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.