If you’ve run into me lately, you were doubtlessly entreated to some words about apartment buildings in Ottawa. I can’t help it, the topic has been rolling around in my mind for a decade or so.
Ottawa’s Apartments, 1945
Lancaster’s Merivale Night Move (City View’s Lancaster Shopping Centre, 1954)
On April 28, 1954, residents of the rapidly developing part of Nepean Township known as City View were welcomed to the grand opening of the Lancaster Shopping Centre. Constructed by subdivider and homebuilder William Lancaster and designed by architect Norman Sherriff, the small plaza opened with Hyde’s IGA Foodliner, Tom Reith’s Hardware, the Elm Grove Pharmacy, and a post office.1Ottawa Journal, April 28, 1954, p. 12.
Continue reading Lancaster’s Merivale Night Move (City View’s Lancaster Shopping Centre, 1954)Notes
| ↥1 | Ottawa Journal, April 28, 1954, p. 12. |
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Insulting Infrastructure
Elgin’s Rainbow
Laurentian Terrace from Above
When I wrote last winter about Laurentian Terrace, the government’s residence for young unmarried women in the Civil Service, I was disappointed that I was unable to locate an aerial photograph from when it was still standing. Thankfully, that is no longer the case, and above it can be seen on a clear September day in the shadow of the former Dominion Printing Bureau.
Fitting In(fill) in Centretown
I was walking back home from campus the other day and these brightly-coloured homes (90-98 Flora) caught my eye. As is so often the case, beauty results from conflict and limitation, rather than from whole-cloth design.
Lofty Concrete Affordability
This is just a quick one about a building that I’ve always wondered about.
A (Bel)grave Situation (Belgrave Terrace or the Franconna Apartments, 1925)
Centretown’s buildings have a number of stories to tell. Some of those stories are tragic, some are tales of faded business glory, and others still are tales of the night life that once kept Ottawa hopping. Still waters run deep, as the saying goes. As is the case with so many of the apartments that Centretowners call home, the Franconna Apartments began life as large single-family home. After playing host to a number of elites in its first twenty years, it was converted into an apartment (named Belgrave Terrace): a common fate that befell these homes once they hit a certain age. Backing on to Gladstone Avenue, the apartment was then threatened with the potential for demolition when the city sought to widen what was then a 30 foot side-street to a four-lane traffic corridor. While the rear annex bears the scars of the widening, that half of it still stands is a testament to the sorts of pressure faced by planners during the middle of the twentieth century.
Continue reading A (Bel)grave Situation (Belgrave Terrace or the Franconna Apartments, 1925)“Thank-you for the coffee, Monsieur Dugas. I shall miss it when I leave Casablanca.”
As I have been somewhat distracted lately, my work on these stories has been even more slack than it was by the end of the summer. I have, nevertheless, been beavering away behind the scenes and will have a medium-length story about the Franconna Apartments on Frank street as well as a really long piece about the former Pestalozzi College. Until then, here’s a really quick one about the Casablanca Apartments at 1 Hamilton Avenue in Hintonburg.
Beneath Carling’s Waves (The King Neptune Car Wash, 1959)
Carling Avenue between Westgate and Carlingwood is a highly interesting part of town to me. Perhaps more so than any other part of town, the built city in the area serves as a great illustration of postwar development. I’ve written about the northwest corner of Carling and Cole before, but because I hadn’t written about the opposite corner, I missed out on the subject of this story. Continue reading Beneath Carling’s Waves (The King Neptune Car Wash, 1959)
The Restauranteur’s Waltz (Waltz Inn, Richmond Road)
Some restaurants take on a life of their own and go down in history as being legendary for the community, even once long gone. Soggy drunken nights at the Belle Claire or the Saucy Noodle, for example, loom within the memories of many Ottawans. Others appear to make their mark and then disappear once the the lights are turned off for the last time. Or in some cases, once the fire brigade shuts off its hoses.
Continue reading The Restauranteur’s Waltz (Waltz Inn, Richmond Road)
A Little Place in the Hamptons (Hampton Park Plaza, 1960-61)
It wouldn’t necessarily occur to us today, as we sit at the tail end of a hot development market, but sometimes our fields of dreams don’t even get a backstop. That is, we can’t build even build it, so they don’t come – at least not until much later.
Continue reading A Little Place in the Hamptons (Hampton Park Plaza, 1960-61)