably wouldn't have done it.' The Mayor also announced that the developer had made the first corporate donation of $1,000 to a special heritage fund for the purchase and restoration of historic properties in Ottawa. The Mayor himself had made the first donation of $500. (Ottawa Citizen, July 31, 1976)

Only the stone shell was to be retained and it had to be carefully underpinned with substantial foundations before a steel frame could be fitted in. 'We had to build inside of a building, which is pretty tricky.' said Alistair Ross, the project architect. He also designed the new four-store row that adjoins 183-85 Rideau Street.

Ron Engineering's option to lease the air rights over the adjacent city-owned land was connected to the City of Ottawa's future intentions to the Waller Street extension and join it to King Edward Avenue. As a sweetener if the city didn't proceed within the next five years the agreement also stated that the developer was granted the right to lease the land for a further 100 years at 25 percent below market value and build on the site. (Ottawa Journal, July 31, 1976)

And except for a change of tenants its 1977 appearance has been frozen ever since.

The first business to occupy 183 Rideau St. was a branch of Top Drug Mart, which took both storefronts making for an awkward internal layout that cuts the store into two parts - something that persists to this day. (Ottawa Journal, March 14, 1977).

To announce their takeover in 1979 Shoppers Drug Mart founder Murray Koffler flew into Ottawa, entered the Rideau Street store and donned a white pharmacist's jacket. The chain expected $615 million in sales that year. For 2017 Shoppers' total sales were listed at $12.8 billion. (Ottawa Citizen, May 24, 1979)

The rusticated arch around the front door has been referred to as a carriageway between two houses. It may be tall enough but is not sufficiently wide to admit more than the average sized horse sans carriage. It's more likely have been a passageway, and judging by the style of the stone dressing (smoother stone and more deeply grooved than the quoins) it is a later modification to the building.

On the 1888 Ottawa Fire Insurance Map (Plate 40) it's shown by dashed lines marked by arches at either end - a much wider vaulted opening over a lane leading to a totally enclosed coaching yard at the rear that is surrounded by two-storey ancillary brick buildings. The ground floor was a boarding house (nos. 183-185) and a grocers (no. 187).

By the time of the publication of the 1912 Ottawa Fire Insurance Atlas (Plate 40) the opening had been considerably narrowed. A new entrance to the courtyard from the rear through the outbuildings and the abutting buildings on the adjoining George Street property makes an appearance. By this date the ground floor was occupied by the Banque Provinciale du Québec (no. 183) and a dry goods store (nos. 187-189). 

Unfortunately there are no really good historic photos of 183-185 Rideau Street in its original state. The City of Ottawa dated the building to 1872 but supplied no supporting documentation. This date is plausible. By 1875 it was a pair of surgeries with residences for Dr. Clarence Church (a dentist) and Dr. Christopher Leggo. They were following the trail blazed by Dr. Sweetland a few doors away. (Photo: LAC e011083811)

Up to 1875 the building would have been evenly numbered as 90-92 Rideau Street. For a flavour of the times this is George Forde's General Grocery and Tea and Coffee Warehouse which was next door. (Ottawa Daily Citizen, 1872-1873)

In total the three buildings to the right of the stone quoins were the ones taken by the City of Ottawa for the future Waller Street extension. It included the Rideau Tavern, the continuation of a hostelry business said to be operating on this site since the 1820s. (Photo: LAC e01104442)

The Dollarama although fun to visit does not really take advantage of its historic setting.

Alistair Ross's addition deserves some attention. The building material is poured reinforced concrete with exposed aggregate. Looks like its re-bar is being exposed too. It was probably intended to be a temporary building while the developer awaited the future redevelopment of the unopened Waller Street road allowance.

Nonetheless Ross invested some thought here. It's the only neo-Georgian/Brutalist mash-up that I've ever seen. With the balanced proportions and a standing seam roof the architect was responding to the severity of the old stone building.

The cornice is stated by these strong horizontal step backs. The retail units are divided by incised concrete with the requisite form markings, now covered up by signs and paint.

There is a deep wood-lined recess and a projecting concrete canopy at each store entrance, which proved to be ideal pigeon roosts. They had to be netted and spiked. Unfortunately in the intervening forty+ years they have not been a commercial success.

Five weeks after the disastrous fire at 199 Rideau Street Alderman Charles St. Germain told the City of Ottawa's Traffic Committee that it was 'missing an excellent opportunity to straighten out a bad bottleneck on the other side of that block. We should move very quickly and expropriate the fire-gutted building [black arrow] on Rideau Street at Waller and perhaps the ones next [red arrows] to it. Then we could push Waller Street through to meet George, if we can move before a building permit to rebuild on the site is issued, and get a through street crossing Rideau.'(Ottawa Citizen, August 21, 1964) Two years later to complete the through-block alignment on July 25, 1966 the City authorized the acquisition of land at 152-154 George Street for the Waller Street extension.


Waller Street played a role in the early development of the Rideau Centre. It was to be the eastern terminus of the Rideau Mall, a pedestrian promenade stretching to Sussex Drive. South of Rideau Street Waller would carry the vehicular traffic diverted around the Mall, a job it continues to this day as a truck route.

The Rideau Mall would be covered with a soaring galleria (A.J. Diamond Architect) that extended to a gateway entrance at Waller.

The Rideau Street Galleria would have been quite a feat, and it was rejected in favour of a bus mall with covered sidewalks. (Ottawa Journal, February 25, 1976)

But a through-block connection in the Waller Street alignment continued to be in the mix for the planning of the Rideau Centre.

After a few aborted attempts it was ultimately realized in 2001 as the Waller Street Mall linking Rideau and George Streets.

In a misguided, punitive and totally uncreative response to the problem of homelessness the City of Ottawa has barricaded the William Street Mall.

There is a promise of 're-opening' it as part of a Site Plan Control Agreement for an adjacent 24 storey hotel/apartment building at 201 Rideau Street.

The buildings next door, the 1872 and 1977 sections figure into this discussion.

The height of the new tower's podium is keyed to the nearby ground floor levels and the roof peaks on Rideau Street. This version was then modified to articulate its massing by breaking up the single expanse of window openings on the podium's second and third floors.


Not sure if this clunkier version is actually an improvement.

The final build-out of the area suggests how the promise of a tower on its land issued by the City of Ottawa in 1976 could actually be achieved. To the left of the 201 Rideau Street project on the other side of the Waller Street extension is a tall building on the site of Alistair Ross's Brutalist/Georgian strip of stores.

FAME REMEMBER US WITH NO FAMILIAR NAME: ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN R.I.P

December 5, 2019, 8:03 am

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This post began with the accidental discovery of a picture of Archibald Lampman's 187 Bay Street house. Although that house was demolished almost sixty years ago one knew of its existence because of a pair of commemorative plaques installed at the 'Manpower' offices, 385 Slater Street, the Unemployment Insurance Commission's district headquarters in Ottawa. It was a nice gesture. Someone must have cared about the old building's loss at the time. There was no indication that it was an expression of a Lampmania that stretched back a further sixty years.
The modern verse-reading public, if there is one, might find it difficult to understand the cult of Archie that began with his untimely death in 1899. Regarded as 'Canada's Keats' Lampman was the equivalent of a C19th Leonard Cohen, who died young. As for the two plaques, this was just the tip of a colossal iceberg of memorials to Lampman.
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS POETRY.

Lampman's first book Among the Milletwas self-published in 1888 with money from his wife's inheritance. It contained one his best known poems, the Walt Whitman-esque Heat
which begins with a long ramble on a dusty lane and concludes with a lie-down on the grass:

From sky to sky on either hand,
Is the sole thing that seems to move
In all the heat-held land.
...
And yet to me not this or that
Is always sharp or always sweet;
In the sloped shadow of my hat
I lean at rest, and drain the heat;
...
In the full furnace of this hour
My thoughts grown keen and clear.

This is Archibald Lampman's house. The property along with several others of a similar vintage was required for a new UIC building. Demolition work began in March 1960. In this photo there's a small white rectangle on the lower corner of the house just above the stone foundation, hinting that there might have already been some kind of plaque here. If there was one its whereabouts is unknown. (Ottawa Citizen, March 9, 1960)

The loss of his house was deemed sufficiently significant to require the naming of the new office being built on the site as the 'Archibald Lampman Building'. (Ottawa Citizen, March 9, 1960)

A 1961 article indicates that 'one of Canada's top ranking poets' lived at 187 Bay Street for some years, but it was actually barely for two. The Commission dropped the idea of naming their building after Lampman. It would instead place a commemorative bronze plaque on the building. The first announcement of this was in this news item about the tender call with bids expected to be around $375,000. (Ottawa Citizen, May 30, 1961)

The UIC's new Ottawa office as designed by architect J.L.Kingston was long and squat, and most of the at-grade level was devoted to a dank covered parking lot. The lowest of eleven bids was $500,000. Archibald Lampman's brief presence here would be recognized. 'A bronze plaque will be placed on the UIC building to mark the historic, cultural importance of a least part of the site.'  In fact it would be two plaques, one in each official language. (Ottawa Citizen, June 20, 1961)

Today the site is an empty parking lot about to undergo major redevelopment and the plaques have disappeared. (Photo: Google Streetview 2019)

After the Government of Canada moved out Alterna Bank, successor to the Civil Service Co-operative Society took the building over and modernized it. (Google Streetview 2012)

They reinstalled two nicely refurbished plaques on the Slater Street side. Before the renovation they were on the Bay Street side. (Google Streetview 2015)

The Unemployment Insurance Commission had made good on its promise. On June 7, 1962 Lampman's surviving daughter Natalie unveiled the plaques with his niece in attendance. The text was chosen by poet Arthur Bourinot whose selection of this passage from Lampman's poem The Largest Lifeseems to contradict its meaning on the ephemeral nature of legacy...'To have done this is to have lived, though fame remember us with no familiar name'.

In 2001 the plaques had to be removed when the Alterna Bank remodelled the building. Councillor Elisabeth Arnold made their reinstatement a condition of approving an illuminated sign that required a variance to the Signs By-Law.
Lampman 'may have written his most beautiful poems' at 187 Bay Street. He wrote over 300 while here, most still unpublished at the time of his death. His final poem Winter Uplandsspeaks of crunching on snowshoes in the countryside near the edge of the city and looking back at Ottawa's skyline through a stinging cold evening:
Across the open fields for miles ahead;
The far off city towered and roofed in blue
A tender line upon the western red;
The winter air damaged his weakened lungs. Lampman returned to his Bay Street home, contracted pneumonia and died there a few weeks later.

The UIC's plaques were not the first. There was an etched brass memorial tablet donated by Lampman's friends with a quotation from Life and Nature installed in St. Margaret's Anglican Church on Montreal Road on June 27, 1907. At the dedication ceremony his sister presided at the organ while a quartette sang the lament He Giveth His Beloved Sleep by Frank Bridge, the composer of the Titanic-related Nearer My God To Thee. (Photo: Mike Steinhauer)

A stone cairn to the memory of Archibald Lampman was dedicated in Morpeth, Ontario on September 11, 1930. The monument is located beside the Trinity Anglican Church graveyard near the manse where he was born, which by that point had been demolished. The funds for the cairn were raised by the Canadian Authors Association. At the ceremony local poet Nathaniel Ramuson (3) read a poem specially written for the occasion. The niche is in the shape of the older style of Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada's plaques. (Ottawa Citizen, September 15, 1930)

The Board had granted the historic site designation on January 20, 1920. When bilingual plaques became mandatory this more recent replacement was affixed to the cairn. According to HSMBC's wording reworked in the 1980s 'he complemented his interest in Nature by commenting poetically on the dehumanizing effects of a mechanized capitalist society'. Although Lampman wrote on socialism and was said to be a Fabianist that sentiment might be a bit of post-Romantic revisionism.                                            
Because he died in the mid-Winter Archibald Lampman's remains had to be placed in the vault at Beechwood cemetery until the ground was soft enough to dig the grave where this boulder faced marker now stands. The plaque which bore these lines from In November appears to be missing:
The hills grow wintry white, and bleak winds moan
About the naked uplands. I alone
Am neither sad, nor shelterless, nor gray
Wrapped round with thought, content to watch and dream.

One of the Beechwood Cemetery's 'Great Canadian Profiles' plaques stands nearby.

The Poets' Pathway Project pays tribute to Lampman with his poem In Beechwood Cemetery cast in bronze on this rock mounted plaque.

Missing in action is the commemorative tablet that was placed on the gates of Toronto's old Trinity College which Archibald Lampman attended in 1880-82. It was likely removed when the college was demolished and rebuilt in the 1920s, but a search of the Trinity College Archives centre might be a good place to start. (Photo: Toronto Public Library)

Those paeans on plaques were not the only vehicle that kept his legacy alive. The photographic record probably assisted Lampman's posthumous fame. His was a carefully cultivated image achieved through about a dozen sittings at several Ottawa studios. On the day he died the Montreal Star wrote 'Mr. Lampman was quiet and gentle in manner, slightly built, but of fine form and feature. He was a man of strong views upon almost every subject.'

The first likeness of Archie to be widely circulated was this portrait of the poet in a pensive pose chosen by D.C. Scott to sit opposite the frontispiece for the 1901 Poems of Archibald Lampman. Publication of the collection was both an expression of Scott's personal grief and his claim as the official guardian chief promoter of the Lampman legend.

The sculptor and inventor of basketball R. Tait McKenzie produced this medallion of the tousle-haired poet, struck ca. 1906.

Canada Post issued a commemorative stamp in 1989.

Archie is taking tea with other Canadian literary illuminati in Charles Comfort's monumental murals in the Reading Room of the National Library. I don't know who his table mates are but that is likely Susannah Moodie on the right. Pauline Johnson's buckskin fringe is dangling over Lampman's shoulder.

The hagiographic heights were reached in the Horwood Glass Company's stained glass window which was installed at the Ottawa Public Library's new building of 1906. Not only was Lampman included with Alfred Lord Tennyson, Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott, he is positioned at the pinnacle of this pantheon alongside the two writers considered to be the greatest in the English language, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.

The 179-187 Bay Street row was built in 1896. The Lampman family moved into the end unit on the corner of Slater at the beginning of 1897. Some time after February 10, 1897 he advertised it as a furnished house to sublet for the coming Session of Parliament, which suggests a temporary absence. In 1898 he again advertised for a Summer sub-lessee, as he was about to start a six month leave of absence from the Post Office for medical reasons.  It was directly across the street from the grounds of the Ottawa Ladies' College. This how the immediate area appeared in 1912. The large pink building across the street was the Canadian Conservatory of Music built in 1901. (LAC e010689344)


Before moving to the Bay Street row Lampman lived at five previous addresses - a boarding house at 67 O'Connor Street, his father's house at 96 Queen Street (Rev. Archibald Lampman had moved to Ottawa), and Philomene Terrace on Daly Avenue where he occupied No. 363 in 1886, No. 369 in 1892-94 and No. 375 from 1894-96. His father-in-law, the Dr. Edward Playter lived around the corner at 383 Stewart Street. Short of funds for a time Archie and his wife Maud also stayed there, which probably makes it six addresses.

Not surprisingly on the City of Ottawa's Designated Heritage Property plaque his was the only name to be listed among the several prominent Ottawa citizens who lived here. (Photo: Wayfinding.ca)

12 DAYS OF DEPARTMENT STORES #1: A.A. FOURNIER: OTTAWA'S MERCHANT PRINCE

December 12, 2019, 7:52 am

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Ottawa's department stores are known for hanging on as locally-owned independent businesses, resisting the national chains until fairly late in the game. There are some exceptions and the buff brick block at Bank and Laurier is one of them. It starts out with the typical Horatio Alger story of a man who rose from shopkeeper's assistant to department store pioneer. When Albert Adolphe Fournier founder of A.A. Fournier Limited died (department store owners are always known by their initials) he was called 'Ottawa's Merchant Prince'. He was also the first to sell out. Today his name is largely forgotten.

In fact most people probably don't realize that this building designed by architect J. Albert Ewart in 1918 was once a department store. Reflecting the constant churn in retail trends it has changed hands many times.

When A.A. Fournier opened his new store he said ‘Our greatest concern now is not with profits, but with having the public realize what a real, live, up-to-the-minute store has been added to Ottawa’s business district.’ What he meant was that he hoped shoppers would follow him to what was then a somewhat unpromising location for a department store, distant as it was from the heart and hub of commerce on Sparks Street. Proprietors of neighbouring businesses welcomed him to Bank Street. 'This splendid structure is a credit to the enterprising merchant and to this great business artery of the city. There is no doubt that in the very near future Bank Street will be the greatest retail business street and the opening of this big establishment will do much to hurry that along. Ottawa's centre of population is about this corner and Mr. Fournier has hit on the actual trade centre in the capital.' A.A. Fournier's was the first and last large department store to be built on Bank Street. (Ottawa Journal, April 5, 1918)                   
Both the construction of a bright new department store and Fournier's move out of the old into the new had been delayed by WW1. He had purchased property at Bank and Laurier in 1914, 'a move that caused a mild sensation at the time for very few considered Bank Street as a business possibility and were very skeptical regarding any large department store venturing to that district for at least a number of years.' (Ottawa Journal, January 8, 1919)

The move was forced by the Dominion Government's 1912 expropriation of A.A. Fournier's previous location on Wellington Street near Lyon. Initially the store was confined to the stone building at the right and by 1902 this large expansion was required. (Photo: LAC e011168072)

A.A. Fournier came to Ottawa from Alexandria, Ontario in 1883 to join his family at Fournier Bros. when it was a modest dry goods business known as 'the little shop around the corner'. (Ottawa Citizen, June 2, 1923)

One of his innovations at the new store was Fournier's Self-Service Grocery System, a novelty that allowed shoppers to fill their own baskets with products on open display, 'not only a modern method of merchandizing groceries, but an advanced improved system of food distribution with ideally pleasant surroundings for warm weather shopping. A cool, clean, sanitary and properly ventilated food emporium.' When you were done there was elevator and porter service to waiting vehicles in the parking area at the Laurier Ave. entrance. (Ottawa Citizen, June 3, 1922)

In 1923 they celebrated their 40th anniversary with a year of unending sales, particularly on Fournier's Famous Dollar Days when the crowds could be attracted to the store like a magnet. There would be Extra Salespeople, Extra Bundlers, Extra Cashiers, French Service and Mothers care for babies at the Laurier Ave. entrance. (Ottawa Citizen, April 10, 1923)

That year A.A.  Fournier reflected on the four decades. ' Forty years is a long period when one compares Ottawa of today with the Ottawa of forty years ago. Then streetcars were unknown and Bank Street was 'in the wilderness' at least for the greater part.'(Ottawa Journal, June 2, 1923)

Well into his sixties Fournier gradually withdrew from the store's day-today operations. He sold the business in 1924. (October 29, 1924)

Albert Adolphe Fournier died at his Metcalfe Street home on April 15, 1927. He lay down for a nap after lunch and never awoke. The death was a banner headline in that day's Ottawa Evening Journal. (Ottawa Journal, April 15, 1927)

The new business was the Canadian Department Stores Limited, a chain of twenty-two department stores offering moderately priced goods in mid-sized cities located throughout Ontario. C.D.S. continued many of Fournier's traditions, including the Famous Dollar Days. (Ottawa Citizen, April 27, 1927)

A view of the store's main floor with its reinforced concrete beams left exposed. They are supported by finished hexagonal columns. When the building was renovated in the 1970s a dropped ceiling was added reducing the height of this impressive space by about 30%. The columns were covered over too. They were most recently revealed (and quickly recovered up) during the store's fit up for Murale, Shoppers Drug Mart's specialty make-up division. (Ottawa Citizen, May 10, 1930)

In 1926 Canadian Department Stores chain was quietly bought out by the T. Eaton Company which chose to retain the C.D.S. name and not to rebrand them as Eaton's stores. They did carry all of the Eaton in-house product lines like the 5.6 cubic foot Viking Electric Refrigerator with eight temperature settings and two 28-cube ice cube trays. (Ottawa Citizen, February 29, 1932)

Of course they also carried the Eatonia, Braemore and Birkdale brands, as well as Timothy Eaton's famous motto 'Goods Satisfactory or Money Refunded'. (Ottawa Citizen, May 10, 1930)

In 1946 the store was upgraded to a full-service Eaton's department store. It operated here for a further twenty years until the company had to liquidate some of its underperforming assets to raise capital for the Eaton Centre in Toronto. (Photo: LAC)

The building would then return to another Ontario chain of budget-priced stores. (Ottawa Journal, September 5, 1966)

A fire had destroyed the R.A. Beamish Store on Bank Street south of Somerset in 1964. They immediately began the search for a new location on Bank. (Ottawa  Citizen, February 15, 1964)

While they were debating where and when to relocate Eaton's planned departure from Bank and Laurier presented Beamish with the perfect opportunity, and they bought the building. (Photo: CA007840)

In 1976 the developers Olympia and York were hoping to replicate the success of their recently completed L'Esplanade Laurier by buying a full block across the street. The R.A. Beamish Store was swept up in this scheme which remains in the realm of the unbuilt. O and Y shelved the plan when the exodus of 15,000 federal employees to Hull made the proposal unprofitable. After a three-year struggle to rent it as is they decided on a $1 million facelift. Brick cleaning restored the original look of Lindsay's masonry. Although the update was described as contemporary with a new glass façade it was a careful rehabilitation that retained most of the building's exterior fabric.

In 1979 it was rented to the Continental Bank of Canada for a new way of banking in Ottawa in A.A.'s sixty-year old building. Today it is the Edifice Jack Layton Building, the National Headquarters of the N.D.P. (Ottawa Journal, October 5, 1979)

12 DAYS OF DEPARTMENT STORES #2: BRYSON GRAHAM 'WHERE YOUR GREAT GREAT GRANDMOTHER SHOPPED'

December 16, 2019, 7:49 am

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Bryson Graham billed itself as 'Ottawa's Oldest Department Store' which might suggest that it was also 'Ottawa's First Department Store'. In truth by the time that B-G matured into a full-service department store several of its competitors could have also claimed the prize. Department stores were formed in two ways. They would grow by degrees, gobbling up the numerous bankruptcies that beset the city's commercial life and expanding the premises by buying up the property next door and bashing though the walls. Or they could build new head-turning buildings with the latest features. Bryson Graham took the former track, but it was innovative in some ways - the first electric lighting, the first pneumatic tube system, and one of the first to take phone orders.

Like so many of these department store tales Bryson Graham traces its origin to a single storefront established in 1870, dealing in British and Foreign Fancy and Staple Dry Goods, with particular attention paid to tailoring and dress-making departments. (Photo: LAC c002237)
Charles Bryson moved to another single unit down the block at 152 Sparks Street in this row in 1880. Two years later he extended the store by buying No. 154. And he kept expanding by devouring the rest of the building. With the purchase of a carpet store in 1887, a dry goods and silk store in 1888, a china and crockery store in 1892, and a corsetiere in 1894 the whole row was his. Bryson Graham was remembered as a warren of interconnected rooms and varying floor levels.

Despite this confusing internal arrangement the six separate storefronts were linked by a single cornice. Although it was never fully modernized the store embraced the latest technology. In 1887 they installed 100 incandescent lights and the recently invented pneumatic tube cash and parcel carrying system with two terminals and ten vacuum tube lines snaking though the store. The Ottawa Journal was tickled by the new device which produced a distinctive sucking whoosh and pinging sound. They said that 'The carrier alone is worth a visit.'(Photo: LAC a0033935)

As this promotional card notes, it was 24 stores in 1 store. Bryson Graham claimed that it was the first business to market its goods with fixed prices (no haggling). 

There is a building which previously stood on their site that was much more nationally significant than the Bryson Graham department store. It was the Debarats Block built for George-Edouard Desbarats, the Queen's Printer appointed to produce all of the Government of Canada's published materials - debates, statutes and circulars. It was erected at Sparks and O'Connor Streets in 1865 to coincide with the arrival Parliament and the civil service in Ottawa.
Debarats' building also contained boarding rooms called the Toronto House. It was on this doorstep that Thomas D'Arcy McGee was fatally shot from behind in the early morning of April 7, 1868. To commemorate the event Debarats placed a memorial plaque at the scene of the assassination. (Photos: LAC a051646 and c002154)

Outraged by the plaque an arsonist who supported the assassin's cause burned the Desbarats Block to the ground in January 1869. A building filled with tons of combustible paper ensured its complete destruction. This photo of the district taken later that year shows the aftermath, an empty rubble strewn lot. This is where Bryson Graham's brick row was later to be located. In 1870 some of the Desbarats building's stones were reused in a building on Queen Street, including one engraved 'On this site Thomas D'Arcy McGee was assassinated'. This was discovered when it was being demolished for Bryson Graham's 1895 Queen Street extension. (Photo: LAC a011325)

The extensive grocery department operating in the basement level with a separate entrance on O’Connor had four regularly scheduled daily deliveries available through phone orders. In the Summer months designated delivery days were assigned to the cottage colonies around Ottawa from Britannia on the Bay to Blue Sea Lake.(Photo: CA002980)

The gloves, hosiery and ribbons department. (Ottawa Citizen, February 28, 1920)

The store's advertising was stylish and sassy. (Ottawa Citizen, January and February, 1913)

The year 1920 heralded Bryson Graham's Golden Jubilee. (Ottawa Citizen, February 28, 1920)

The original dry goods store is remembered in this 50th anniversary feature supplement. There is bustling mixed traffic on Sparks Street, while two delivery vehicles, one horse-drawn and one mechanized stand at the ready on O'Connor, and a shrewd little beaver named 'Progress' looks on. (Ottawa Citizen, February 28, 1920)

Their distended but admirable Mansard roof was added some time after that and it remains the building's most eye-catching feature. (Photo: LAC)

For their 60th anniversary in 1930 Bryson Graham installed an 18-passenger elevator at the east end of the store, a bookstore, an optical department, and created a parking lot on Albert Street for the exclusive use of their customers. The rate was 10 cents for the first hour and 5 cents for every hour thereafter. (Ottawa Citizen and Ottawa Journal, September 4, 1930)

Because Bryson Graham was an amalgam of narrow separate stores separated by party walls its retail space was primarily a series of long narrow rooms. (Ottawa Citizen, September 4, 1930)

The ladies' fashion departments were equally confining. (Ottawa Citizen, September 4, 1930)

In 1933 they took advantage of their prime corner at Sparks and O'Connor by launching an Art Deco drug store 'offering an inexhaustible supply of everything known to drugdom' and a soda fountain with 'everything scientifically known to a soda dispensary'. The mezzanine level restaurant was decorated with polished walnut, gleaming mirrors and concealed lighting arranged in a sunbeam effect. Grilled archways connected all of this to the main store during shopping hours, but the new section was open to the public from 8:00am to midnight.  (Ottawa Journal, May 31, 1933)

The 70th anniversary paid homage to the teachings of Charles Bryson and Frederick Graham with a Founders' Day Sales. (Ottawa Citizen, September 20, 1940)

The slogan 'Your Great Great Grandmother Shopped Here' was prescient. Those great great grandchildren were interested in shopping in less ancient surroundings. (Ottawa Citizen, September 20, 1940)

The 'once-in-a-year economy event famous for generations throughout the Ottawa Valley' was much more muted in 1950 even with purse gladdening prices. Bryson Graham was in its final days, run down, and out of step with stores like Ogilvy's which had been constantly expanding and modernizing. Bryson Graham closed in 1953. (Ottawa Citizen, August 28, 1950)

On June 15, 1954 the store's corner restaurant, soda fountain and drug store was transformed into the the busy Sharry's Restaurant, popular because of its prime location. (Photo: CMHC)

They were eager participants in the then unheard of for Ottawa outdoor cafes that were part of the first temporary Sparks Street Mall experiment of 1960. (Ottawa Citizen, May 21, 1960)

Sharry's was the dernier cri of 1950's decor, with sleek booths and two monumental three-dimensional murals depicting the Rocky and Laurentian Mountains, but it didn't date well. In 1978 it was transformed into Yesterday's Restaurant and Parlour, an exemplar of its own decade. The pseudo conservatory was described by the Ottawa Citizen's restaurant critic. 'Not only does it have white shag rug on the walls, but also large ceiling fans usually found in copra plantations. These have been mixed in with wall-to-ceiling mirrors, floor lamps which resemble old London street lights, and fancy, red drapes which look as if they should be gracing a Russian ballroom'. According to the reviewer Yesterday's food was as overwrought as its decor. In recent years it was transformed again into a white-tiled New York-style pseudo delicatessen. (Photo: CA004596)

The Bryson Graham building escaped from being swallowed up by some of the mega projects being floated in the 1960s and 1970s. An important chunk of Sparks Street commercial heritage was saved. (Photo: CA023154)

HAVEN'T SEEN  DAY #1'S STORE YET?  DON'T FORGET TO VISIT. 

12 DAYS OF DEPARTMENT STORES #3: THE C. ROSS COMPANY'S FOREMOST STORE

December 18, 2019, 8:06 am

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If you're incurably romantic about the past it's late afternoon in la belle époque Ottawa. The north side of Sparks Street glows with reflected light because a horse-drawn sprinkler truck has just passed over the recently macadamized road bed. The buildings on the south side of Sparks are raked by late afternoon sunlight and the awnings are down. That neatly tailored candy-striped canvas belongs to the C. Ross Company, the department store favoured by the city's haute bourgeoisie. At the main entrance a delivery boy's bicycle stands waiting at the curb. It's a pre-WW1 idyll that will soon be shattered.

DON'T FORGET TO VISIT DAY 1 (A.A. FOURNIER) AND DAY 2 (BRYSON GRAHAM)

Crawford Ross and his well-heeled backers represented the epitome of this gilded reverie which was short-lived and little remembered. When Ross died in 1927 his obituary simply said that 'he was in the dry goods business for a few years'. (Ottawa Journal, October 26, 1896)

This is where the C. Ross Co. opened but there was another business here before that. When T. Hunton, Son, and Larmonte - Direct Importers of Silks, Velvets, Real Laces and Fancy Goods merged with Shoolbred and Co.'s Ottawa Carpet and Furniture House they hired an architect who was a master of the Italianate style. William Hodgson (1827-1904) was said to have designed Metcalfe Street from one end to the other. The same could be said for Sparks where he produced  a number of sumptuously detailed commercial rows like this one at Sparks and Metcalfe in 1871. When Hunton and Shoolbred eventually moved on in 1889 Ross took over their premises. (Photo: LAC)

In the beginning (1889) the Ross store aimed for the middle class clientele with 'Staple and Fancy Dry Goods' where the 'Entire Stock Must Be Cleared Out'. It was extensively remodelled for the carriage trade by architect F.J. Alexander in 1891 by expanding to all three floors with an electric elevator. C. Ross Co. was so proud of the new machine that the store published daily tallies of the number of passengers using it, over 1,000 on a busy Saturday, along with the percentages of increased trade on the upper floors. (Photo: LAC a027184)

It was not a proprietorship, but a limited company whose shareholders included some of Ottawa’s most notable entrepreneurs - Chas Magee and Geo. Hay, (Bank of Ottawa), lumber barons Bronson, Maclaren, and Pattee, and commercial kingpins like the Bates and the Seybolds. On December 2, 1896 fire devastated a third of a block on Sparks Street taking with it the C. Ross Company. (Journal, December 3, 1896)

The board of blue bloods met the following day and voted to rise from the ashes. They would deliver Ottawa's first purpose-built department store using the latest in style and technology. Architect A.M. Calderon's five storey building, originally planned to be seven, was steel framed, clad in pressed brick and Scottish sandstone, and employed daring full bay width windows that brought lashings of daylight into the store. The row of round-headed windows on the top floor (the offices were located here) suggests that it was built somewhat in Romanesque Revival style. (Photo: LAC a027903)

Although the Ottawa store is a pale example the inspiration might have come from the mighty Henry Morgan's store in Montreal.

The project was beset by several delays, labour strikes, disputes with contractors and a hold up when shipping the stone from Scotland was stalled for some weeks. The various departments opened by degree as they were completed. (Ottawa Citizen, September 27, 1897)

'One of Canada's foremost stores' was ready by the Spring of 1898. C. Ross organized special excursions from the Ottawa Valley travelling on the Canada Atlantic, and Ottawa, Arnprior, and Parry Sound Railways. The tickets included not only royal treatment but reserved seats for the Al G. Field Minstrel Show playing at the new Russell Theatre, which Ross had furnished. Field's was one of the biggest travelling blackface acts in North America. (Ottawa Citizen, March 28, 1898)

The announcement declared it was clearly evident to the people of Ottawa that the Ross store at Sparks and Metcalfe was entirely too small for the business that had developed. For some time Ross had been planning an expansion by negotiating for the purchase of the Dominion Methodist Church property at Queen and Metcalfe but for 'unavoidable reasons the congregation was unable to consummate the transfer'. The C. Ross Co. had also picked up 'The Arcade' at 194 Sparks Street from its bankrupt owners, planning to use it as a temporary store during the expansion. When the deal with the church fell through they decided to renovate the Arcade building. (Ottawa Citizen, March 26, 1910)

The C. Ross Co. used it an an annex for the carpet and home furnishings departments until 1913 when they too went bankrupt. (Ottawa Citizen, May 5, 1910)

The expense of the second branch and competition for the carriage trade from a far more dazzling department store on the other side of the Rideau Canal had driven the C. Ross Co. from the scene. (Photo: LAC a042301)

The Royal Bank of Canada bought the building in 1913 for its Main Branch in Ottawa. They remodelled all but the top floor exterior and renamed the building as the Royal Bank Chambers. (Photo: LAC)

The building was given a weighty presence on the street with a strongly rusticated stone base and Corinthian columns at the bank's front door. (Photo: LAC)

By the 1920's after the arrival of the automobile Sparks Street had become a much more hectic place. (Photo: LAC a012885)

By 1958 the Royal Bank had the need for a sleeker more modern corporate statement than that offered by its dowdy outmoded building. It was sold to developers and demolished, exposing those steel girders that had been so forward thinking in 1897. (Ottawa Journal, February 26, 1964)

As the department store's frame was being revealed a view of the new Royal Bank building (Bank Premises Department, 1961) on the other side of Metcalfe was revealed. (Ottawa Citizen, April 4, 1964, Photo: CA022914)

Some time in the early 1900s a group of white clad figures followed by two ladies in black with parasols paraded by the main entrance to the C. Ross Co. That stretch of sidewalk contained a secret.

It collapsed when the property was being redeveloped many years later, a souvenir of Calderon's design of 1897. This was a vault extending under the right-of way, a common practice for increasing a store's storage space and locating sidewalk elevators. (Ottawa Journal, November 18, 1964)

The new Montreal Trust Building sits neatly on the C. Ross Co./Royal Bank Chambers site. If those dangling globe lights were actually installed, they were removed long ago. The 10 storey $3 million tower was designed by architects Bolton, Chadwick, Elwood and Aimers of Montreal. (Ottawa Citizen, November 14, 1964)

It's number 9 on this diagram boosting Ottawa's downtown growth. Buildings numbered 4, 5, 6 and 7 were never built, or built to completely different designs. (Ottawa Citizen, August 14, 1965)

The 12 DAYS OF DEPARTMENT STORES #4: DOWNTOWN IT'S CAPLAN'S

December 22, 2019, 7:59 am

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Caspar Caplan's rags-to-riches story is amazing. Caplan came to Ottawa from Lithuania in 1893 with 63 cents in his pocket and not a word of English. He started by peddling small wares to farmers bartering in exchange for produce which he then carted to the city to sell. After five years he was able to open a shoe shop at 207 Rideau Street, moving the business to Lebreton Flats just before the Great Fire of 1900 wiped out his store and family home. Again, peddling door to door for several more years produced enough savings to open a third store at 491 Sussex in 1905 where he sold clothing and linoleum. Finally in 1916 Caplan moved into 137 Rideau Street and expanded continually until his department store filled the entire commercial row next door. (Ottawa Citizen, August 11, 2004)

They were famous for their illuminated outdoor Christmas displays.

After Caplan's closed in 1984 the building was subjected to many redevelopment schemes and a long running dispute between the City of Ottawa and the Canril Corporation over the preservation of its '1930s façade'. (Ottawa Citizen, February 11, 2003)

After it was struck by arson the company's president caustically remarked 'I can't help but think that someone read about the whole thing in the paper and decided to take issue with it.' While the damage was limited the City of Ottawa would eventually give in and agree to a demolition. The 'mid-1920s façade' as it appears here (in the intervening nine days the Ottawa Citizen had added another ten years to its woefully inaccurate guesstimate of the date) is a Barry Padolsky Architect Ltd. restoration undertaken in the 1990s. (Ottawa Citizen, February 20, 2003)

Photogrammetic drawings of the original façade were used by Beique, Legault, Thuot architectes to recreate Caplan's storefront. The building within and the condo tower on top of it is from DCYSM architectes of Montreal. 

The buildings involved in Caplan's growth in the years before they arrived here. The Rideau Street store actually started in the yellow brick building at no. 137 to the right of the red brick row and soon expanded next door into the row's end unit at no. 135. Like most department stores that grew bit by bit their expansion story is complicated. (Photo: LAC)

By their 20th anniversary in 1928 'Caplan's Greater Store' filled the rest of the row. They had to make a virtue of the fact that there were four separate entrances by calling it 4-stores-in-1. Caplan had bought the whole building in 1922. Their 1908 'birthplace' at 547 Sussex is depicted in a cartouche at the left, but they had really begun three years earlier in rather miserable quarters. (Ottawa Citizen, March 15, 1928)

Caspar Caplan died in 1943 and the business was taken over by his widow Dora with support from sons Sam and Gordon, and later grandson George. The storefront's 1949 modernization designed by architect J. Morris Woolfson, added plate glass windows, green Italian marble cladding and shiny steel strips. (Ottawa Citizen, November 10, 1949)

The first and second floor coverup was extended the full length of the store in the early 1950s, but those arched windows on the top floor were still in view.

In 1969 Caplan's came up with a new look for an old landmark. (Ottawa Citizen, August 26, 1969)

It was really just applied corrugated steel siding which evened out the variation in the two rooflines of the buildings underneath, leaving the old windows in place which was a boon for the later restoration and recreation. There was more to come.

Caplan's final expansion extended the store all the way through to George Street. 'The front of the new section of the store will be finished in the attractive green marble that has become so identified with Caplan's Rideau Street store.' (Ottawa Journal, July 22, 1972)

During the six months of construction they temporarily relocated to the former Larocque's store. (Ottawa Citizen, August 26, 1972)

At the onset of this sequence of expansions Caspar Caplan tallied up his store's growth. 'By doubling its premises it is in a position to carry the largest stocks in its history... For the third time in three years C. Caplan Limited have found it necessary to make an important enlargement. The latest extension embraces the taking over of two adjoining stores, as a result the store has doubled, now to 25,000 square feet - exactly ten times as much was was required when the firm was founded.'(Ottawa Citizen, March 15, 1928)

Some of Caplan's employees at work in the accounting department during the 1940s.

The 1905 founding was re-embraced. In 1980 Gordon and Sam Caplan celebrated the store's diamond anniversary. (Ottawa Citizen, May 2, 1980)

It came to an end four years later. Burdened by a $3 million debt Caplan's closed its doors in 1984. The Rideau Centre (opened in 1983) had done them in. (Ottawa Citizen, June 14, 1984)

The BiWay discount store took over the rear half of Caplan's and the front half became a Canada Employment Centre.(Ottawa Citizen, October 15, 1984)

When Barry Padolsky removed the layers of 1949-69 he discovered that most of the brickwork was intact. The voids left by the big second floor windows were filled in with replica arches and a cornice was reinstated. An important relic of nineteenth century Rideau Street was restored and ready for use. (Ottawa Citizen, February 27, 2003)

There had been plans aplenty - for a casino, a sports hall of fame, a boutique hotel, a retail-entertainment centre, and a multi-plex movie theatre. (Ottawa Citizen, July 6, 2002)

The developer promised to keep the Rideau Street façade to help win community support. The George Street side would be a little jazzier. (Ottawa Citizen, July 6, 2002)

These plans fell through. Caplan's building, old red and yellow brick, green marble and all, was demolished in 2003. (Ottawa Citizen, July 5, 2003)

The developer proceeded with an 18 storey condo on top of a podium. Mayor Bob Chiarelli was at the unveiling party. (Ottawa Citizen, December 6, 2004)

At the city's insistence the base would be decorated with a modified replica of the Caplan building. The penthouse levels were to be PoMo-ish. (Ottawa Citizen, October 30, 2004)

This was altered to a see-through mesh hipped roof hat. (Photo: Canril Corporation)

And the thin bloodless 'heritage' screen on Rideau Street was a perfunctory and deeply insincere gesture.

12 DAYS OF DEPARTMENT STORES #5: R.J. DEVLIN HOME OF THE 'FUR BEAUTIFUL'

December 27, 2019, 9:00 am

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This weighty structure is a house that fur built. 'Gathered from the four corners of the earth were the rare and beautiful pelts shown in great profusion in the exhibit of the R.J. Devlin Company at the Main Building, Central Canada Exhibition. Crowds were around this stand afternoon and evening and it is apparent took the keenest interest in the contents of a handsome plate glass showcase. Their exclamations of appreciation were plainly audible.' The contents of the Devlin store on Sparks Street were equally furry. (Photo: CA022673)

A dizzying array of skins - musk ox, skunk, squirrel, muskrat, sable, lynx, ermine and electric seal was on display with mounted moose trophies looking on. Devlin mainly specialized in everything Canadian and the tiger was an interloper. (Photo: LAC a042576)

R.J. Devlin opened his first fur store at the eastern end of Sparks Street which was displaced by the enlargement of the Russell Hotel. After some intermediate addresses he invested in a property halfway between Elgin and Metcalfe (seen in the middle distance) to construct a building that would house his fur business with income producing offices for rent in the upper three floors.

Devlin’s new store was a hybrid transitional building, not strictly speaking a department store but it later became one. The Carleton Chambers of 1890-91 (Arnoldi and Calderon Architects) in the Romanesque Revival style was not just another Italianate row, but a mighty little edifice for an expansive ground floor store with offices above. The building’s systems were fully modern - an electric elevator and incandescent electric lighting, steam heat and standpipes throughout for fire suppression. (Photo: LAC)

The four curved display windows were added in 1910, by which point Devlin had taken over the entire ground floor. (Photo: CA022673)

After building the Carleton Chambers on Sparks Street Devlin added a large fur manufactory immediately behind it on Queen Street. Here the odour of skin dressing, which could be quite smelly, was controlled by a special ventilation system. Large south facing widows provided ample light on the furriers' sewing tables. (Photo; LAC)

When the fur storage department moved out of the building they used the freed up space for a new menswear shop. It was a showplace for the taxidermist's art. ‘The decorating scheme of this part will particularly appeal to our vigorous young citizens. It will breathe the spirit of the great Canadian outdoors. Moose and deer heads from Ontario and Quebec. Elk and caribou from Northern B.C. Bison from the middle west and Musk Ox from the arctic circle. These, with mounted grisly and polar bear rugs, Canadian waterfowl and smaller animals - every specimen and exception of its kind, will form an interesting setting for the fine imported hats, ulsters, etc.’ (Photo: CA0226671)

Robert J. Devlin (1842-1918) came to Ottawa from Londonderry before Confederation. Once he made his fortune he had the architects of the Carleton Chambers design a house perched on a cliff over the Ottawa River. The daredevil siting, where the Supreme Court's rear plaza now sit, speaks to his rugged individualism. When this district was cleared for the court his was the last house standing. (Photo: LAC a027391)

He was a friendly curmudgeon and self-styled humorist constantly doing battle with Ottawa City Council over the state of street lighting, property taxes and Sparks Street’s appalling road conditions. He is credited with getting the street macadamized in the 1880s after hiring a scow from the Ottawa River Co. christening it the ‘Mud Lark’ and having it towed back and forth through the mud in front of his store for several days. To highlight the event he ran a drawing based on this photo of the old Ottawa omnibus in his advertising.        
For Ottawa's Centennial celebrations of 1926 Devlin's Furs (From Trapper to Wearer) mounted a float bearing an igloo and parka-wearing attendants. (Photo: a025130)

The store windows showcased a complementary display of northern culture. From time to time they included caged live specimens of what could be obtained skinned within. (Photo: LAC)

In 1926 Devlin's opened its fur storage vault at Bank and Isabella Streets (J. Albert Ewart, Architect). It was dust, moth, burglar, fire, heat and moisture proof - cold as the Arctic Circle and safe as the Bank of England. They could also arrange for a private van with bonded Devlin attendants to come and fetch your furs. (Ottawa Journal, February 27, 1926)

This entrance alcove originally held a freestanding vitrine but it was taking away for easier access to the store. The sign says Loading Zone No Parking 8 AM to 6 PM - No Loading No Unloading 0 AM to 6 AM. No mention of the fire hydrant directly in front of the store. (Photo: CA005801)

During the war years Devlin's windows featured patriotic displays. (Photo: LAC)

The Henry Morgan Co. Limited of Montreal bought Devlin’s in 1950, but didn’t rename it until a year later, after Morgan’s mailed 10,000 questionnaires to the Devlin customer list asking their opinion on a name change. Over 5,000 replied and the majority said they liked the new name.

The Devlin's sign came down at the end of October and the Morgan's sign went up at the end of November. In 1960 Morgan’s bought by the Hudson’s Bay Company, which continued to use the Morgan name until 1972 when HBC bought Freiman’s on Rideau Street and closed the Sparks Street store.(Ottawa Citizen, October 31, 1951; Ottawa Journal, November 30, 1951)

Morgan's kept up the innovative standards of window dressing - a tribute to the Audrey Hepburn movie Gigi and a skiing scene (Photos: LAC)

The gorgeous Edwardian storefront was totally remodelled in 1967 to present a modernized face to the new Sparks Street Mall. All of these handsome buildings disappeared in 1979 for the expansion of the Royal Bank of Canada. 

A friend remembers Morgan's sales floors as matronly and stuffy. They catered to a more mature customer. Perhaps low-key and understated is a better description. Here you can see the change in floor levels between the Sparks and Queen street portions of the building. (Photos: CA036871, CA034467)

The perennial problem of loading on Sparks Street remained. It was only permitted between 8 AM and 10 AM. (Photo: CA0231134)

In case you were wondering where all of this happened. (Photo: Google Streetview)

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12 DAYS OF DEPARTMENT STORES #6: THE ARCADE'S MANY FACES

December 31, 2019, 8:21 am

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Never heard of it? This site has been the home of no less than seven department stores, and much more. The Arcade's history is cloaked in a sequence of blind ambition, multiple bankruptcies, a World War, personal tragedies, and mysterious plots. This is complicated. 

Designed in 1899 the building is one of architect Moses C. Edey's least known works. It began as a true arcade, a wide interior promenade with a through block span from Sparks Street to Queen Street. The brick and terra cotta front was enlivened by a three-storey oriel window flanked by two stacked arch and spandrel expanses of glass. The central tower was something to behold. (Photo: The Hub and The Spokes, 1904)

It was built for Geo. Blyth and Son, importers, purveyors of dry goods and carpets. The store had all of the modern conveniences - electric elevators from the basement to the fourth floor, a pneumatic tube cash system,  and the Luxifer Prisms. (Ottawa Citizen, August 8, 1900)

The almost all glass façade was punctuated by an elaborate faux belfry that poked above the other buildings on Sparks Street. Blyth's business lasted only four years in this location. (Photo: LAC a028198)

A building with an arcade was a suitable fit for 'The Arcade', a department store that already had branches up the Ottawa Valley. By 1910 they too were gone. (Ottawa Citizen, March 17, 1908)

The C. Ross Co. at Sparks and Metcalfe, hoping to expand  on that corner was ready to pick it up for swing space while they carried out the renovations. (Ottawa Citizen, May 5, 1910)

When the Ross expansion plans ran asunder the store decided to remodel it by modernizing Edey's window arrangement and removing the landmark belfry tower. Much of his original terra cotta remained in place and would survive many subsequent events. (Ottawa Citizen, May 26, 1910)

Sparks Street was a much plainer place without Edey's ditzy tower. The C. Ross Co. operated in its squared off Arcade (an aerial view on the left) from 1910 to 1913 when the costs of running a bifurcated store and competition from the much more fabulous A.E. Rea Company on Connaught Place proved to be too much.

They went bankrupt and Rea's absorbed their Arcade branch at 198 Sparks Street using it as their furniture and carpet annex. (Ottawa Journal, August 16, 1913)

After the outbreak of WW1 Rea's began to experience financial troubles of its own and withdrew their wares from the building, offering it gratis to the Militia Department for the war effort. The Arcade became the 43rd Infantry Regiment's recruiting station where enlisting men could undergo their medical inspections without delays and join up with the colours. (Ottawa Citizen, June 19, 1915)

The Arcade was put to use for all manner of morale-boosting and fund-raising events, like the I.O.D.E.'s  bazaars and tombolas. You'll have to Google tombola to find out what these were. (Ottawa Citizen, November 25, 1916)

It was also the venue for Canada's Patriotic Motor Show held annually from 1915 to 1917. It's likely that very few open sedan cars like this luxury model were coming off the assembly lines and sold during the war years.  (Ottawa Citizen, January 13, 1917)

A disastrous fire gutted The Arcade on the early morning of December 13, 1917. This is how the Queen Street entrance looked the day after. There was rampant speculation as to whether it was the work of enemy saboteurs or local arsonists trying to destroy evidence that would have implicated crooked munition manufacturers. At the time the Government's 'Shell Inquiry' was investigating a scandal involving the production of faulty fuses which refused to detonate. Models and drawings of the defective shells were said to be contained in a safe at the 43rd's Recruiting Station. (Photo: LAC a042922)

The burned out hulk and the mysterious safe sat undisturbed until 1919, when the building was reclaimed by the H.J. Daly Co. (successors to A.E. Rea). When they commenced reconstruction they uncovered the safe among the ruins. They found a model for a different sort of shell, no incriminating blueprints, and uncounted soldiers' ballots from the Union election of 1917.
The Daly Co. added three entirely rebuilt floors, but retained the lower two where parts of the 1899 terra cotta Ionic pilasters were still in place. They still are today

Daly's took possession of the new store in July 1919. The building was a replacement for the H.J. Daly flagship store at Rideau and Sussex that had been taken over by the Government of Canada which itself became known as the Daly Building. (Ottawa Journal, April 12, 1919)
The H.J. Daly Co. continued to offer space for good causes like the Ottawa Women's Association club house and residence for blind women on Kent Street. (Ottawa Citizen,  October 11, 1920)

Although it had a smart restaurant on the fifth floor providing unbroken views of the Gatineau Hills, this was a serious come-down and Daly's Sparks Street department store was soon to be embroiled in one of Canada's worst financial catastrophes.

Herbert J. Daly was also the President of the Home Bank of Canada. In 1923 it failed in a spectacular crash that wiped out millions. Corrupt accounting practices, cooked balance sheets and illegal payouts sunk the bank, led to criminal charges against Daly, and took out the department store. (Ottawa Citizen, February 26, 1923)

It was an ignominious end for what had once been Ottawa's premier department store. The image in Daly's Dollar Day ad is the Queen Street elevation. (Ottawa Journal, February 27, 1923)

Apart from the ground floor it has changed very little in the past hundred years.

Three years after Daly left a new arrival would move in. (Photo: LAC)

In the meantime The 2 Macs men's clothing store which had been booted out if its Bank and Sparks store set up at '194-196 Sparks St. Arcade Through to Queen St.' Throughout all that had happened the original concept of an arcade's was still alive. (Ottawa Citizen, November 7, 1924)

Walter Zeller's 92 strong Metropolitan Stores chain was scattered across Canada and the United States. The Sparks Street store which opened on May 28, 1926 was their second in Ottawa. Apart from a freshening up and painting their name on the side of the building they made few modifications to Daly's 1919 store. (Ottawa Journal, May 27, 1926)

The Metropolitan Stores settled in for a long run on Sparks Street and expanded into the the store next door. They stayed here for almost 50 years and witnessed Sparks Street's many changes, like the first temporary pedestrian Mall of 1960.

Henceforth the extended frontage would be part of the package. Here it peers from behind one of Watson Balharrie's tree-form canopies. (Photo: CA023130)

Sparks Street was still considered a hot retail location when the U.K.'s Marks and Spencer renovated the recently departed Metropolitan Stores in 1977. That year they were singled out for the Heritage Ottawa Award of Merit. Covering up the old façade would have been quicker and cheaper, but Marks and Sparks opted to restore it by cleaning the brick and repairing the historic windows. At the time it was their largest branch is Canada. In presenting the award Heritage Ottawa President Bill Keenan (left) said they picked Marks and Spencer because of 'The super job it had done in preserving heritage. The renovation has been done with grace and respect for the heritage of their new home. We want people to realize that the proper approach to development is to pay attention the intrinsic value of the buildings.’ Store manager David Wright (right) said 'This has been one of the most difficult renovations we have had to do.'(Ottawa Journal, December 9, 1977)

They muffed on the storefront by replacing the Metropolitan's snazzy Vitrolite with these dreary precast panels. Marks and Spencer pulled out in 1989, taking their packaged biscuits, sensible underwear and nice British sweaters with them. I am at loss as to remembering what was here before the GoodLife 24-Hour Fitness Centre went in, but that's o.k because this building already has plenty of history.

12 DAYS OF DEPARTMENT STORES #7: LOUIS NAPOLEON'S POULIN'S STORE OF SATISFACTION

January 4, 2020, 7:35 am

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Most department stores carried their own origin myths, usually retold and embroidered via extensive advertising at the time of each significant anniversary. They often invoked the arrival of a lad from the countryside to Ottawa who would rise from stockboy to a dynamo owner at the helm of an ever expanding Aladdin's cave of tempting merchandise. Louis Napoleon Poulin was the exemplar. An energetic civic booster, he liked to call L.N. Poulin Limited your 'Store of Satisfaction'.

What lies beneath this nicely restored wall? 'Heritage Place' as it was first known upon completion in 1985 (Blood, Houghton, Hughes and Marshall, Architects; Julia Gersovitch, Restoration Architect) represented the best that façadism could offer.

The City of Ottawa's Designated Heritage Property plaque on the site reads '1871 Poulin Building. This building was originally occupied by Moore Brothers, who were tin and cooper smiths. Between 1893-1972, it was the site of L.N. Poulin's Dry Goods Store.' This is a replacement plaque because the original was stolen for its scrap bronze value. However the city didn't take the opportunity to correct a few details. The building was built ca. 1879, Poulin's was founded in 1889, and closed in 1926. You can't believe everything you read - even when it's cast in bronze.

For their 34th anniversary Poulin's used a sketch captioned 'View of premises in 1903, illustrating one phase of the development of an Ottawa retail house'. Phase one refers to the fact that he would add a four storey addition on O'Connor Street the following year. (Ottawa Journal, June 19, 1923)

In fact they had just recycled the drawing used for the 23rd anniversary in 1912, when the plate glass windows were added. (Ottawa Journal, May 20, 1912)

Not only that, L.N. Poulin cheated by exaggerating the length of his Sparks Street frontage by adding four extra bays. (Photo: LAC a042642)

Poulin began his business on March 16, 1889 by renting a 22 by 66 foot storefront at the corner of the commercial row that he would eventually own and occupy. With 1,000 square feet and $5,000 in stock the formidable Lady Agnes Macdonald, the Prime Minister's wife was one of the first customers through the door. And the rest was history. (Ottawa Journal, May 20, 1912)

An undated interior shot of Poulin's dry goods store, pressed tin ceilings, electric lights, swagged paper garlands, and lots of fabric in stock. 'Section 4, L.N. Polin Ltd., Ottawa, Can. Silks, Dress Goods, Paper Patterns, Fancy Linen, Etc.'

The illuminated sign was installed some time before December 1909, when it appeared in this Topley photo. (Photo: LAC a009640)

A hundred years later you might think that nothing had changed.

Poulin's plans were much more ambitious than just adding more plate glass windows. In 1914 he hired W.E. Noffke to double his frontage on Sparks Street and top it with an impressive tower reaching to the maximum allowed by the city's height limits. With the outbreak of WW1 the plans were shelved. (Ottawa Journal, May 14, 1914)

His real estate ventures had emerged before. In the early 1900s Poulin acquired property at Britannia Bay (viz. Poulin Avenue) where he built Loma Cottage on the Hill, his  residence and later a tourist home. The balance of the land was subdivided into building lots which could be purchased at L.N. Poulin's. (Ottawa Journal, May 27, 1905 and May 23, 1905)

At the turn of the last century the 'uptown' portion of Ottawa's 'downtown' petered out around Albert Street. (Photo: LAC)

Today the boundary is around Gloucester Street.

This 1979 view of the O'Connor Street elevation encapsulates the sequence of additions and alterations to Poulin/Zellers. The darker brick wing at the extreme left is a Zellers 1955 addition, next to it is the uncorniced three-bay section added by L.N. Poulin in 1924, and the brushed metal canopied and Vitrolite fascia is the Zellers remodelling that was completed in 1956. (Photo: CA023065)

On the final business day of 1928 after forty years in business L.N. Poulin announced his retirement and sold his operations to Schulte-United Limited, a chain of budget-priced department stores. They proceeded with an extensive remodelling opened on April 13, 1929. The Poulin family retained ownership of the building and the land, a decision that would figure in the building's fate fifty years later. (Ottawa Citizen, April 12, 1929)

Walter P. Zeller took control of Schulte-United after it declared bankruptcy in 1931. In an expression of great faith in the future prosperity of Canada' on Thursday, November 12 of that year the Sparks Street store opened as Zellers Limited. (Ottawa Journal, November 7, 1931)

With the onset of the Great Depression it was a leap of faith. Zeller predicted 'a quick recovery from its present state of business depression'. A native of Kitchener,  Zeller started with three stores under his own name in St. Catharine's, Fort William and London, Ontario. (Ottawa Citizen, November 7, 1931)

Zellers advertised itself as a Canadian chain of thrift stores, a new Canadian organization specializing in Canadian-made goods. (Ottawa Journal, November 11, 1931)

The following year Zellers opened a 130-seat luncheonette in the basement. They were mindful of the pitfalls of a below-grade location and installed 'a good ventilation system that withdraws all heat and vapours from the kitchens and keeps the lunch room delightfully cool and the air fresh and sweet.' The food promised to be nourishing and cheap. 'We will feature a special breakfast beginning at 8:00 am, with 30 cent and 40 cent meals at noon. A delicious afternoon tea is served from 4:00 to 6:00 pm.  Later it is planned to extend the service until midnight.'(Ottawa Citizen, May 18, 1932)

The Zellers expansion of 1956 made it their largest store in Canada. (Ottawa Citizen, December 2, 1955)

The Ottawa Journal's news photo of a car crash just outside Zellers' corner at Sparks and O'Connor shows the storefront as it appeared just before the renovation. (Photo: CA033673)

This major remodelling modernized the shopping floors and recessed the new storefront under a streamlined marquee.(Photo: HBC Archives)

They erected a new sign on the corner. 'Thursday afternoon crowds on Sparks Street watched with keen interest as a new truck of collapsible hoist, its boom like a telescopic flag pole, raised a new electric sign on Zeller's remodelled store. The 65-foot boom gently lifted the 24-foot 800-pound "Zeller's" sign [note that they've added an apostrophe] to its spot at the corner over the Sparks and O'Connor entrance.'(Ottawa Citizen, December 7, 1956)

According to an end of season assessment of the first year of the temporary Sparks Street pedestrian mall Zeller's manager had mixed feelings about its impact on their sales, but was willing to give it for a further year. (Photo: CA023122)


Twelve years after the permanent Mall was put in place, the City of Ottawa proceeded with an 'Intention to Designate' the building for its architectural and historical value 'which spells trouble for its owners, who may want to tear it down and build something bigger on the site some day. They can't, says city hall.' The owner was Hugh Poulin (a judge and former M.P. for Ottawa-Centre) a descendant of L.N., who fought the heritage designation for years. (Ottawa Journal, June 6, 1979)

The preservation conflict was resolved by an agreement to retain just the facade, but the city's new 'angle plane restriction' by-law for increased setbacks on the south side of Sparks presented another hurdle. Its purpose was to prevent further shadowing on the Mall. (Ottawa Citizen, July 20, 1983)

Although it was deemed to be an urban design success the resulting 'Heritage Place' breached the by-law by a few degrees. Had the Rideau Club decided to locate here instead of the Metropolitan Life Building, the Zellers rooftop might have been a landscaped terrace. (Photo: Google Streetview)

12 DAYS OF DEPARTMENT STORES #8: J.A. LAROCQUE'S DALHOUSIE STREET DUEL

January 8, 2020, 2:44 pm

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The vagaries of the department store business - low margins, stiff competition and the continuous drive for expansion were all on display in the comings and goings at Ottawa's best example of Commercial Gothic architecture. For a time J.A. Larocque Limited was a proud statement of Lowertown's Francophone energy and ambition.

For heritage preservationists after some turbulent decades it all turned out quite well.

The business started in 1909 as a dry goods store at 270 Dalhousie Street on the north west corner of Dalhousie and Murray. There was a blouse factory on the third floor. After Larocque departed for his new store at Rideau Street the premises were taken by J.B. Lefebvre's enormous shoe shop, a beloved Lowertown institution for many years.

J.A. Larocque was proud of the fact that his was the only unionized store in Ottawa. The sales staff belonged to the Retail Clerks Union. This arrangement only lasted for a few years. (Ottawa Citizen, October 23, 1923)

In 1922 the City of Ottawa put an unopened piece of the Dalhousie Street road allowance up for sale, inviting bids from prospective developers. Larocque's offer of $8,000 was well below the assessed value, but after some acrimonious debate in Council they accepted his low bid. It was situated in front of the billboards in the distance.

One of the Ottawa Electric Railway's streetcars rounds the corner where the department store wold soon be built. (Photo: LAC)

A steam shovel commences the excavation for the foundation and a basement. Construction started on August 3, 1922.

The reinforced concrete frame takes shape. Built up to three storeys it was said to be designed to take more, and this almost happened in 1929. The store was designed by Millson, Burgess and Hazelgrove, Architects.

Crowds thronged the sidewalk for the opening of J.A. Larocque's new department store. It stood at the heart of Ottawa's Francophone community.

The long narrow strip of land that Larocque acquired is reflected in the building's footprint.

The store opened with some fanfare on May 19, 1923. It had taken less than ten months to complete. (Ottawa Citizen, May 23, 1923)

J.A. Larocque was an impressive anchor at the gateway to Dalhousie Street. (Photo: LAC e01089277)


But it was all too much. In 1926 Larocque's was taken over by liquidators Vineberg, Greenberg and Company of Montreal. They continued to operate the business as J.A. Larocque Limited. (Ottawa Citizen, September 26 and October 13, 1926)

Three years later on the twentieth anniversary of the store's founding they announced that a whole new building was being added, four floors of additional space with better facilities to handle bigger business. The decision was ill-timed and the expansion was put on hold. (Ottawa Citizen, October 4 and November 20, 1929)

They did proceed with a remodelling of the store that was designed to attract Lilliputian sized customers. (Ottawa Citizen, September 23, 1930)

There was trouble ahead which would arise from a dispute with the store's original founder that caused the new owners to officially change the name of the store from J.A. Larocque Limited to Larocque Registered. (Ottawa Citizen, January 12, 1931)

In 1931 J.A. Larocque opened a small department store under his own name at the north east corner of Dalhousie and Murray Streets. This resulted in a confusing situation because there were now two Larocque's on the street.

He stressed that this store was owned and operated buy a Larocque. It was located directly across the street from his first location (now Lefebvre's Shoe Store). (Ottawa Citizen, July 15, 1931)

Larocque's gamble came to naught. By 1934 it went bankrupt, and Larocque Registered was selling off his stock in their Rideau Street store. (Ottawa Citizen, September 26, 1934)

In 1971 they too were going out of business. The 100 Larocque employees, the majority being French-Canadian and some having served for over 20 years, received their notices.

The business was still controlled by the Vineberg family, although they refused to comment on the closing they did have plans for the building. (Ottawa Citizen, September 11, 1971)

In the meantime they rented it out as the temporary location for Caplan's while that store was undergoing extensive renovations.(Ottawa Citizen, August 26, 1972) 

The Vinebergs also owned the Villager Shoe chain. The former Larocque's then became The General Store/le Magasin Géneral which started out as a mall of 'boutiques' but gradually ran downmarket.

In 1988 the Larocque building was carefully restored and expanded by Barry Padolsky Architect Ltd. The plans called for a roof garden but this idea was abandoned. In the time honoured tradition of architectural practices Barry moved his own office into the building.

It was called Mercury Court because it is crowned by the rotating weather vane that once topped the Sun Life Assurance Building at Sparks and Bank. (Ottawa Citizen, February 11, 1989)

12 DAYS OF DEPARTMENT STORES #9: MURPHY-GAMBLE'S EXTRA BENEFITS

January 15, 2020, 9:24 am

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To celebrate the first Christmas in their brand new Sparks Street store, on December 9, 1910 Murphy-Gamble Limited issued an alert: ‘Ottawa’s “Infant-ry” or that portion of it who wish to give a personal reception to Santa Claus are advised that he will arrive at the Central Station tomorrow morning at 11:45 am and proceed in his toy-loaded motor along the following streets distributing free toys to the children along the route: Besserer St. to King Edward Ave, thence up Rideau and Wellington to Lyon, along Lyon to Gilmour, along Gilmour to Bank, up Bank to Sparks, arriving at the new Murphy-Gamble store about 12:30 or 12:45 where he will take up headquarters until Christmas Eve and where all his distributing agents are cordially invited to enter into the spirit of his pleasure-giving mission’ (Ottawa Citizen, December 9 , 1910)                                                                                                           
This was a lengthy route to complete in under one hour and Santa must have been driving a really big motor car that could hold all of those free toys. He would arrive here, ready to greet his distributing agents.

The store was established in a small building on Sparks Street in 1890 as the Ottawa branch of John Murphy and Company, one of the biggest St-Catherine Street department stores in Montreal. Samuel Gamble was brought to Ottawa to manage it, and married Murphy’s daughter Grace. In 1908 the store became Murphy Gamble Limited when the Robert Simpson Co. bought the parent company in Montreal, severing their Ottawa holdings. Simpson’s would return to the city many years later. (Photos: LAC)

In 1907 Fred and Eva Carling (heirs to the beer dynasty) bought the Brunswick Hotel property on Sparks Street for a planned seven story building. Murphy-Gamble had considered various expansion plans of its own but chose to move into rented quarters, which explains why their premises were also known as the Carling Building, a name inscribed over the arch above the fourth floor. It was store’s ultimate undoing.
For the Carling Building architect C.P. Meredith produced the largest reinforced concrete building to date in Ottawa. To a public that may not have been interested in these salient facts this promotion carefully explained the theory of structural poured concrete, the steel mesh reinforcing system, the wooden board forming process, and the point loading calculations in some detail. (Photo: Ottawa Citizen, April 16, 1910)

With apologies in advance for Edwardian-era sexism. Their removal sale on March 9, 1910 was a memorable one. ‘The Ottawa housewife appreciates a bargain, but the way they invaded the old Murphy-Gamble store yesterday afternoon proved too much for the big staff of clerks, and in the end the police had to be summoned. The store was packed with women and for an hour and a half the doors were kept locked with the bluecoats on guard. In time the immense crowd in the store had been served and the doors were again opened to admit another throng.’ (Ottawa Citizen, March 10, 1910) 
The next day the store reported that their removal sale would ‘go on record as of the the most strenuous, impetuous and all absorbing events in commercial circles that ever occurred in Ottawa, and that for many reasons.’ (LAC a042984)



Murphy Gamble Limited catered to every possible need from hair dressing, scalp treatments and manicures on the mezzanine level, to a businessmen's full lunch course in the fifth floor Rideau Room restaurant. They also offered the latest Hoovers, and a well-stocked grocery department on the lower Queen Street level. (Ottawa Citizen, October 24, 1912; Photo: LAC a042963)

Meredith's design delivered maximum daylight to the store's interior via this full bay glazing and an open skylit light well that ran down through all five floors. (Photo: LAC a042395)

The interior of Murphy-Gamble's was surprisingly raw, leaving the reinforced concrete structural systems unornamented and exposed. This is a 'View of Interior on Ground Floor - Showing the arrangements of the Beams, Columns and Girders'. (Construction Magazine, September 1911)

The Queen Street portion at the rear was built in three stages. The lower three floors (the ground floor at double height) were part of the 1910 construction. Some time later an additional floor was added. The elevator penthouse and skylight over the central atrium is at the left. To the middle is the shed roof over the staircase linking to the two sections, and another central skylight. This photo dates from the late 1930s. (Photo: LAC)

A view from the other direction during the same time period. Bryson-Graham's 1895 furniture and carpet annex was a few doors away. (Photo: LAC e010934826)

The rear was topped up with two more floors in 1948. (Photo: LAC)

Murphy-Gamble’s was one of most ardent boosters for the Sparks Street Mall in 1960, but clung to its carriage trade pretensions. They continued to offer the extra benefits provided by white glove attention. ’Shopping Service headed by Barbara Leigh who will gladly make purchases for you - a boon to summer cottagers. Just drop a note or telephone’ and ‘Deliveries every day, two on Fridays. No deliveries on Saturday, of course, when the store is closed.'
 
Some colour views of the storefront taken in the early 1960s, the years of the temporary Sparks Street Mall when window shopping was still a thing.

Over the years as other businesses jazzed themselves up with Vitrolite storefronts and neon signs Murphy-Gamble's handsomely glazed façade was an architectural time capsule.

There were concessions to modernity, although these up-to-date aluminum folding chairs would become classics. Strong enough to hold a baby elephant, light enough to be hoisted by a human baby. (Ottawa Citizen, May 20, 1950)

'Cowboys and Indians' fashion statements outside Murphy-Gamble's.

Construction of the permanent Sparks Street Mall was anticipated for 1965, but various objections, technical difficulties and cost overruns delayed the opening until September 1967. As the Mall's primary anchor store Murphy-Gamble's was primed and ready, but its day in the sun was brief. With no suburban branches the store was effected by competition from the shopping malls and their limitless free parking. More importantly the building's owners (a separate company) would soon be marketing this valuable piece of real estate.(Ottawa Citizen, September 20, 1967)

With the superblock Canada Square development proposed by Eaton's nudging into Sparks Street another national department store chain was eying the Murphy-Gamble property. In 1970 the building was sold to Simpson-Sears, and flipped to the parent Robert Simpson Company the following year. With that Murphy-Gamble's was served its eviction notice. (Photo: CA023158)

This was also the project that precipitated the Rideau Centre. Before that, as a pre-emptive move to establish a retail presence in the area Simpsons would open its own store on Sparks, breaking the longstanding agreement that it would never open in markets already served by Simpson-Sears. It would also bring the Murphy-Gamble story full circle. The Robert Simpson Company had purchased M-G's founder the John Murphy Co. of Montreal long before, and in a sense ti his corporate entity was making its return to Ottawa. (Ottawa Citizen, March 6, 1973)

Upon its arrival on the Mall Simpsons pointedly advertised that it would be open for Saturday shopping. The pre-opening renovations were largely limited to an interior refresh of Murphy-Gamble's tired sales floors. (Ottawa Citizen, July 14, 1972)

The exterior remodelling consisted of a heavy coat of paint covering the original windows and an anodized aluminum cladding on the lower two floors. (Photo: CA018923)

Simpsons was acquired by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1980, but they continued to operate the Sparks Street store until 1982. (Ottawa Citizen, December 31, 1982)

The Bank of Nova Scotia bought the building in 1983 to escape the federal ownership of its John Lyle building across the street. It voluntarily offered this well-intentioned if clumsy ‘restoration’ even though the City had just refused a request to designate it. The Bank of Nova Scotia's Chief Architects's Office (John Shaw, Architect) wanted to recreate the old department store’s historic stone facing by using a cladding that looks fake but is real, the same Bruce peninsula material on the Elgin Street Ontario Courthouse. In fact in 1910 Murphy-Gamble’s had been faced with ‘Roman Stone’ a patented artificial material. Visit the banking hall. It reflects the spirit of Murphy-Gamble’s original interior with a mezzanine and skylit central atrium. 

There is another memento of Murphy-Gamble's - Samuel Gamble's house at 267 Somerset Street West, with an entwined monogram and the date 1909 carved above the front door. It was built in the year after the department store severed its relationship with John Murphy of Montreal and the year that construction of the new Sparks Street building commenced, suggesting that Gamble's store and home may have been designed by the same architect.

12 DAYS OF DEPARTMENT STORES #10: THE DALY BUILDING'S DILEMMAS AND DISASTERS

January 22, 2020, 8:27 am

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The city's longest running heritage debate. A building that was admired by some people and hated by more. Its origins are bound up with the stories of three hard charging entrepreneurs whose careers ended in death or disgrace, sometimes both. The building was then dragged through decades of bureaucratic manoeuvres and bickering over planning directions for the national capital. The Daly Building is a grey ghost that hangs over Ottawa to this day. For the first fourteen of its eighty-six year lifespan this sturdy stone and glass box was the city's greatest department store bearing the personal stamps of Herbert J. Daly, Andrew Edward Rea, and Thomas M. Lindsay.

In 1889 Thomas Lindsay opened a business in Uppertown in partnership with H.H. Lang, trading under the name of Lang and Lindsay at the northwest corner of Wellington and Kent Streets. They were general dry goods merchants. (Photo: LAC e1464615)

The partnership dissolved amicably after three years. The new T. Lindsay Co. grew steadily, expanding into most of this row which became known as 'Lindsay's Corner', pictured here in later years. By the turn of the century he was running out of space. (Photo: LAC e164616)

In 1901 Tom Lindsay hired Moses C. Edey to design a new department store that would have extended the whole block on the east side of Bank from Sparks to Wellington. '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, now the centre of the business part of the city, and large enough to accommodate the business transacted therein - the Eaton Departmental Store of Ottawa.' The T. Eaton Co. franchise did not materialize and Lindsay shelved this ambitious plan. (Ottawa Journal, February 9, 1901)

Lindsay's next move was more fruitful when he was attracted to a speculative real estate venture on a block of Rideau between Sussex and Mackenzie being developed by the Clemow-Powell estate. After the investors' plan for a railway hotel on the property was scooped by the Canada Atlantic Railway (for the future Chateau Laurier) they seized on the idea of a department store and joined forces with Lindsay, who brought Edey into the project. The architect's initial scheme was a heavy mass that dealt uneasily with its steeply sloping site.  (Ottawa Journal, June 21, 1904)

While some adjustments to the drawing had magically adjusted the grade problem Edey hadn't improved the store's stodgy architectural style. Expectations were raised when  William Powell, the Clemow estate's trustee, visited the new R.H. Macy store on Herald Square, New York and returned to Ottawa promising that the new T. Lindsay Co. would be modelled on the biggest, most modern department store in the world. It would be a palace he said. (Ottawa Journal, July 25, 1904)

For its architectural inspiration James Ogilvy's department store in Montreal was a closer source. Montreal's earlier 'stone skeletons' with heavy masonry facing applied to the structural frame leaving openings for large plate glass to admit natural light were a pioneering format for future commercial buildings.

It was a style that Edey would return to again when designing a printing plant on Sparks Street shortly after the T. Lindsay store was opened. (Photo: LAC a042327)

Lindsay and his backers turned the sod for 'Ottawa's new palatial store' on September 10, 1904. It was ready to open nine months later. (Ottawa Citizen, June 10, 1905)


The sheer nakedness of its concrete-encased steel column and beam framing system was startling. With transparent exterior walls that seemed to disappear the department store's design was commonly derided as the 'bird-cage' style of architecture. However there were luxurious appointments inside. Those large tripartite windows with pivoting side panels that could be swung out for ventilation were mahogany veneered. The flooring was highly polished birchwood, and custom made display counters were of figured walnut. In addition to all of the expected departments - men's, ladies' and children's wear, jewellery, hats, furs, home furnishings, hardware and a grocery store there was a drawing room on the second level for customers needing to put their feet up, with an adjoining ladies' lounge and writing room. Elsewhere a restaurant and tea room catered to the peckish. Public restrooms were located on every floor.

In the Summer of 1909 Thomas Lindsay became seriously ill and started negotiations with a potential buyer to assume control of the business. (Ottawa Citizen, August 3, 1909)

The take-over deal was being concluded at the time of his death. (Ottawa Citizen, September 15, 1909)

Successful Toronto business magnate Andrew Edward Rea was 36 when he assumed control of Lindsay's store.

In 1900 he established a white wear clothing factory in Toronto, then invested in heavy machinery and oil companies, and acquired Crosley's large department store in Montreal, shown here as something closely resembling his future Ottawa store. (Ottawa Citizen, December 24, 1909)

This was another of A.E. Rae's Montreal stores, designed by A.F. Dunlop and operated as Goodwin's Limited. (Construction Magazine, August 1911)

After his arrival in this city Rea took ' the opportunity of thanking the public generally for the courtesy shown us in putting up with the many inconveniences on account of our lack of space. But to show our appreciation of the patronage accorded us, we have decided to build a store that will meet the demands of the public' and offered this illustration of 'what the new building will look like, which will be completed and ready to receive Santa Claus on a much larger scale next year'. The forecast was somewhat optimistic. It would be a further five years before the A.E. Rea store would actually look like this. (Ottawa Citizen, December 24, 1909)

Once in Ottawa his first duty was re-name the Lindsay store and erect an electric sign on the roof with the company's signature logo, a gigantic 'R' set in a flaming sunburst. It was aimed westward so that at night it blazed out over Connaught Place. (Photo: LAC a045642)

In the years leading up to World War 1 Rea's dressed the city's wealthiest women, selling couture designs that could cost as much as half the annual salary of an average worker.

On September 22, 1914 when WW1 raged on the Western Front A.E. Rea warned his customers that this season of Paris fashions might be the last for some time to come. 'When you inspect our imported gowns from London and Paris do not forget that many of the houses that designed them such as Paul Poiret and Bechoff-David have lost their leading spirits, are now at the front to fight for their country. Both Jean and Jacques Worth of the famous Rue de la Paix house and Doeuillet of Place Vendome have joined the volunteers. A display like this is an opportunity that you cannot miss.'

While A.E. Rea was proud of its luxury goods the store offered the widest possible range of goods. 'Much credit is due to the women of Ottawa for their inclination to shop.. to market. It is an evidence of thrift, the proof of the great value of economic housewives. Here you see women shopping for personal apparel, for household necessities, for food. Here you see women with the market basket in our grocery and meat departments, saving the shilling. What a convenience to have each floor filled with the representative products of the world and all under one roof, food, clothing, fads, fancies, everything from everywhere.Think what a burden it would be to saddle the expense of our unapproachable meat market on some small shop. Think what a failure a store would be with only one or two lines to select from. And again, the credit is due to the women of Ottawa, for they have made this store possible.’(Ottawa Journal, October 8, 1912)

As the Chateau Laurier was nearing completion A.E. Rea was poised for expansion. (Photo: LAC a009116)

When Santa's special train pulled into Ottawa's railway station on his way to Rea's toyland the store was featuring a much larger building in its advertising. (Ottawa Citizen, November 21, 1913)


A.E. Rea had come to the Ottawa market in 1909 with plans to enlarge the Lindsay store. The half-million dollar expansion would create one of the largest deptartment stores in Canada, with 7 acres of floor space. When construction finally got underway in 1913 the Ottawa Journal revealed the details of the Ross and Macdonald plan: ‘The new building will be modernly equipped in every particular, and will be a model in design for merchandizing purposes. There are six passenger and two freight elevators. For the comfort of the public waiting rooms and rest rooms will be provided. Another innovation will be a lecture room, the use of which will be given free to various organizations during business hours.’ (Illustration: Ottawa Journal, December 24, 1909)


Construction began in the Summer of 1913 and by the end of that year the frame for the additional two storeys and the rear extension were substantially completed. (Ottawa Citizen, July 7, 1913)

On occasion stone blasting for the extension caused flying rocks to sail across Mackenzie Avenue and through the windows of the Chateau Laurier Hotel, where A.E. Rea now maintained a permanent address. (Photo: LAC a033978)

Once the building's 'mighty rear wall' from three to six feet thick was removed, and the rest of the building partitioned off from construction activities pouring the frame began in August 1913. A sequence of Topley photographs documented the progress. Deliveries were by horse-drawn cart and the formwork and shoring required a degree of craftsmanship from the workers. (Photo: LAC a042739)

The Gloucester limestone facing followed, although the rear wall pierced by multiple small window openings was clad in more utilitarian brick. (Photo: LAC a042719)

The store's loading dock was located at the northeast corner of the new addition. (Photo: LAC a042997)

Before the renovations A.E. Rea had continued to use the Lindsay store's corner entrance. Those who knew the building in its later years may remember that the alternating boulder-faced limestone panels on the expansion were dressed in a smaller unit size from that employed in 1905. All of the stone on the 1913 addition (more consolidated and less subject to fissures and spalls than that used for the older section) was from a different quarry.  Edey's failure to specify a strong stable stone would come to be part of the building's undoing many decades later. (Photo: LAC 042734)

The original main entrance at Rideau and Mackenzie was enclosed and some of the display windows extended down to sidewalk level. (Photo: LAC a042721)

At a third of a million square feet this was not only Ottawa's largest department store when it re-opened in 1914 - it would remain the largest of all time. A.E. Rea never got to fully expand into its new space. It was the sunset of Rea’s golden years. By 1915 the Department of the Naval Service occupied the upper floors with its offices, using the new door on MacKenzie Avenue. That year Rea’s went into receivership and was reorganized under new directors.
Rea's regular full page advertisements on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays were crammed with items ranging from suits, dresses and millinery just arrived from New York, to molasses from Barbados by the gallon, and kits for portable summer bungalows. They offered fancy needlework classes, ran a lending library where the latest books could be borrowed for two cents a day, and they opened a car dealership.  (Ottawa Citizen, May 2, 1914)

Despite brave expressions of confidence in the press A.E. Rea struggled through 1917. The store declared insolvency and a Toronto syndicate stepped in to reorganize the company re-incoporating it as 'The Rea Store' which cleared out the its predecessor's stock. The Toronto consortium included Herbert J. Daly, a stock market whiz who had already successfully piloted several corporate buy-outs. (Ottawa Citizen, February 8, 1918)

Within a year Daly wrested control from the investors' group and formed the new H.J. Daly Company Limited. In addition to this he had just been made the Union Government's Director of Reconstruction and Repatriation in charge of handling the successful reintegration of military personnel returning to Canada and managing the future of the country's post-War economy. He announced his entry into Ottawa's business arena on February 28, 1918, promising that there would be a remarkable difference. It would be a new kind of department store with a new kind of service. (Ottawa Citizen, February 28, 1918)

After the Daly Co. went uptown to Sparks Street in 1919 the Government of Canada occupied the entire building in. The Income Tax Department was its first major tenant - which might explain the Daly Building's enduring unpopularity. In 1921 the Public Works Department completed the purchase from H.J. Daly for $1 million to be paid in yearly instalments of $100,000. Members of the public began to complain about the sloppiness on display in the windows, and DPW obliged by painting the frames apple green. In 1926 when the Canadian National Railway was planning the Chateau Laurier Hotel's new Mackenzie Avenue wing Ottawa's Board of Trade and the Town Planning Commission urged the CNR to build in on the Daly site - thereby eliminating an eyesore and preserving views to the Gatineau Hills. In the press the Daly Building was frequently referred to as squat, a blot, a blob, and hideous. As for H.J. Daly he was held responsible for Canada's largest bank failure and his empire was brought down in a flurry of criminal charges. Daly escaped conviction by taking sick and dying.

The new Federal District Commission's first comprehensive plan of 1927 for the National Capital was insistent on its removal. Ten year later Jacques Gréber hated the Daly Building and it was fixed firmly in his sights from the moment he arrived in Ottawa in 1937. Up until then the Government of Canada had mixed feelings about it. Some Public Works officials wanted to get rid of it while others recommended modernizing it and adding a few more floors. (Photo: LAC e10934850)

In 1922 the Public Works Department had agreed to the City of Ottawa's request for cutting a pedestrian passageway under the building's southeast corner at Rideau and Sussex.

By the late 1950s it had served a multitude of government departments with minimal maintenance. The ground floor was stuccoed over leaving display windows for by the National Design Centre, the Queen's Printer, and the National Capital Commission's History and Public Information Division.

The Daly Annex Temporary Building was added in the 1940s.  The Daly Building's grim interior was divided by a warren of gerry-built partitions and floored with battleship linoleum. The only surviving feature was a grand staircase. (Photo: Toronto Public Library)

Tenders for the removal of the Daly's sheet metal cornice were called by DPW on November 8, 1963 because it was declared to be a hazard for pedestrians walking beneath. A replacement was deemed unnecessary because the building was scheduled for imminent demolition. The following year the NCC's Chief Architect John Leaning had the plain panels that covered the empty gap gussied up with grey stripes, and added a dash of colour on the upper floors, as part of the Sussex Drive Mile of History project. It was a portend of a turf war between the two agencies on the building's fate.

It would take a thousand words to recount the controversy that surrounded the Daly Building's demise. A struggle ensued between its owner the Department of Public Works (which hated the building and wanted it demolished) and the National Capital Capital Commission, which was a proponent for the building's restoration because of its architectural significance. (Ottawa Citizen, April 22, 1989)

Pressure from heritage activists forced the DPW to reconsider and it floated a proposal call to redevelop the building that produced no bidders. The Daly was then transferred to the National Capital Commission, which held an architectural competition of its own. There were three finalists - Ottawa's Katz Webster Associates Architects, A.J. Diamond and Partners of Toronto, and the winning competitor. (Ottawa Citizen, December 24, 1986)

In 1986 the NCC chose Montreal-based consortium of developers Duroc-Multidev-Coubec who promised a Desnoyer-Mercure-Panzini designed boutique hotel, a mixed commercial-office centre, an aquarium and an underground parking garage within and beneath the Daly's old shell. It was beset by delays and the developers didn't begin stripping out the building until 1989. (Ottawa Citizen, February 8, 1989)


Crude and dangerous demolition work damaged the steel structure. Falling stone endangered the public, and the plan was soon mired in controversy. (Ottawa Citizen, February 8, 1990)

Facing public criticism for mismanaging the project, the National Capital Commission dismissed the developers and took the decision to demolish the Daly Building. (Ottawa Citizen, September 5, 1991)

Of course there was another preservation problem to deal with - the never ending heritage drama that was the Aberdeen Pavilion. Editorial cartoonist Alan King suggested a transplant from Lansdowne Park to the Daly site. (Ottawa Citizen, September 8, 1991)

In 1961 the NCC's Chief Architect John Leaning had suggested a ten-storey office block linked to a new arts and convention centre. This would be the view south along Sussex.

Removal of the Daly was a given in all of the Federal Government schemes since before it even opened in 1905, when the Government of Canada first moved to expropriate the property for a complex of monumental buildings to be erected on Sussex. Much later the Parkin Plan of 1962 recommended removal and replacement with sunken gardens.


When the demolition order for the Daly Building was issued the Ottawa Citizen cheered and said that its supporters had 'given heritage a bad name'. The newspaper then led a fierce campaign to turn the empty site into a permanent public park.  They were unsuccessful. (Ottawa Citizen,  May 6, 1992)

Sensing that the citizens might become too attached to 'a gracious space downtown' the National Capital Commission kept the site vacant and inaccessible until this could be built. 700 Sussex by Dan S. Hanganu architectes for Claridge Homes was not well received, but it is probably a better building than most people think it is. (Photo: Google Streetview)

Opinions on the merits of the Daly Building are still divided. Those of us who have only seen it in its final days of decrepitude still mourn its loss.

12 DAYS OF DEPARTMENT STORES #11: ARCHIE FREIMAN'S GREAT, GREATER, GREATEST EXPANSION(S)

January 29, 2020, 8:57 am

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Anyone who followed the interior deconstruction that preceded the 2015 makeover of the Rideau Street Hudson's Bay Company would have witnessed a perplexing array of architectural skeletons unearthed. The brief re-emergence of thick brick walls, old stone foundations, wooden floor joists, and some ancient iron and concrete was evidence that the former Freiman's department store was made from many parts. In the 'Teens and 'Twenties it was a perpetual expansion machine, and it's the last store in this series that's still standing. About those men in busby hats... typical retail stagecraft at which Freiman excelled.

Department stores were called the 'P.T. Barnums of the business world'. They traded in advertised come-ons, mammoth expansion sales and showmanship. In 1936 Santa Claus landed his gyroplane in the middle of Cartier Square, heading up a parade aimed for Freiman’s where he would open that season's Christmas window display contest. (Ottawa Journal, November 27, 1936)

Twenty years later he would arrive by helicopter at Vars, Ontario and board the Freiman's Santa Claus Mystery Special bound for Ottawa's Union Station where he was greeted by a marching band, majorettes and a special proclamation read by Mayor Charlotte Whitton in full regalia.(Photo: CSTM CN 52638)

In 1900 at the age of twenty A.J. Freiman, in partnership with Moses Cramer, established a small store at 223 Rideau Street known as the Canadian House Furnishing Company, expanding into 221 the following year. In 1904 he moved to 73 Rideau Street, steadily enlarging into premises at 75, 71, 69,  and finally 81 and 83 in 1912 when he added his own name to the business. (Ottawa Citizen, June 17, 1912)

WW1 halted the pace of growth. In late 1919 he announced another big expansion which got underway the following year. (Ottawa Citizen, February 24, 1920)

The new 'Big Store' squared off his block of properties bounded by Rideau, Mosgrove and George Streets. (Ottawa Citizen, February 24, 1920)

To celebrate its twenty-two years in business the store issued a 22nd birthday token that would save you a barrel of money.

After years of consolidation Freiman's tidied up the various storefronts to give them a uniform appearance. '23 Years of Public Service - From a modest beginning in 1900 to Ottawa's Greatest Store in 1923 is the achievement of A.J. Freiman, Ltd. In the year 1900 the Freiman business established in a small store at 221 Rideau Street, with 700 square feet of selling space. Today... 23 years later it occupies three floors and basement at Rideau, Mosgrove and George Streets, over two and a half acres of selling floor space housing 28 departments.'(Ottawa Journal, November 14, 1923)

These continuous alterations provided the opportunity for never ending expansion sales. (Ottawa Citizen, June 1, 1923)

'Freiman's Greater Expansion' would take place in 1925 after the acquisition of the six storey Stewart Building. (Ottawa Citizen, September 14, 1925)

With that Freiman's footprint was almost complete, but it could still be expanded upward. (Ottawa Citizen, September 14, 1925)

'An Enlarged Store To Render Better Service. This addition makes it possible for us to greatly enlarge almost every department of the store; thus tremendously increasing shopping facilities. Come and see the enlarged Freiman's, and profit by the special values we are offering as inducements during this Expansion Sale.'(Ottawa Journal, June 26, 1925)

In 1925-26 the collection of three storey Rideau Street store fronts was rebuilt in limestone with classicized details (J. Albert Ewart, Architect). 'The entire Rideau Street front and Mosgrove Street side of the building have been reconstructed. Imposing white cut stone walls now take the place of brick, and new windows flood the store with daylight. On the Main Floor, Rideau Street front, all-glass arcade windows have been installed practically doubling the window display space and greatly enhancing the appearance of the store. The arcade provides a sheltered promenade, from which the window displays may be viewed.Besides the two former entrances on Rideau Street new doorways have been installed in the centre of the arcade for the convenience of shoppers.' A final chunk on George Street at the rear of the former Stewart Building was also added. (Ottawa Citizen, September 29, 1926)

In 1983 pieces of the Mosgrove Street façade were carefully removed and reinstalled in the store's interior as part of The Bay's expansion.

Freiman's pure white stone and monogrammed awnings were a fairly suave addition to Rideau Street's predominately nineteenth century architecture. (Photo: Toronto Public Library)

The final phase of the Freiman story although this rendering is a stretch, lengthwise.

With the last extension it was Ottawa's largest store.

A.J. Freiman rounded out the 1920s with a really big expansion bringing the store to five acres of floor space, still two acres smaller than the A.E. Rea department store of 1913. (Ottawa Citizen, December 31, 1928)

This was the most complicated project to date, manoeuvring two floors of steel on top of the melange of older buildings while maintaining normal business operations. (Ottawa Citizen, July 29, 1929)

Freiman's New Year's Day wishes of 1929 had hinted at the final outcome. (Ottawa Journal, January 1, 1929)

In May of 1939 the store was being readied for the excitement and increased customer traffic that would attend the upcoming Royal Tour of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. (Ottawa Journal, May 19, 1939)

Most of Ottawa's public and large commercial buildings were decorated for the occasion, but to say that A.J. Freiman pulled out all the stops would be an understatement. (Photo: LAC)

The Mosgrove Street side of Freiman's disappeared with the HBC's expansion of the early 1980s. (Photo: LAC)

A matching shot from pastottawa.com provides a more up to date view.

The stone facing of the 1926 and 1929 remodelling is still in good shape, but the window frames and cornice are in need of repainting.

Full range grocery departments had been a mainstay in most Ottawa's largest department stores until the 1920s when national grocery chains like Loblaw Cos. and the Dominion Stores arrived. A.J. Freiman reintroduced the concept by teaming up with the Montreal based Steinberg's to open a grocery store in Freiman's basement. (Ottawa Citizen, January 5, 1949)

Judging by the pre-Christman rush of 1949 when the check-out lines were running full bore it was quite popular. (Photo: Malak)

In 1958 Freiman's Supermarket took over the operation. (Ottawa Citizen, July 24, 1958)

You could phone in your grocery order, have it filled by supervised shoppers, delivered to your home, and charge it to Freiman's Charga-Plate. (Ottawa Citizen, January 22, 1959)

They also built a new travertine lined stairway down to the lower level grocery store. The Freiman's Supermarket experiment only lasted a few years. (Photo: CA994548)

It remains remarkably unaltered to this day - one of the last Freiman artefacts in the store.

Their antique escalators are another. 'A building permit has been granted at City Hall for the installation of an electric escalator in the department store of A.J. Freiman, Limited at a cost of $150,000. Work has already begun on the moving stairway which will have landings at the first, second and third floors. Plans submitted at City Hall include the future extension of the escalators to the fourth and fifth floors. The escalators are being supplied by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation and the steel by the Dominion Bridge Company.'(Ottawa Journal, August 31, 1951) It wasn't Ottawa's first. That honour went to the Metropolitan Store across the street.

Freiman's would usher in a first in another area of shopping convenience. In 1956 plans were developed for a partially enclosed parking garage at the Freedman property on George Street in partnership with the City of Ottawa Parking Authority. (Photo: CA038060)

The garage as conceived by architects Smith, Hinchman and Grylis of Detroit would stretch through to York Street.(Ottawa Journal, April 25, 1956)

After the Freedman proposal was abandoned Freiman picked up the ball and built its own parking structure designed by J.P.  Thompson of Windsor.

It was connected to the store by a long winding tunnel under George Street. Here is one of the last known sightings.

On January 23 the 'Up Tempo Girls' announced a new look for Freiman's which we called Up Tempo for '65. We said we had begun a 'bold and dashing programme' and that 'on completion Freiman's will be one of the most exciting stores in Canada.' Phase One (the store for Men) now complete will give you an idea of 'how exciting a men's store can be.' The bold new look in merchandise and decor is unrivalled. Architects and Consultants: John B. Parkin Associates, Toronto, Welton Becket and Associates, Los Angeles, Daniel Schwartzman, New York.(Ottawa Citizen, April 2, 1965)

They had promised a top to bottom makeover designed by two of North America's most important architectural practices, but during the 1960s Freiman's improvements were largely incremental, an upgraded department here and there.

At the beginning of the 1970s there was a major corporate change. As of January 1, 1972 Freimans would become part of the Hudson's Bay Company which retained the Freiman name on the store for a further two years. (Ottawa Journal, December 31, 1971)

The ground floor would eventually be swallowed up by the Rideau Transit Mall's covered sidewalk which were really just rank sheds, not the lacy pavilions that were promised. (Photo: OPL)

The Rideau Centre brought other additions, with two holes punched into the store for the covered skywalks.

When the HBC was updating its signage they uncovered parts of the Freiman 'Ottawa's Greatest Store' sign painted on the side of the Stewart Building which had escaped the Bay's brown paint.

It had been buried by this large illuminated sign. (Photo: CA037018)

Seen here at night.(Photo: LAC Malak e11074422)

Once removed the Rideau Centre's elevated walkway scar was nicely patched with matching limestone. (Google Streetview, 2019)

Freiman's signature duck egg blue - a throwback to a colour used by stores like Tiffany and Co, and Fortnum and Mason.

As the leader of Ottawa's Jewish community, President of the Canadian Zionist Organization, and Vice-President of the Canadian Jewish Congress A.J. Freiman and his wife Lillian were tireless philanthropists. Until his death the store was closed for the High Holidays. (Ottawa Citizen, September 13, 1920)

The former Mosgrove Street road allowance which now runs through the store was leased to the HBC and re-named the Freiman Mall in 1983.

12 DAYS OF DEPARTMENT STORES #12: SOME EXCELLENT REASONS FOR SHOPPING AT OGILVY'S

February 5, 2020, 12:01 pm

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This is the final instalment in twelve days of department stores.  Charles Ogilvy Limited was a sentimental favourite for many people. Although in its later years Ogilvy's traded on a traditional Scottish name with a daily ritual of kilt-wearing bag-pipers serenading shoppers, in its heyday Ogilvy's was an ever evolving enterprise that pursued an ambitious programme of modernization.

At its peak Ogilvy's was held to be Canada's largest independently-owned department store, employing close to 1,000 people at its Rideau Street store and two suburban branches. However its final days were a long painful goodbye to decades of WASPish rectitude. Its memory has more recently been revived with some artful architectural history veneering and a public space commemoration. (Photo: LAC e010869304)

Ogilvy had started in 1887 in the flat-roofed building at the right of this drawing. The 1906 Charles Ogilvy Limited store at Rideau and Nicholas combined steel and concrete framing for open expanses on the sales floors. Pressed buff brick and Indiana limestone detailing clads the upper two floors, while the ground level is continuous glazing. Architect W.E. Noffke added two flourishes - rooftop cresting over the main entrance and a pressed metal plaque on the store's rounded corner. (Ottawa Journal, May 12, 1906)

Noffke had designed a matching seven-bay expansion southward along Nicholas Street in 1913-1914 but the onset of WW1 postponed the project. After a three-year delay Charles Ogilvy proceeded with the extension. (Ottawa Citizen, May 10, 1917)

By then on-street parking had become a concern.

This view highlights the deep relief 'Greek key' spandrel panels between the second and third floors, and a chunky cornice supported by modillion block brackets.

Architect A.J. Hazelgrove removed the heavy cornice and added a streamlined third floor for Ogilvy's home appliance department in 1931. Its unadorned roofline suggests that something more was to come. (Ottawa Citizen, May 5, 1931)

Hazelgrove boosted Ogilvy's to five floors in 1934. The corner plaque disappeared during the construction of this addition.

Charles Ogilvy was born in 1861 on New Year's Eve in Edinburgh Scotland, and came to Canada as an infant. As a young man he worked for twelve years at Elliot and Hamilton Dry Goods. In 1887 at the age of 25 he struck out one his own. (Ottawa Journal, May 9, 1957)

Ogilvy's first store was a small shop with one clerk and a parcel boy. His wife Elizabeth did the books. (Ottawa Citizen, November 18, 1887)

It was next door to the S. and H. Borbridge saddlery into which Ogilvy would eventually expand. The image was retouched for the 90th anniversary advertising. (Ottawa Citizen, January 22, 1977)

He would expand into these buildings at 94-6-98 Rideau Street as well. (Photo: LAC a027713)

Expansion was steady and celebrated at the fortieth and fiftieth anniversary sales. (Ottawa Citizen, November 14, 1927 and November 27, 1937)




The Golden Jubilee was especially important. In 1937 Charles Ogilvy marked this step in his march of progress with a store wide remodelling designed by E. Paul Behles and Associates of New York and Baltimore, specialists in modern retail design. The makeover made the store brighter and sleeker. The shoe salon (upper left) was furnished with smart green Art Deco chairs and a luxurious green carpet. The basement level (lower left) was opened for a new sporting goods department. The china department (centre) was given rich walnut fittings. Scarves, gloves, and foundation garments (centre right) were given glossy white display counters. And the fur salon (lower right) lines with sinuous louvred walls.(Ottawa Citizen, October 21, 1937)


One of the attractions at Ogilvy's 1937 restyling event was 'Tatiana's Palace', Sir Nevile Wilkinson's gigantic dollhouse containing over 4,000 pieces of miniature furniture. (Ottawa Citizen, October 29, 1937)

The photos used for the 1937 advertising offers more detail of the store's redesign - the sporting goods department in the basement, accessed by a chrome staircase.

Ladies' wear. (Photo: CA022613)

The china department.

After expansion of the Rideau and Nicholas building was complete Charles Ogilvy purchased property at the southeast corner of Nicholas and Besserer (on the right) with the intention of creating a customer parking lot. (Photo: LAC e010934943)

The building was converted into Ogilvy's Sportsman's Lodge selling all types of recreational gear. (Ottawa Citizen, April 12, 1950)


With the Gréber Plan in the news Ogilvy's tied the construction of their new Besserer Street annex to 'harmonize' with the National Capital Plan. 'The picture on this page illustrates a theme that has long been a part of the policy of Charles Ogilvy Limited: that city planning is a concern of everyone in the community. As one of the older businesses in Canada's Capital, Ogilvy's has endeavoured through the years to assume its share of responsibility in planning for an attractive city.' They pictured the Mackenzie King Bridge in the background, although this actual view would have been impossible. (Ottawa Journal, July 25, 1950)

Hazelgrove and Lithwick's late Moderne Besserer Street building for Ogilvy's was primarily dedicated to home furnishings. (Photo: CA)

The same firm's modernization of the Rideau Street main store was more regrettable, stripping away Noffke's 1906 bronze-framed windows for faux-granite panels. (Photo: CA034548)

In 1960 Charles Ogilvy Limited built a three-storey extension clad in white metal panels, replacing the nineteenth century buildings at 94-98 Rideau with a sleeker building designed by Hazelgrove, Lithwick and Lambert, and Burgess and McLean (top). This was heavily damaged by fire a few years later and rebuilt with a buff brick and pink granite façade (bottom).

The 1960 extension was a precursor to a much more dramatic remodelling that would have wrapped the entire 1906-17-31-34 building in white steel sheathing. This was happily postponed because of Ogilvy's suburban projects. (Ottawa Citizen, March 1, 1961)

Ogilvy's first suburban branch was opened at Richmond and Winona in 1955 (Hazelgrove and Lithwick Architects). The Westboro Branch building is still in use. Next door is another Ogilvy-realted building - Ogilvy's unfinished furniture factory established in the 1920s. (Drawing: Ottawa Citizen, February 10, 1955; Photo: Google Streetview 2012)


The largest suburban branch was located at the Billings Bridge Plaza. (Ottawa Journal, November 15, 1961)

Shoppers at the Billings Bridge Walmart (formerly Target, formerly Zeller's) are experiencing the wide open spaces created by Hazelgrove, Lithwick and Lambert.

The lower right lobe in Ogilvy's Centennial symbol hints at the Lincoln Fields location, the last suburban outpost. (Ottawa Citizen, June 27, 1967)

Ogilvy's did not play a major role in the planning and development of the Rideau Centre. By the time of its construction in the early 1980s the store was beset by financial problems and waited until the final design of the centre was completed before announcing that it would construct an extension to join the mall with an awkward link at the Besserer Street dead-end. (Photo: Centretowner)

One of the early notions for the Rideau Centre pictured a covered courtyard over Besserer Street which has actually come to pass with the Simons Court at the centre.

Shortly after the expansion Ogilvy's was acquired by the Hamilton-based Robinson's in 1984. They renovated the store, converted the third floor to a Bretton's, and flipped the business to a national holding company. They dropped the name of Ogilvy in 1989, closed the store in 1992, and applied to demolish the Rideau Centre connection extension. (Ottawa Citizen, September 26, 1989)

Less that ten years after it was constructed the building was demolished leaving a gaping hole that would sit empty for a further decade. (Ottawa Citizen, May 26, 1993)

The oldest portions of Ogilvy's survived demolition in the hope that it could be rehabilitated some day.

For a time Ogilvy's entirely disappeared.

The north and east walls were reconstructed using reclaimed brick and carefully recreated details designed by Barry Padolsky Associates Inc, Architects, his third Rideau Street department store project.

The Ogilvy's-Freiman's rivalry dominated Ottawa's department store scene for years. (Photo: Liz MacKenzie)

Charles Ogilvy died in 1950, having departed the store's day-to-day operations for some time. He left the business to his employees. Twenty-five years after Archibald Freiman was honoured with the renaming of Mosgrove Street, a block of Nicholas Street was officially renamed Ogilvy Square.

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SCRUBBING UP THE HUNTER BUILDING: IT'S A (SAND) BLAST

February 19, 2020, 7:11 am

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If you're under 55 or so you probably won't remember this building at all. In its final days the Hunter Building was a grimy hulk that loomed over three street frontages. Its mass was emphasized by a very deep heavily-guarded basement window well along O'Connor Street. This functioned as a dark and seemingly bottomless moat. The whole building oozed with a certain grimness, but in its way it was a significant milestone. The Hunter Building has been dealt with in two previous posts (Part 1 and Part 2) but here is some freshly discovered additional material.

Thirty-five years after it was first put into service the Public Works Department (for which the building was constructed) attacked the grime problem by experimenting with some abrasive action. The Ottawa Journal said that 'Not only is the blackened grime of years blasted off the stone; the new clean lily-white surface is given a special stay bright and light treatment.' In fact the proprietary name for the high-pressure sand-blasting was the 'Stay-Bright' treatment. (Photo: CA023175)

The Hunter Building was much bigger than your average guinea pig. The DPW's Deputy-Minister General Young promised that 'If it works as well as we expect and we will know in a couple of years, then we will blast down the grimed walls of other Government buildings, including the East, Centre and West Blocks.' Today cleaning buildings using high-pressure sandblasting is considered to be irreparably damaging to historic building fabric and its practice is shunned by preservationists. The Parliament Buildings were spared. (Ottawa Journal, April 21, 1954)

The tripartite division of the Hunter Building's façade into the classically inspired elements of a column - base, shaft and capital, was a typical design device for office buildings hoping to look important.  (Photo: LAC)

The newly completed Hunter Building was featured in the January 1920 issue of Construction Magazine, a Canadian trade publication for architects, engineers, and contractors that is a good source for information on construction activity in the early Twentieth Century. (Photo: Construction Magazine, January 1920)

For over thirty years the Hunter Building was Ottawa's largest government office building. (Photo: LAC)

The Hunter Building's principal entrance was on O'Connor Street (bottom). There were subsidiary entrances on Queen and Albert Streets. (Construction Magazine, January 1920)

The entrance halls were utilitarian - the only concession to the building's official purpose being marble-clad walls. The floor covering was a more modest battleship linoleum. (Construction Magazine, January 20, 1920)

Two elevator cars with floor indicators served each lobby. The single call button was oddly distant from the doors. (Construction Magazine, January 1920)

The typical floor plan was a continuous open space for clerks and draftsmen circling around the building's perimeter. Judging by the size of the two restrooms at opposite corners of each floor (for a total of eighteen stalls and and ten urinals) there must have been a large workforce toiling away in an unsubdivided sea of desks. An inner ring of rooms faced the large central light court. The building was essentially a big square doughnut. (Construction Magazine, January 1920)

The Hunter's seventh floor, the executive level, was divided into separated exterior-facing offices. The Minister occupied the largest one, a suite at the building's south-east corner. It was adjoined by a slightly smaller version for the Deputy-Minister (John Hunter) with equally sized rooms for the Assistant-Deputy nearby at the south-west corner. Storage and examination rooms for the Public Works Department's plans, records and scale models were stretched along the west wing.(Construction Magazine, January 1920)

The Hunter Building was at the hub of an early technological innovation, the Government's private telephone exchange network which was put into operation on September 1, 1922. Direct calls to any department could be placed without having to be routed through the Bell Telephone's public exchanges. Those who have worked for the public service will remember having to dial '9' to get out to a public line. With the Hunter exchange at its heart the Government's initial P.B.X system was divided into eight sub-exchanges named for the buildings in which they were located - the Centre Block, Hunter, Experimental Farm, Victoria Memorial Museum, the Woods Building, the Connaught Building, the Printing Bureau and Rideau Hall. (Ottawa Citizen, September 1, 1922)

The building was capped by a deeply overhanging cornice, with banded elevator and mechanical penthouses peeking above it. (Photo: CA023174)

By the time that this window-washers stunt photo was taken in the mid-1950s the cornice had been removed for reasons of public safety (they tended to deteriorate and fall onto the sidewalk) or a gesture to modernization. (Photo: CA0231177)

The lower floors of the Hunter Building were faced with panels of Tyndall limestone from Manitoba. It has been used in interior applications like the Centre Block, and exterior situations like the Canadian Museum of History and Ottawa City Hall. (Photo: CA0231075)

The stone is from a friable (crumbly) bed of ancient marine critters who have left their slithering trails and some of their carcasses in the primordial mud. It's especially absorbent, likely to be damaged by air pollution, which is accelerated by aggressive cleaning with abrasive materials.

This grimy Tyndall stone pilaster shows the folly of the 1954 sandblasting. The 'Stay-Bright' treatment didn't work as well as DPW expected. The current standards for the cleaning of delicate historic masonry ranges from applications of enzyme goop that only eats the dirt to laser wands that vaporize it. (Ottawa Citizen, January 30, 1982)

Public Works Canada put the Hunter Building up for sale in 1981. It was bought by the Metropolitan Insurance Company of Canada for a two-tower complex. (Ottawa Citizen, March 21, 1981)

Excavation for the first tower (99 Bank Street) with the Hunter Building and the Bryson Building still in place. Behind it is the Bell Canada switching station. (Photo: CA023075)

Not germane to the Hunter, but I wanted to fit this in. The Bell Telephone Albert Street annex was built in two parts a two-storey building built in 1961-662 and four additional storeys added in 1966-67. (Ottawa Citizen, May 28, 1961)

Bell's two-storey stage is visible in the lower portion of this 1965 aerial of the district. The size of the Hunter Building's central light court is also evident. (geoOttawa 1965 Aerial)

When Deputy-Minister Hunter laid the cornerstone for the building named after him on October 10, 1918 he also sealed in a time capsule. It was a copper box containing coins, newspapers, stamps and a list of the departmental officials responsible for the project. (Ottawa Citizen, October 11, 1918)

It was unearthed by the demolition workers in April 1982. The contents were in good condition. They put the artifacts away and forgot to inform Metropolitan Life of their discovery. One suggestion was to house the objects in a permanent display in the lobby of their new building. The battered copper box was put into a safe at the Met Life office, and its current whereabouts is unknown. (Ottawa Citizen, July 22, 1982)

FOUR WEEKS IN OCTOBER: THE CITY OF OTTAWA RESPONDS TO THE PANDEMIC OF 1918

March 27, 2020, 12:27 pm

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By now we are all too conscious of terms like ‘flatten the curve’, ‘social distancing’ and ‘self-quarantine’. A pandemic’s behaviour has become frightening familiar. In the final days of World War I the City of Ottawa was forced to react to a monstrous public health crisis without the benefit of advanced medical science or mass communication. Yet its response showed some similarity with the actions being taken today.

The history of a local public health system in Ontario predates Confederation. In 1833 the Legislature of Upper Canada approved an Act allowing local municipalities ‘to enact Boards of Health to guard against the introduction of malignant, contagious and infectious diseases in the Province’. The City of Ottawa established its Board of Health in 1865 with the Mayor as the Chair. Part-time Medical Officers of Health were appointed from the city’s pool of doctors. The Province of Ontario’s first Public Health Act was passed in 1873.

Ottawa had already experienced acute health emergencies in the years that preceded the outbreak of the ‘Spanish Influenza’ in 1918. Communicable diseases like typhoid, tuberculosis and smallpox had previously taken their toll and tested the city’s administration which was forced to hire public health nurses and build isolation hospitals. Without the tardy but dogged leadership of Ottawa’s Mayor Harold Fisher and public health officials in place the impact of modern history’s most devastating global epidemic could have been much worse.

When the Spanish Influenza arrived in September 1918 Ottawa’s newspapers were seized with the details surrounding the last battles of WWI. There was little mention of the growing epidemic in the press until the end of that month. As deaths mounted the Board of Health issued a statement defining the symptoms of the disease and warned the public of its highly infectious nature. 

‘Undoubtedly the several cases of influenza which have appeared recently in this community are of the type popularly known as the Spanish grippe. This disease of influenza is a virulent form. It is characterized by a sudden onset, with a high fever, but not necessarily chills. It presents at its most pronounced diffuse pains throughout the body which are most severe at the base of the skull and in the small of the back.’ (Ottawa Journal, September 26, 1918)

Some days later The Journal revealed the severity of the outbreak. On Monday September 30th it reported that eight people had died over the weekend. Twenty-one had died in the previous twenty days. ‘Mayor Fisher said he thought every precaution should be taken to guard against the spread of the disease. He urged people to keep out of crowds when they felt an attack coming on, and that they should keep to themselves as much as possible in their homes.’

By the end of the week the situation had become grave. Medical staff in the city’s hospitals were down with influenza. Physicians were pushed to their limits, unable to attend many of the afflicted. Those who were not ill were taking precautionary measures to avoid the disease.

Section 56 of the Public Health Act of Ontario gave the municipality wide powers ‘where any communicable disease is found to exist to use all possible care to prevent the spread of disease or contagion by any means in their judgment most effective for the public safety. The Medical Officer of Health may direct that any school or seminary of learning, or any church or public hall or other place used for public gatherings or entertainment in this municipality shall be closed, and may prohibit all public assemblies.’ They were not be be re-opened without the permission of the Medical Officer of Health.

On Friday, October 4th the Board of Health convened an emergency session to order the immediate closure of every school, theatre and place of public gathering. Churches were requested to discontinue their service that Sunday, and the owners of the Ottawa Electric Street Railway were directed to ventilate their cars as much a possible until further notice. ‘Such is the drastic action taken by the local Board of Health at a special meeting in the City Hall, which lasted until after midnight on Friday, to check the spread of the influenza epidemic which is reported to be increasing by the hour.’ (Ottawa Journal, October 5, 1918)

The Chief of Police was then delegated to enforce the Board’s orders. Among his actions was to step in and halt a tea dance at the Chateau Laurier and charge the hotel with a ‘Evasion of a Board of Health Order’. The president of the Ottawa Retail Druggists Association announced that it had been decided to keep all drug store open on Sunday, and every day thereafter until 10 o’clock in the evening.

Should the City of Ottawa have taken action weeks earlier? In hindsight it is easy to say yes, but many believed that this was the regular flu and not the Spanish type which was beginning to spread in large American cities. Once it recognized the scale of the emergency Mayor Fisher established a command centre at City Hall to track the spread and coordinate the public and private resources needed to fight the epidemic. The Mayor sent a memorandum to all heads of city departments: ‘The only important business we have in the City Hall at present is the work in connection with the epidemic. People do not cease to be sick at five o’clock. There are therefore no office hours.’

His first battle was to cancel major planned public gatherings like the Ontario Plowmen’s Association International Plowing Match at the Experimental Farm set for October 16t-18th. It’s an event that carries considerable political clout even to this day. Fisher’s chief opponent was Dr. J.W.S. McCullough, Chief Health Officer for Ontario who wrote ‘I have no hesitation in approving of the meeting of farmers and implement manufacturers on this occasion, as the danger from the so-called Spanish Influenza is reduced to a minimum by meeting in the open air.’ (Ottawa Citizen, October 12, 1918)

Alarmed that the match would attract hundreds of competitors and thousands of spectators from across the province Fisher appealed directly to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture to withdraw permission to use the Farm. Unsurprisingly unable to find a farmer willing to risk hosting it the organizers cancelled the event ‘for the safety of human life which must receive first consideration’ (Ottawa Citizen, October 15, 1918). Several business conventions expected to arrive in the city were postponed indefinitely.

To respond directly to the outbreak temporary emergency hospitals were opened in the Aberdeen Pavilion at Lansdowne Park and in several of the vacated public schools. A platoon of Red Cross ambulances was organized to deliver patients to them. Ottawa’s Boy Scout troops were recruited to deliver 27,000 notices to city households on how to protect themselves against the Spanish Flu. An appeal to retired and married nurses (who were older and less likely to catch the disease) for assistance to the homes of the effected was somewhat successful. They were provided with hand-made protective caps and aprons sewn by other volunteers. Masks and gowns called ‘pneumonia jackets’ were fabricated in a sewing room at City Hall to fill the large orders placed by the hospitals.

In light of today’s actions the chief failure was not close nonessential commercial businesses and the city’s places of work. With a pre-digital and work-from-home civil service supporting the Government of Canada still in the teeth of a World War this was a challenge.  As a result each department was stripped of hundreds of staff members. Business establishments like the Eaton’s Shoe Store on Sparks Street improvised. They advertised ‘For the Prevention of Spanish Influenza we will have a man in attendance continually disinfecting our establishment to prevent the spread of this epidemic.’

Seeking to capitalize on the epidemic quack remedies abounded. The Ottawa Electric Company pushed the Branston Violet Ray Ozone Generator Inhaler. Abby’s Effervescent Salt, a mild laxative and internal cleanser was a safeguard against the danger of getting the disease. Milburn’s Heart and Nerve Pills ameliorated the after effects.

The mortality rate continued to jump until the fourth week of October when a drop in new cases began to appear. Home nursing assistants were still caring for over 2,500 flu victims, doctors had at least 1,000 patients, and the hospitals were beyond capacity. On Monday, October 21st Mrs. A.J. Freiman who had been coordinating the effort at Lansdowne Park reported that there had been no new deaths the previous day.

By the end of the month the official death toll from Spanish Influenza stood at 540 people. However on some days almost twice as many deaths were said to have simply died from ‘pneumonia’ or ‘la grippe’ - so the total number may haven much higher. The epidemic began to depart the city as quickly as it had come, with much smaller rebound outbreaks echoing in 1919 and 1920.

There were lessons learned. In 1919 Harold Fisher launched a relentless campaign to build the new Ottawa Civic Hospital - an institution that was once called ‘Fisher’s Folly’. And the Federal Government created a new branch - the Department of Health.

All clippings: The Ottawa Evening Journal and The Ottawa Daily Citizen, September and October 1918.

HENRY J. SIMS' FANCY TINSMITHING

October 9, 2021, 3:10 pm

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Facsimiles of historic structures will always rank second-best to the preservation of the real thing, that is the restoration and rehabilitation of original building fabric. A recent Sparks Street Mall development has demonstrated the practice of faithful heritage reproduction. It shows a level of skill and craftsmanship that you might have thought had long disappeared.

This new/old façade is part of the Mall facing portion of the Re Hotel and condominium development on the NCC controlled property formerly known as the 'Canlands B' parcel. Here it is as presented in a prospective for the project, which was developed by Ashcroft Homes and designed by RLA Architects.

It had been their stated intention to retain what was left of this historic wall, which they later determined was too fragile to be repaired.

A minor quibble - the first floor cornice running above the storefronts resembles a slightly unfinished bit of flashing, made all the more noticeable because this is what is directly at eye level when viewed from the street. And the sharp eyed may notice that when compared to the historic photo that is to follow, the tops of the third floor window surrounds are missing a tiny detail.

The building in its prime, ca. 1908, when Henry J. Sims and Co. Hatters and Furriers was the major tenant. Although it occupied only one storefront, the business's workshops and show rooms extended through most of the building's second and third floors. Next door the Murphy Gamble department store was under construction.

The building's history, while well represented, is now only skin deep.

Henry Sims had apprenticed as a furrier at his father-in-law's business, the R.J. Devlin Company and in 1892 left to open his own establishment at 108 Sparks Street, on the ground floor of the Freemasons' Scottish Rite Chambers. (Ottawa Journal, April 15, 1910)

He moved into 110 Sparks Street, the building next door in 1902. Unfortunately Henry J. Sims Co. Ltd. only lasted another 14 years in this location, and went out of business in 1916. (Ottawa Citizen, January 22, 1916)

Over the years the facade became seriously degraded through an apparent lack of maintenance (the owners expected it to be demolished for a new development). Years earlier the elaborate parapet wall at the roofline had been taken down and replaced with a much simplified cornice. This is how it appeared in the mid 1970s. (City Archives 018923)

The two most notable mid-century occupants had been Jack Snow Jewellers, who claimed to have embedded the sidewalk in front of his store with diamonds, and the Centre theatre.

In 1916 the westernmost storefront at 118 Sparks Street was converted to a lobby for a theatre which was built in behind on a Queen Street lot.

They were certainly right when they advertised on opening day that there were no stairs to climb. The 'graceful incline' was a hairpin double ramp. Another ramp linked the auditorium with the lobby. (Ottawa Journal, October 14, 1915)

The rear of the Centre on Queen Street, with emergency fire exits, nestled between Murphy Gamble's department store and the Dominion Methodist Church. (LAC e010934826)

After significant renovations by the Odeon theatre chain the Centre became the Mall in 1968, promising to feature some hard-charging fare. For example I first saw Easy Rider here in 1969. (Ottawa Citizen July 11, 1968) 

Odeon dispatched one of its seasoned employees from Toronto to manage the new venture. (Ottawa Citizen, July 11, 1968)

The theatre was closed five years later in 1973 in advance of an imminent demolition in that was intended to clear the way the Canada Square development which never materialized. (Ottawa Citizen, October 3, 1973)

However demolition day eventually arrived leaving a vacant lot on Queen Street and the tatty backsides of the Sparks Street frontage. The rear of the theatre lobby (at the left) was simply walled up with concrete blocks.

The Ottawa  Squash Club briefly considered building a 15-court facility here which was to include a gymnasium, restaurant and lounge. However 'expected to open in late September' never came to pass. (Ottawa Citizen, March 8, 1974)

Maintaining the frontage of the Sims building and constructing a new low profile building beside it was stipulated by the development agreement.

Regrettably the Toronto Dominion's modernist temple bank (designed by Mathers and Haldenby Architects, in1965) was sacrificed for the project. Here you can see the Sims' actual historic wall after it had been cleaned in preparation for restoration, and that when the upper portion had been rebuilt long ago they never bothered with matching brick.

Although originally dark, in its final years the old building's pressed metal trim had been painted a pale yellow to blend with the brickwork. In a grating and somewhat bilious chromatic contrast it is now a BandAid pink.

The recreation of the Sims' building's historic peaked cornice and window surrounds was shaped by Heather and Little, one of North America's foremost pressed metal fabricators.

THE MANY LAYERS OF SAMUEL J. STEVENSON'S WAVERLEY PHARMACY

October 15, 2021, 5:25 am

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Two winters ago an expanse of battered Vitrolite glass tiles was suddenly revealed at 350 Elgin Street. For perhaps sixty years they had been slumbering under an internally-lit fascial sign for Stevenson's drug store, the business that had served the Centretown community at the corner of Elgin and Waverley for a hundred years - from 1899 to 1999.  After careful inspection their weathered surface disclosed some tiny details of the building's history.

In its most recent incarnation it was Pure gelato, a spot where Elgin Street slickers could indulge in a dizzying variety of flavours. They dished out scoops here from 2000 until closing in 2019, apparently the victims of Elgin Street's eighteen month long roadway/sewer/watermain/hydro-line/sidewalk reconstruction and concomitant street closure.

And there it stood for some time ready to be transformed into its next stage of life. With the round-headed windows, giant keystones, rhythmic course of corbeling, large roundels, and what was probably a very elaborate shop front this building was more modern and stylish than the average neighbourhood commercial/residential block of the time. It may have been designed by Edgar Lewis Horwood who lived a block away at the corner of Waverley and Metcalfe, and employed this precise motif on several other of his buildings.

Like so many businesses wanting to shed their store's embarrassingly ancient appearance at some mid-century point Stevenson's modernized its street frontage, although they retained what was likely the original Greek key and modillion bracket cornice. They employed the pigmented structural glass panels that had been popular from the 1930s onward. This colour was known as 'Irish green'. Let's take a closer look.

Alternating bands of smooth and rusticated stone quoins stood at the building's corners. They were already heavily encrusted with grime by the time that the green tiles were applied. The circular stains on the lower stone are witness marks of the globs of the mastic adhesive typically used to attach Vitrolite. Those tiny holes suggest that there was once neon or raised three dimensional lettering here.

There is tantalizing evidence of a painted sign behind the tiles where chunks have broken off. It's near the midpoint of the sign so perhaps this is the 'l' from 'Waverley'. The store was known as the Waverley Pharmacy for its first few decades.

This small fragment of a grooved pilaster was uncovered once the tiles were removed. It might have been part of the pharmacy's original storefront. One marvels at the freshness of these old pine boards. They had obviously been sealed over immediately after being nailed up, thereby preventing any further oxidization.

The storefront - glass tiles, metal cornice, plate glass and all, rounded the corner at Waverley Street, but stopped at what is a lengthy stretch of raked parging with embedded stone trimming.

What has happened here? The medley of voussoirs and keystones dancing over the lower surface of the side wall suggests that there must be windows and doors buried in that wall.

Four of them are now fully opened up and glazed. You'll have to use some heritage conjecture to imagine how this wall may have originally appeared. Its best feature, those three overhanging bay windows, are marvellously well preserved. Photos of the area from the 1970s show all all of the lower section to be covered over, and it was probably closed up much earlier than that.

This building was under renovation for an interminable length of time and the newly liberated openings had to be boarded over for some time.

They've given the new business a window, both literally and figuratively, on the area's newest public space - Boushey Square, which is what this dead end stub of Waverley is now called. Although it's not really public at the moment because they've chained it off so that it can function as their outdoor patio area.

There's a chance that all of Stevenson's storefront was once clad in green Vitrolite, and that the tiles in the upper section were protected from removal simply because they lay hidden behind the pharmacy's sign. Whatever the story the balance of the commercial facade was eventually covered over with sheets of siding that had a fake tile effect. That cladding was then stuccoed over by the gelato shop.

For the most recent renovation, the upper section was boxed in with these board panels and the whole thing painted in a claret/purple.

It is now 'Giulia' (named for an Alfa Romeo car model) that's a high end pizza place. Their logo is a slice topped by what looks like an olive and sprig of fresh herbs. The same restaurant group also runs Datsun and El Camino on lower Elgin Street, and the Riviera on the Sparks Street Mall. If you sense an automotive theme here you're right.

Samuel J. Stevenson opened the Waverley Pharmacy in 1899 to serve 'Families living in the south eastern portion of the city'. The store also had a soda fountain. The night bell was to alert the druggist owner who may have lived upstairs. By the 1920s the business was renamed as Stevenson's Pharmacy. S. J. Stevenson died on December 15, 1945 and passed the business on to his son Nelson. (Ottawa Journal, August 18, 1899)

Early custom moulded glass drug bottles imprinted with proprietor's name. Who knows what dubious elixirs were contained within.

Samuel Nelson Stevenson (the son) died at the age of 91 in 2018. Many years before the store was sold and rebranded as Stevenson's Nutri-Chem Pharmacy, which specialized in compounding tablets formulated with alternative and non-standard ingredients for all sorts of ailments. (Ottawa Citizen, April 5, 1987)

Stevenson's also ran a well-used postal outlet which was squeezed out by Canada Post's profit-driven corporate grasp. (Ottawa Citizen, November 27, 1992)

Pure's manager Randy Tommy samples one of their 48 flavours of gelato.(Ottawa Citizen, July 29, 2000)

Unfortunately there are no quaint horse and cutter shots of the building.This is the oldest image of Stevenson's to have turned up so far. But you can see the Stevenson's sign that was masking those glass titles. And its green background closely matches their colour. Was it coincidence or continuity? The picture comes from a ca. 1990 City of Ottawa quickie 'windshield' photo survey of the street, provided to me courtesy of Christopher Ryan, the History Nerd. (CA055381-W)

Incidentally according to the Ottawa Fire Insurance Atlas the picturesque building next door was under construction in May 1912. And between them you can see the Stevenson building's south elevation canopy on the second floor which sheltered the entrance to the residences upstairs. They have since been converted to offices.(Google StreetView)

What was once a tightly packed block of small neighbourhood shops and services is now a part of Elgin Street's non-stop restaurant row. Pretty, but no longer one of Centretown's multifunctional commercial mainstreets.

 

THE BURNSIDE BUILDING ENTERS A NEW ERA AND SHEDS ITS HIDE

October 22, 2021, 6:14 am

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The Burnside Building at 151 Slater Street is one of four office developments that the Metcalfe Realty Company Limited has built and managed in the block bounded by Slater, O'Connor, Albert, and of course Metcalfe Street. The other three are in chronological order - the Metcalfe Building (now demolished), the Macdonald Building, and the Varette Building. They have also ventured outside of this block for some office buildings on Albert Street east of Metcalfe. The Burnside was named for William Burnside, the Vice-President of Metcalfe Realty, although it is unclear whether after undergoing a total gut rehab makeover it will continue to wear that moniker.

And here it is in a slick new skin, still a tower on a podium which is now demarcated by a thick metal band that I guess you could call a cornice for the 2000s. The floor levels are only readable when pierced by the full sun.  For the rest of the day these glass curtain walls just project impenetrable sheets of dark blue reflectivity.

The Burnside was designed in 1965 by Craig and Kohler Architects, and the firm or its antecedents was responsible for three of Metcalfe Realty's four buildings in this block. The two-storey base and the tower's vertical piers that telegraph its bay width were veneered with thin stone tiles in the 1980s. Originally they were the same material as the precast panels of offset, or staggered narrow lancet window openings.

Those precast panels were carefully removed one at a time, revealing a reinforced concrete frame beneath.

Once the Burnside was stripped the new glass curtain wall system began to climb up the building floor by floor.

The podium was wrapped in a dust screen because it required more drastic interventions. Otherwise the general effect of the makeover is coming into view. This was a 100% buildout and you can see the new plumbing and ventilation runs being installed on the undersides of the floor plates.

Putting aside its design aesthetic which is decidedly generic, the project did demonstrate more responsible procedures for reviving aging slab buildings, and not wastefully sending all of their embodied energy to the landfill.

To go back to the beginning - from the Ottawa Citizen'sThursday Notebook of March 4, 1965: 'Tom Fuller's new Burnside Building is to rise 12 storeys on a 99 by 198 foot space, including Joe Finnegan's old Supertest station at the northeast corner of O'Connor and Slater... Mr. Fuller discounted rumours that attempts were made to buy the Bytown Inn at various figures up to $2,000,000.' 

This Department of Public Works photo from the late 1930s shows the aforementioned gas station and inn as they once stood on and near the future Burnside site.. The Supertest station didn't prove to be much of a difficulty for Metcalfe Realty, apart from removing what was likely heavily contaminated soil which was virtually unregulated in those days. The 100-year old inn was another matter. (Photo: LAC)

The Burnside's excavation seriously undermined the old building's stone foundations cracking the building's south wall, and creating what was claimed to be a significant bulge. As a result on April 1, 1965 the hotel's owners went to the Ontario Superior Court and successfully obtained an injunction to halt the digging. A week later, after a settlement between the two parties was agreed to, work was allowed to continue. This wasn't the first time that one of their projects in this block ran into problems with neighbouring properties. (Ottawa Citizen, April 1, 1965)

The Burnside was ready for occupancy just a year later. The building's first major ground floor retail tenant was the venerable Gerald Preston Limited, one of Ottawa's leading menswear establishments. (Ottawa Journal, August 25, 1966)

The Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics Institute was here for decades. It taught you how to speed-read in just eight lessons. (Ottawa Citizen, August 2, 1967)

On a more salacious note, from its $200,000 basement level spa at the Burnside, the Canadian Executive Health Club offered the 'Baths of the Pharaohs', the 'Florida Sun-Ray Room', an 'Authentic Scandinavian Sauna' and 'Needle Showers'. Afterwards you could visit the Tropical Lounge, although presumably the mostly male execs weren't forced to wear two-piece bathing suits. (Ottawa Citizen, October 3, 1967)

Metcalfe Realty's first development in our block was a 10-storey, 100,000-square foot office building at Metcalfe and Slater Streets, and naturally called the Metcalfe Building (Abra and Balharrie, Architects 1952). While it wasn't really ground-breaking for is time it was one of the city's first fully modern post-War stripped down designs. (Ottawa Journal)

At night the linear bands of windows (1400 of them) alternating with unbroken stripes of smooth limestone spandrel panels were a transparent and luminous landmark on the building's namesake street. (Photo: City Archives)

The Macdonald Building (Metcalfe Realty's next venture in this block) was under construction by early 1963. The architects were Craig, Madill, Abram and Ingleson - with Mike Kohler, who would later became the firm's leading partner, as the project architect. Like the Burnside, its excavation imperilled one of its neighbouring buildings, when the beauty parlour next door which was owned by Harvey Delorme and Eugene Berthelot was in danger of sliding into the hole. On short notice the city's chief building inspector had to shut down the construction site, empty the beauty parlour of its startled occupants and close Slater Street for five hours until the underlying soil conditions could be tested for stability. Metcalfe Realty had been issued a permit without the city confirming  the soil formation. Disaster was averted but according to the Ottawa Journal's coverage of May 24,1963 Mayor Charlotte Whitton was 'breathing fire, blasted the inspections department' and warned that 'heads could roll'.

Their second development was a lesser copy of the Metcalfe Building, and no beauty to begin with. In recent years the Macdonald Building received this defiantly partial refacing, with bits of contemporary glass curtain wall placed randomly here and there. This may be the remodelling in its finished state. There's lots of very hip co-working and collaborative visioning space in these newer sections.

The Cafeteria Restaurant wasn't kidding when it said that it offered 'pleasant dining at moderate prices' - that was certainly one value menu. And the No Waiting, No Tipping, Self Service deal was open until 9:00 p.m. (Ottawa Citizen, March 9, 1964)

The Varette Building (Craig and Kohler, 1968) was Metcalfe Realty's culminating achievement in the block that they had largely redeveloped in the previous sixteen years. It was named for the then president of the company.

When the 210-foot high development was first proposed the revised maximum building height in the central area (it would be something over the old 150-foot limit, but nobody knew by how much) had not yet been established. As well, the Varette directly lined up with views to the Peace Tower which were held to be sacrosanct by some authorities. In the end as it measured out the new building came in at 440 feet above sea level, almost 150 feet below the Peace Tower's 592 feet. This perspective (with the adjacent three storey Bytown Inn still in place) shows the Varette's relationship to its older brother, the Burnside. Had Metcalfe Realty been able to acquire this choice corner property it might have been able to produce a unified three tower complex. (Ottawa Citizen, February 7, 1968)

The Bytown Inn was eventually acquired by William Teron's Urbanetics for their Carleton Towers hotel.

They were able to arrive at through-block solution by using the slice of land between their two previous buildings as Varette's rear plaza connecting Albert and Slater Streets.(Ottawa Citizen, February 7, 1968)

The architects undoubtably based the Varette's design on their previous project for Metcalfe Realty but vertically aligned the window openings, and gave the building a delicately pierced crown at the roofline.

The precast panels were further elaborated with fluting. (Photo: Capital Modern)  

With its new facing the Burnside is no longer in dialogue with the Varette. The Macdonald was never in on the conversation.

Visit the Varette Building's lobby if you have never be in to take a close look. It's a perfectly preserved slice of ca.1970 corporate glitz.