Mural on Somerset

Seriously dude?

Bleak March, 2023

 Kent at Lisgar, Centretown.

Hooper Homes of '28

Like bonbons in a candy box, these four cottage-style homes by Hooper Brothers are nicely displayed in an ad from July 1928.  Compact and rustic, with steeply pitched roofs and stucco finishes — I must go hunting for them this summer. Click on the pic make legible. 

Oh look, found one!

Ottawa Scenes

 Wheatpastes in Centretown — depictions of Beaux-Arts Court, Byward Market (top); Minto Bridges, Rideau Falls (bottom)

Let us know what you think.

Not that it'll make any difference. 

Here's something I noticed just yesterday. And yes, this will directly impact #219 (previous post.)

Here's a better view of proposed structure.

"... Zoning By-law Amendment and Site Plan Control applications have been submitted to redevelop the site as a nine-storey mixed-use building. The existing buildings on the site will be retained and serve as the podium of a residential addition stepped back from the building edges. The site is currently zoned TM H(19) – Traditional Mainstreet – with a height restriction of 19 metres. Relief is required from the Zoning By-law to permit a zero metre rear yard setback, reduced upper floor setbacks, an increased building height of 29.17 metres, a zero square-metre landscaped area and no on-site parking. The intent of the proposed amendment is to retain the existing buildings in situ according to their current conditions and enable the construction of the residential addition above them ..." 

Owner: 217 Nepean Street Holdings Inc. & 211-231 Bank Street Holdings Inc. c/o Jules Lauzon Applicant: Fotenn Consultants Inc. c/o Haris Khan

I've seen far worse. Feel free to pore over the details here. 

219 Bank Street

Please excuse the snow, that's the kind of winter it's been. This lovely-but-neglected 3-storey commercial building on Bank Street was completed in the summer of 1910. I took my photo not quite 103 years later, on a lunchtime grocery-run.

Here's an image of Bank Street between Nepean and Lisgar Streets in the earliest days of its development. Charles Goad (or one of his draughtsmen) drew this plan (Ottawa, Volume 1, sheet 38 detail, edited) circa 1878, when Bank had not yet emerged as a commercial thoroughfare. Red arrows indicate #219, then a humble single-storey wooden house, set among a scattering of such houses on a dirt road leading south to Billings Bridge and the farmlands beyond. Goad's 1878 drawings of the city core don't extend any farther south than Lisgar because there was little if anything south of Lisgar to draw.

Ten years later, Goad would depict a different house at #219, again made of wood, this time rising a full 1½ storeys. Notice how it was set at an angle to Bank Street. Perhaps someone wanted to make the most of the early afternoon sun. The built rows on the west side of Bank, drawn on darker paper, are edits to the original plan, added (pasted on) some time after 1888.

The address was the site of a newsworth kitchen fire in 1902 (Ottawa Citizen, March 4.)

St. Luke's Hospital, where Mrs. Marchand was treated, was located on Elgin Street at the present site of St. Luke's Park, between Frank and Gladstone.

The present structure was completed in the summer of 1910 (July most likely) as the Empire Theatre, indicated as "moving pictures" on Goad's 1912 plan below. At the time here was a minor brouhaha regarding the legality of a canopy overhanging the sidewalk. Minor details. We mustn't confuse the Empire with the Imperial Theatre (imperialism coming and going) farther south on Bank. The Imperial would eventually become Barrymore's Music Hall. 

Notice that the cinema is shown to be of brick construction (pink), rising to three storeys (as it does to this day.) "Reading roofing" seems to have been a style of roof-finish popular at the time, likely bitumen-based.

I find no mention of the first movie shown at the Empire. In those earliest years, the theatre's newspaper listings simply read "moving pictures" — which was more than enough to draw a crowd. It could well have been something like this.

Remember, 1910 was still in the "silent era" — people (over)-acted with their faces!

On Sundays, the Empire served as a temporary home for the First Congregational Church, pending the completion of their building at Florence and Kent (extant.) Sunday movie showings did not become legal in Ottawa until January 1963, so parishioners pretty much had the theatre to themselves for the day. 

The Empire Theatre closed some time in the late winter / early spring of 1918. Projectors and ticket machines were put up for sale in March, and this ad appeared in the Ottawa Journal the following month...

"For Sale — SEVERAL HUNDRED opera chairs at $1.00 each. Apply Empire Theatre 219 Bank St. Thursday morning." *

Once the opera chairs had been cleared out, 219 Bank became a dance hall. The space (three floors, remember) also hosted a restaurant. Private halls were rented out — notably to labour and socialist groups. The first ad below is from February 1919, while the "Elegant" placement touts New Year's Eve dining on December 31 1920.

In September of 1925, the "Dansant" stepped aside and a furniture store moved in.

As this September 8 ad indicates, Stewart & Co. were vacating a Rideau Street address (59-61), directly west of A. J. Freiman's. That location is now the west end of the Bay store on the north side of the street.

Owner John Stewart died in the fall of 1934. On March 6 the following spring, 219 Bank was the one-day venue for a lavish Stewart estate auction. Oh, to have a time machine ...

Here's an interesting ad that appeared in the Ottawa Journal on Saturday, May 27 1944. The "dream house" depicted was the subject of a war effort "victory" raffle (shares $1.00 each) sponsored by Ottawa's Rotary Club (chapter established 1916.) The cozy-looking house at 12 Madawaska Drive still stands, easily recognised.

The ad was evidently placed by Stewart & Co. — the copy deals almost exclusively with the home's furnishings. I won't pretend to know what "feather crotch mahogany of the Master bedroom suite" is supposed to be, but it surely hearkens back to the days when furniture was made from actual wood, from actual trees.

If I seem to be drifting away from the subject of 219 Bank, well, I'm not. The above ad, from the latter days of WWII, is one of, if not the last newspaper mention of Stewart & Co. citing the Bank Street address. For that matter, it's one of the last mentions of Stewart Furniture, period.

Small ads citing 219 Bank between 1945 and early 1970 are in keeping with those one would expect from a more modest furniture and appliance store — a gas range here, a driver wanted there. Remembering that the OPL is open again, I dropped by for a peek at the Ottawa City Directories and found this from 1949 ...

Looks about right.

The building was listed for sale (C. A. Fitzsimmons, realtor) in August of 1969. In August 1970, want ads seeking a "saleslady for a new store" appeared in the dailies. Peacock Imports opened the following month.

And when someone said "sheepskin" in 1970,  just remember — Keith Richards was ahead of that curve.

Continuing in a furry vein, Peacock was replaced by M. Caplan Furs in May 1982.

If the 1910 opening of the Empire Theatre was part of Bank Street's emergence as a prestigious business address, one might cite M. Caplan's tenure as the beginning of its end.  The "category 4" recession of 1990-1992 forced many Ottawa merchants to tighten their belts and downsize their business models. Bank Street was transitioning toward the "funky," "down-market" strip (I'm frantically trying not to offend anyone here) that we know well today. Consider this article from the Ottawa Citizen, November 28 1990.

This ad appeared in January 1991 — nota bene — "Everything we own is for sale ... even the real estate."

We hear very little about 219 Bank until the summer of 1992. Here's some copy from an ad that ran in July of that year.

"Maggies! The New Designer Store

Our new owners have bought out the assets of one of North America's finest Designer Companies at unbelievably low prices, with major savings to our customers. Thousands of quality name brand items at unbeatable prices.

We have two convenient locations to serve you — 190 Colonnade Road South / 219 Bank Street

Nobody beats Maggies! In clothes!"

Here's an ad that ran one month later. Note the proliferation of stores!

By October, Maggie's had opened an 8th Ottawa area outlet.

Of course, heavy storms don't last. By March 1995, 219 Bank would be up for rent again. Its next tenant was Grace Ottawa, a groceteria-sized "ethnic" (mostly Asian) food store occupying the entire first floor. I won't pretend to have done much buying there, but it was enlightening to see fresh turmeric roots for the first time, and I was sorely tempted to buy a jar of pickled gouramis, you know, just because.

June 1996 — Grace Ottawa International Food takes its place among the many businesses participating in the 1996 Bank Street Promenade Sidewalk sale! Don't squint! View the image full-sized!

Some time between May 2016 and August 2017 (per Google Street View), Grace Ottawa shut down and was replaced by The Value Hunter's Corner and Picture Works Framing, a rag-tag jumble of consignment goods, almost-antiques, random framed prints, bad art, and kitschy doodads (see actual doodad from Value Hunter's window below, summer 2022.)

Well, it's now early spring, 2023. Value Hunter closed at some point over the past winter. Someone has boarded the windows (including the broken ones on the second and third floor) and slapped on a a quick, much-needed coat of paint. We can only wonder what "someone" has planned for the old girl.

(Hint — see the next post.)

*My research assistant, Kay-El, raises the question of whether the closure of the Empire Theatre was causally related to the Great ("Spanish") Influenza Pandemic of 1918.

A Shoebox on Albert

 There's something to be said for taking pictures with a "real" camera instead of one's cellie, including the fact that people treat you differently when you wield an actual model, even a small one. A car actually stopped in the middle of traffic so as not to drive through my shot while I took the above. The Sony DSC RX 100 (2012) may be slender enough to slip into a jacket pocket, but it boasts 20 megapixels on a full 1" sensor, delivering resolution i'd never get from my iPhone. You know the drill — click on the image to check out the fine details.

The Copeland building was completed in the summer of 1950. The little blue shoebox to its right (our left) was apparently squeezed into place circa 1990 — a full thirty years later. It was home to a series of Indian restaurants beginning with the Mahal and ending with the India Palace which, sadly, didn't survive the pandemic.

Announcing the Copeland back in the day, the Ottawa Journal, August 3 1950 — the POV faces east from the corner of Albert and Kent. The blue arrows point to the alley where the Mahal Restaurant would eventually be built.

The construction blocks mentioned in the ad were of course provided by Harry Hayley, Ottawa's cinder-block king. The ad below appeared the same year the Copeland was built.

A view from the Sappers' Bridge

 This is an auto-coloured view of downtown Ottawa looking south from the Sappers' Bridge, that is to say the southern limb of the Plaza Bridge, Confederation Square. As to provenance, I can only say that I found the black-and-white original on the Twitter feed of some guy who lifted it off the Flickr of some other guy. Photoshop did the colour workup, giving us something suggestive of an old hand-coloured postcard. Click on the image to load a higher quality image.

I'm not sure of the date, but "towards the end of The War" would be a good starting point, given the style of the cars and the glimpse of the Temporary Buildings behind the Lombardy poplars on what is now Marion Dewar Plaza at the upper left.

The chateauesque Lord Elgin Hotel is easily recognised at the upper right of the photo, as is the spire of the adjacent First Baptist Church at 140 Laurier Ave West.

An intriguing feature is the chimney-stack on the horizon, left of center. This landmark structure was part of what was once a government-operated office-furniture factory on the south side of Isabella St. The chimney marks the present position of the NW corner of the Loblaw's store just south of the Queensway, between Elgin and Metcalfe.

The various multi-storey buildings on the right side of the image remind us that Confederation Park was once home to a healthy concentration of apartment and office buildings.

The red brick shamble is Ottawa's "old" police station, sited smack-dab in the middle of what is now the NAC. For more on this subject, please do check out Chris Ryan's discussion here. 

The signature roofline of the former cop-shop makes an appearance in a photo (again colourized) taken by my father in the spring of 1955.

The POV is clearly the SE corner of the Parliament Hill lawn, looking toward the War Memorial on a wet April afternoon. Okay, I'm guessing about the afternoon, but the crocuses have finished blooming and the elms are just starting to bud out. Easter fell on April 10th that year. Just saying.

In the Spanish Style

It's a sobering thought — Google Street View has been with us for fifteen years now. And apart from reminding us how old we're all getting, Street View has emerged as a tool for historical research. Not that we'd normally view the past fifteen years as History-with-a-capital-H, but think of it — pretty much any Ottawa building demolished within that time-frame has been documented by one of Google's roving camera cars — buildings erected in the 20th, even the 19th century. So yes, historical.

Such is the present case. This curiosity sat on the SE corner of North River Road and West Presland Road in Overbrook until some time between 2009 and 2012. We know this because the above image was taken in April of 2009. The next available photo, taken in May of 2012, shows a vacant lot.

The address, 1211 North River Road, happens to fall within the 12 acre plot we were looking at in my last post. Here's an aerial photo from that post, zoomed-in-on somewhat. The year is 1938.

The blue arrows point to our subject — if you squint and use your imagination, you can see the flat roof and a sharp shadow falling to the north of the building.  Notice how few houses have been built on an acreage that still looks like farmland. The rail bridge over the Rideau is the old CNoR/CN, abandoned in July of 1966  — its concrete footings are visible to this day, just below the river's surface, when the water is low.

The house was built in the mid-1930s. We know this because it doesn't appear on the 1933 aerial photo. The style, as I understand it, is something called  "Spanish Colonial Revival," which first appeared in North America in 1915 and seems to have largely petered out by WWII. Here's a discussion from the Vancouver Heritage Foundation.

"Spanish colonial style first came into the public eye at the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego. Following the popularity of the Mission Revival style, it drew inspiration from California’s Spanish colonial history. The style was initially based on Spanish colonial architecture from across Latin America. As popularity grew, other architects began looking to Spain for inspiration. As a result, the style has a mix of Old and New World elements. Features that distinguish Spanish Colonial Revival from Mission Revival include low-relief ornamentation, decorative cornices and wrought iron. In Vancouver, the style is found on elaborate mansions such as Rio Vista and Casa Mia but also smaller bungalows. The sprawling villas that lend inspiration to the style made it well-suited for grander homes.

Red tile roofs, white roughcast stucco, heavy robust wood accents around windows, doors and eaves make up the Spanish style. Ornamental wrought iron appears in grillwork over windows and door openings, and iron accents turn up in lanterns, sconces and railings. Patterned tile turns up as accents in the stucco in open-ended gables and on stair risers."

I don't know how well stucco stands up to hot, arid climates, but I've seen how it fares in Ottawa. Stains and cracks appear. Chunks fall off, hide in the grass, and destroy lawnmowers. This happens not only on Spanish-style houses but on the half-timbered walls and gables of Tudor Revival designs. Homes that would have delighted the eye when they were built, now look like sagging mold problems.

After 1211 N. River Road was demolished, the lot sat vacant until the fall of 2015. By spring of the following year, construction was largely complete on the matching pair of modernisms that now occupy the corner — part of western Overbrook's ongoing transformation into a "desirable" neighbourhood.

Some houses in Southwest Overbrook

 The roughly 12 acres directly south of F. X. Laderoute's 1911 "Overbrook Annex" subdivision had yet to enjoy any significant home-building as WWII loomed. You can see that area highlighted in gold on the above 1938 aerial photo. It was bounded by the old CPR tracks on the east, Wright Street on the south, River Road (then Russell Road) on the west, and the backyards of Prince Albert Street (of the "Annex") to the north. Originally, this area was treated as part of the Hurdman's Bridge settlement, but the heart of that community was obliterated in the latter 1950s by construction of the Queensway*.

The highlighted area was largely developed between 1945 and 1958 — indeed, the uniformity of housing style along Drouin Avenue and West Presland Road (square footprint, pre-ranch bungalows) bespeaks the work of a developer, not that of a mere subdivider.

Here are three house-portraits from the area. Click on the images for proper resolution.

20 West Presland —two-storey, hipped roof, high foundation, post-WWII.

84 Drouin — a small bungalow, built on a rise, sporting a wild front yard. A typical build for the street, suggesting late 40s to early 50s.

8 Presland, a charming little house with half-timbering on the upper storey facade. Built sometime between 1938 and 1945, per aerial photographs. This is me experimenting with a mid-century postcard colouring effect. 

*The old Hurdman's Bridge settlement was the built around the western end of Tremblay Road. In October of 1957 Queen Elizabeth II, then only four years into her reign (!!!), visited Ottawa. At one of several public events marking the occasion, the Queen inaugurated the construction of the Queensway, from a location just east of the Rideau River. To add dramatic flair, it was arranged that she would detonate a dynamite blast at the very point where the highway was to converge with, and be built over, the older road — we assume that homes in the immediate area had already been demolished. 

In an October 15 photo (Newtown for the Ottawa Citizen) the Queen stands on a temporary platform erected at the east end of Hurdman Bridge (the latter since demolished.) The photo was taken less than half an hour before noon EST, thus the sun shone from the south, at the right side of the image. Elizabeth stood at a podium on the west side of the platform facing the Rideau River. We can see the plume of an upward-directed explosion hanging in the air at a safe distance to the east — the Queen was apparently unaware that the explosion would occur behind her, hence her moment of perplexity.