Mayor Whitton on Housing, 1952

In her 1952 inaugural address, Mayor Whitton tried to spark Council into action. Image: Ottawa Journal / LAC Accession 1979-203 NPC Box 04438.

Coming only four months after her Fall inaugural address, Mayor Whitton spared her Council colleagues by delivering a much shorter address1By her standards. It was still much longer than those delivered by her predecessors. that focused on developing a sense of urgency and the setting aside of small differences. The Mayor’s address listed 10 points, with housing placed right at the top.

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Notes

Notes
↥1 By her standards. It was still much longer than those delivered by her predecessors.

Mayor Lewis on Housing, 1945

Ottawa Mayor, J.E. Stanley Lewis on December 15, 1946. Image: City of Ottawa Archives MG393-AN-P-000242-003.

Keeping up with the theme of mayors and their thoughts on housing, I thought it would be fun to reach back a little further. In 1945, the Second World War was coming to a close and Ottawa’s longest serving mayor, J.E. Stanley Lewis, faced with a critical housing shortage.

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Mayor Whitton on Housing, 1951

Charlotte Whitton with Robert Campeau, a developer she would frequently do battle with. Image: Dominion Wide / LAC Acc. 1979-203 NPC, Box 04438.

After having shared excerpts from Mayor Charlotte Whitton’s 1953 inaugural address about housing on Saturday, I thought it might be somewhat interesting to share them from 1951, when she took over as mayor from Grenville Goodwin who passed away suddenly that August 28.1”Seven Hour Seizure; Mayor Stricken When Shopping on Mann Avenue,” Ottawa Journal, August 28, 1951, 1, 17.

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Notes

Notes
↥1 ”Seven Hour Seizure; Mayor Stricken When Shopping on Mann Avenue,” Ottawa Journal, August 28, 1951, 1, 17.

Mayor Whitton on Housing, 1953

Mayor Charlotte Whitton, as captured by Maclean’s Magazine’s Walter Curtin, March 1957. Image: LAC Accession 1981-262 NPC Box 06354 Assignment 574-1.

As I’ve noted previously, I have been working on a thesis about the Ottawa Lowren Housing Company, which was Ottawa’s city-owned, privately-operated limited dividend housing company. Although she was not the inventor of the limited dividend approach to housing, Mayor Charlotte Whitton was among the first Canadian municipal leaders to have any real measure of success making use of the National Housing Act provision and became an enthusiastic booster of its use.

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Then & Now: Woodbine at Queen East

Woodbine, looking north from Queen East, c. 1972. Image: Toronto Public Library, Beaches, LOCHIST-BE-40.

It has not been often that I’ve posted “then and now” photos here on Margins. While browsing the photographs that have been digitized by the Toronto Public Library this evening, I was reminded of one of the more influential-to-me discussion threads on the Urban Toronto boards: Miscellany Toronto Photographs: Then and Now. Although it has slowed down considerably in recent times, the nearly 900 page discussion is a rich one.

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Another Sort of Municipal Archive

The Phin Park Apartments from above in 1960. Image: adapted from City of Toronto Archives, Series 12, Image 60.

If the built environment is not an archive, then it’s a darn good book. At least that’s how it has always felt to me. Not only are all aspects of the urban fabric laden with the uses and values that informed their construction and assembly, but the life story of each building is too.1I’m referring, of course, to Stewart Brand’s How Buildings Learn. The whole vista will tell you stories (or serve as a sort of record) and whenever I’m out and about – whether in Ottawa, Toronto, or elsewhere – my eyes are peeled.

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Notes

Notes
↥1 I’m referring, of course, to Stewart Brand’s How Buildings Learn.

Ottawa’s Building Permits, 1941

The Jackson Building received a $327,000 addition at the rear along Slater in 1941 for the RCAF. Image: geoOttawa.

1941 Ottawa was Wartime Ottawa. Of the top five building permits issued that year, four were issued to the Dominion Government to accommodate the expansion is wartime bureaucracy, and of those four, three were for the wooden so-called wartime “temporary” buildings.

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Ottawa’s Building Permits, 1945

James Beach and R.C. Greig teamed up to construct this apartment on Second Avenue at Bronson in 1945. Image: Google Maps (May 2016).
James Beach and R.C. Greig teamed up to construct this apartment on Second Avenue at Bronson in 1945. Image: Google Maps (May 2016).

Due to the wartime material and labour shortages I noted yesterday, construction in 1945 was, to say the least, pokey. Where there were 55 “important” building permits listed in the 1946 Annual Report, the number was only 24 in 1945.

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Ottawa’s Building Permits, 1946

Vignette of the British American Banknote Company's Gladstone Avenue facility. Source: British American Banknote Company. "90 Years of Security Printing: The story of the British American Bank Note Company Limited, 1866-1956."
Vignette of the British American Banknote Company’s Gladstone Avenue facility. At $800,000, it was the largest building permit issued for Ottawa in 1946. Source: British American Banknote Company. “90 Years of Security Printing: The story of the British American Bank Note Company Limited, 1866-1956.”

Although the Second World War had ended the previous year, in 1946, shifting Canada’s economy back from wartime production had proven a somewhat lengthier enterprise. Both materials and capital remained in short supply and, in spite of exceptional need, construction had not yet picked up. In spite of this, there were a few bright spots in Ottawa’s construction industry.

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