Tag: Ottawa

Elgin Views, 1980s

Party Palace, now McDonald’s. Early 1980s. It’s a bit to make out, but you can see Goldstein’s reflected in the glass. Image: Ronald Temchuk.
Boushey’s in the early 1980s. Image: Ronald Temchuk.
Now home to the Ministry of Coffee, Wine Rack, and Fox & Feather. Early 1980s. Image: Ronald Temchuk.
Now the site of the Zesty’s, corner of Elgin and Maclaren. Early 1980s. Image: Ronald Temchuk.

Recently, on the Lost Ottawa Facebook group, an individual named Ronald Temchuk shared some photographs of Elgin street from the early 1980s. It’s not just because I’m a very happy Elgin resident that these stood out to me: I’ve written stories in the past about a few of these places (with many more in the hopper).

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Centretown’s Apartments, Civil Servants, and the Great Depression

Chamberlin (Chamberlain) Manor. Image: March 2016.

If you’ve had a chat with me in the last year or so, there is a good chance that I found occasion to slip something about apartments, Centretown, or both into the conversation. It should come as no surprise that during the Depression, construction of all sorts ground to a virtual halt. If you were take a look around the neighbourhood during those years, it would appear that someone forgot to let a small group of developers know that the party was over.

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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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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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