Saturday, February 27, 2021

closed on Bank

 




(Top to bottom, 152, 156-158, 160 Bank Street, D. Chouinard, iPhone 11 Pro)

These three storefronts occupy the ground floor of a 19th century, 3-storey block built in the commercial-Italianate style. 

The block actually comprises two buildings, each with its own fenestration scheme. 160 is older, built over 1871 to 1873 (Enoch Walkley), extending farther back on its lot. 152-158 dates to 1894-1895.
 
The present state of disuse relates, somehow, to heritage restoration efforts. You can view a detailed City of Ottawa document that includes a discussion of the properties here. Note that the authors of this document describe the facade of #160 as consisting of "(artificial?) stone panel storefront at the ground level." I gave the thing a knock and a poke and trust me, it is artificial — textured plastic on a wood-and-styrofoam armature. The other two facades are brick veneer over the original brick.



Faux stone at #160

Friday, February 26, 2021

a brutalist bodega



Corner store, dépanneur, whatever — #380 Laurier Avenue West was originally a row of four 2½-storey wooden houses (370-378 Maria), built before 1875. Aerial photos show that these were demolished at some point between 1945 and 1958, after which the property served as a parking lot until at least 1976, possibly until the mid-1980s when the Kent Towers apartments (background, 1986) were built.

The original row-houses appear in the upper left-hand corner of this detail of Charles Goad's 1878 insurance plan, sheet #38, at Kent and Maria (now Laurier West.)

(photo David Chouinard)

Sunday, February 21, 2021

the sculpted landscape

 


Welcome to the north end of Hurdman Park, summer 1991. This aerial view (courtesy of geoOttawa) relates to my post-before-last and offers a glimpse of a landscape then-recently transformed. And yes, I've been at it with the crayons, gussying up those bare patches.

The blue patch is an expanse of dead ground left behind after years of city snow-dumping, a practice that continued here well through the 1970s. Recovery was slow, but the area now boasts a stand of mature Eastern Cottonwood (Populus tremuloides). Grasses dominate the open spaces, and there's rose bush growing in the middle of it all, please don't ask me how it got there.

The yellow patch is the man-made hill. This one in fact, rising some 12 metres (40 feet) above the surrounding landscape.

As I write this, I don't exactly know where this heap of soil came from. Did someone, on a whim, decide to build a sledding hill and then forget to use it? I think not. While I don't have an exact date for the hill's creation, I do seem to remember it appearing in the early '80s, a time-frame that corresponds with a lot of digging in the immediate area — the Lees Avenue Transit Station on the far side of the Rideau River, as well as several high-rise apartments (on both sides) with extensive underground parking. All that excavated dirt had to go somewhere. Btw, I say "dirt" — I also seem to remember this fill as being a sand/silt mixture, prone to being carried away by the wind before a cover of charlock, alfalfa, red clover, sweet-clover and various grasses took root to hold it down.

For a sense of scale, the red line along the long the hill's long axis marks a distance of almost exactly 360 metres, or a fifth of a mile.

Saturday, February 20, 2021

mining the Gatineau Hills, an introduction


Ottawa's bedrock is sedimentary — mostly limestone, some shale, and sandstone if you know where to look. Limestone and sandstone make great building materials, shale less so. To our north, across the Ottawa River, metamorphic bedrock, rich in mineral ores, serve different functions. 

Of the history of mining in the Gatineau Hills, Dr. Shawn Graham observes...

"The same geology that makes Gatineau Park a stunning panorama, from the Eardley Escarpment to the rolling landscape of the Meech Creek Valley, also made the area attractive to miners in the 19th and early 20th centuries. There is a certain romance in mines named "Eva" or "Pink," and their ruins and tailings can be spotted underneath the dense underbrush which has, for the most part, reclaimed them. The names recall some of the earliest landowners and entrepreneurs: Forsythe, Baldwin, Lawless, Pink, Morris, Headley, Eva, Fortin-Gravelle, Laurentide, Wallingford, Cliff, Fleury, Chaput-Payne and McCloskey..."

Graham then describes the mining of mica, iron, and molybdenum in the area. Read his full article here.

(photo of the Pink's Lake mica mine via Capital Gems)

Hurdman Park


 Just south of the Queensway, bounded by the Rideau River and Riverside Drive, lies a swath of former farmland that has never been otherwise developed. Curiously, we owe the existence of this now-lovely park to the fact that for some three decades following WWII, the acreage was a dumpsite — literally — first for Ottawa's garbage, then for our snow, and finally as a landfill, possibly associated with the excavation of the Lees Avenue rapid transit station on the opposite bank of the Rideau.

 Such landfill dumping was created an artificial hill which appeared circa 1982[?]. I'm standing on top of it. The myriad herringbone ski-tracks confirm that we're indeed looking down a slope. In the background we see the only buildings of significance in Hurdman Park, the Hurdman rapid transit bus station (early '80s) and behind it, the elevated tracks of the Hurdman LRT station, completed in 2019.

(D. Chouinard, iPhone 11 Pro)

the Jack Layton building


 279 Laurier West (at Bank) was originally built as the A. A. Fournier Department Store, which opened for business on Monday, January 20 1919. Fournier had previously operated an outlet on the north side of Wellington, east of Lyon.

(D. Chouinard, iPhone 11 Pro)

 "The Modern Fournier Store of Today"

(Ottawa Journal, June 2 1923)

a Golden Triangle curiosity


 This set of four condominiums at 74 Somerset West was placed on the market in January of 1977. The building resembles nothing else in the neighbourhood — like a toaster in a cornfield. The lot was originally the site of a pre-1890, 2½-storey brick home.

(D. Chouinard, iPhone 11 pro)


(January 15 1977, ad by Sampson & McNaughton)

semi-detatched in Tanglewood


 Sometimes referred to as Tanglewood-Hillsdale, this Minto development is bounded by Merivale and Hunt Club Roads, Woodroffe Avenue and the CN Beechburg rail corridor. It was built between 1968 and the mid-1980s.

(Ottawa Journal, November 1970)

the last sunset of 2020


 Constitution Square, Albert at Slater, west (side) elevation. This spectacular three-tower structure was completed in stages between 1986 and 2007.

(D. Chouinard, iPhone 11 Pro)

Cardinal and Rothwell


 The land that would become the post-war subdivisions of Cardinal Heights (red) and Rothwell Heights (green) is depicted by H. Belden in his map of Gloucester Township, 1879. 

 Cardinal Heights was built between 1951 and 1957 and covers roughly 120 acres. The subdivision of Rothwell Height began in 1946 as "Hillsdale Heights" on Montreal Road — construction continued through the 20th Century — it would eventually cover some 430 acres.

(Illustrated Historical Atlas of the County of Carleton (including City of Ottawa) Ontario
Toronto: H. Belden, 1879)