Year: 2016

Requiem for Dorothea Athans’ Dream

It's not the Athans subdivision. It's Blossom Park on July 19, 1956. Close enough. Image: Ted Grant / City of Ottawa Archives, Item CA039619.
It’s not the Athans subdivision, but it’s close. Blossom Park on July 19, 1956. Image: Ted Grant / City of Ottawa Archives, Item CA039619.

Dorothea Athans was ambitious. Really ambitious. And determined. Characterized as “a visionary” with “a force of will that was incredible”, Athans (and her husband Alex, a chemist) arrived in Ottawa from Greece in 1955. That she was one of the few women in Ottawa get involved in property development would have made hers a good story. Her 1980 plan to develop a movie studio near Hawthorne Road, however, is what makes hers a great story. Unfortunately, her ambitions in the Ottawa area were met with little more than disappointment, frustration, and – in at least two cases – being caught on the wrong side of the region’s green belt policies.

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City Parking, Metcalfe (1973)

City Parking's L-shaped lot at the corner of Queen and Metcalfe, as it appeared in 1973. Image: Bill Cadzow / CMHC 1973-102, Image 4.
City Parking’s L-shaped lot at the corner of Queen and Metcalfe, as it appeared in 1973. I’d click for the full size image. There’s a whole lot of fun detail. Image: Bill Cadzow / CMHC 1973-102, Image 4.

I recently wrote a bit about the adventures and misadventures in development experienced by Bernard Herman’s City Parking Ltd. (Citicom)  in Ottawa. The photograph above was taken by Bill Cadzow of the CMHC in  February 1973, just before City Parking announced its Canada Centre project. For all it could have been, the Canada Centre was permanently iced when the National Capital Commission purchased the developer’s entire downtown portfolio in 1976. It would not be until 1984 that the site would be constructed on, with the Manulife Place office being completed in 1987.

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Bank between Laurier and Slater (1960)

TED GRANT
Ted Grant captures the view of Bank Street, looking north between Laurier and Slater. That neon, maintained, would look snappy today. Image: Ted Grant / LAC Accession 1981-181 NPC Series 60-695A, Image 173.

Another photograph from Ted Grant’s series “Meter Maids“. This time looking north on Bank, half way between Laurier Avenue and Slater. Outside of James Strutt’s rather disappointing renovation of the Jackson Building, one thing to notice in the shot of the Stage Door Restaurant. It’s difficult to make out on the southwest corner of Bank and Slater: just beside the third car parked on the left.

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Citicom and Timberlay Went A’Courtin’

Somerset Court, 30 years in. Image: Google Maps.
Somerset Court, 30 years in. Image: Google Maps.

The Somerset Court condominium, located on Somerset Street West just off Elgin, recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. Designed by architect Barry Hobin, it was a joint project of Robert McElligott’s Timberlay Developments and Toronto’s Citicom, which was probably best known until the late 1970s for its parking lot business. Since Robert Smythe tackled the ins and outs of the condominium’s development in a 2012 URBSite article, I will discuss it only briefly. Instead, I focus on Timberlay, Citicom, and the brief partnership they enjoyed during the middle years of the 1980s.

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Le Versailles in Sandy Hill (1964)

Le Versailles Apartments, Henderson Avenue. Image: July 2016.
Le Versailles Apartments, Henderson Avenue. Image: July 2016.

Since moving to Ottawa in 2000, I have spent more time exploring the city on foot than I can recount and Sandy Hill has always been one of my favourites. As you can probably expect from me on this blog, it’s less so the grand homes that define the neighbourhood (though they are lovely), but rather the most interesting mix of apartment styles that grace the area. The midcentury apartment designs, to my eye, have often been just slightly a cut above the remainder of the city, including in my own home turf of Centretown. Among them are Pat Gillin’s Chanteclair and Sans Souci, the Bachelor, the Summit, and my favourite, Réal St-Amour’s own Le Versailles (pictured above).

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“A ‘Little Mexico’ on Lake Ontario” (The El Pueblo Townhouses, 1971-73)

Rippin' up Beech Avenue too. The El Pueblo apartments are there in all of their splendour.
The El Pueblo townhouses in all of their splendour. Image: Littlest Hobo, Season 2, Episode 2 “Duddleman and the Diamond Ring.” (1980)

Recently, I read a post by historian Richard White on his blog Historical Perspectives on Toronto Planning called “Rejected Development.” Perhaps best known for his his recent publication, Planning Toronto: The Planners, The Plans, Their Legacies, 1940-80, I read it with interest. In making an argument that planners in the postwar era did not always want to “‘bulldoze’ everything old and replace it with some lifeless, modern, tower-in-the-park sort of structure,” White offers the example of the rejected River Oaks tower development on Beech Avenue in the Beaches neighbourhood. The El Pueblo townhouse complex, which was constructed in its stead, has always stood out to me. Not only have I walked past it on a few occasions, but as a regular watcher of The Littlest Hobo, it was familiar.

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Victoria Restaurant, 321 Bank (1978)

Victoria Restaurant, 321 Bank Street, July 4, 1978. Image: Ted Grant / LAC Series 79-01-1083.
Curtains drawn, topless dancers 6 days a week, and Darth Vader beckons passers-by into the new Discotheque. The Victoria Steak House, 321 Bank Street, January 4, 1978. Image: Ted Grant / LAC Series 78-01-1083.

A little Bank Street ephemera: the Victoria Steak House opened for business in 1977 and closed at some point in 1978. In its short time, it seems to have had a rough ride. What seems to have begun as an attempt at a quality steak house quickly came to cater to the market it was in during those years.

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Demolished Ottawa: Toronto-Dominion Bank, Sparks Street

Nearing last call. The Toronto-Dominion Sparks branch served as a sales centre for the development that is poised to replace it. Image: September 2015.
Nearing last call. The Toronto-Dominion Sparks branch served as a sales centre for the development that is poised to replace it. Image: September 2015.

Earlier this spring, the Toronto-Dominion Bank branch on Sparks street was demolished to make way for Ashcroft’s much-delayed reResidences project.1Also known as the Canlands ‘A’ development. See Contentworks Inc. 111-113 Queen St. & 106-116 Sparks St., Cultural Heritage Impact Statement. June 2013; Patrick Langston. “Cosmopolitan Mr. Choo,” Ottawa Citizen, December 12, 2009, p. 19; Mark Brownlee. “Still waiting for a spark,” Ottawa Business Journal, October 30, 2012; NCC Watch, Canlands ‘A’ Archive; “Ashcroft to start over on facade of long-delayed Sparks street project,” Ottawa Business Journal, February 13, 2014; David Reevely. “Decrepit Sparks Street building to be demolished for Ashcroft project,” Ottawa Citizen, February 13, 2014; Ashcroft Homes / CNW. “For the first time in 150 years; 108-116 Sparks St. heritage façade work underway.” May 11, 2016. While the heritage façade of the former Centre Theatre seems to have garnered most of the attention, for one reason or another, it is the demolition of the midcentury modern Toronto-Dominion Bank branch that has captivated me.

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Notes

Notes
↥1 Also known as the Canlands ‘A’ development. See Contentworks Inc. 111-113 Queen St. & 106-116 Sparks St., Cultural Heritage Impact Statement. June 2013; Patrick Langston. “Cosmopolitan Mr. Choo,” Ottawa Citizen, December 12, 2009, p. 19; Mark Brownlee. “Still waiting for a spark,” Ottawa Business Journal, October 30, 2012; NCC Watch, Canlands ‘A’ Archive; “Ashcroft to start over on facade of long-delayed Sparks street project,” Ottawa Business Journal, February 13, 2014; David Reevely. “Decrepit Sparks Street building to be demolished for Ashcroft project,” Ottawa Citizen, February 13, 2014; Ashcroft Homes / CNW. “For the first time in 150 years; 108-116 Sparks St. heritage façade work underway.” May 11, 2016.

Elgin Street Loblaws, 1940

It may be Hooley's today, but it was born a Loblaws. Image: July 2016.
It may be Hooley’s and Yuk Yuks today, but it was born a Loblaws. Image: July 2016.

292 Elgin, the building that currently hosts Hooley’s and Yuk Yuk’s, has always caught my eye. Between the buff brick and the smart detail above the door, it has always seemed like a building that has had an interesting past life.

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