Thursday, December 29, 2022

Wellington Street Part 10: Nepean Bay and the Ottawa River Parkway

Part 10: Nepean Bay and the Ottawa River Parkway

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In the previous post, we talked about the peripheral effects on Wellington street from the Garden of the Provinces construction, the LeBreton Flats expropriations, and the lowering of the C.P.R. Prescott Subdivision (all NCC projects).

Today's post will look at the Ottawa River Parkway, whose history is not well documented insofar as it affects Wellington Street. We're still in the 1960s, prior to the breakup of Wellington at the viaduct covered in part 8.

To get us situated, this colour photo from the early 1960s shows Wellington Street winding up from the bottom of the photo up across the viaduct, through LeBreton Flats, and into downtown:1

Colour aerial photo of LeBreton Flats, Bayview, and Nepean Bay before removal of railroad infrastructure and before expropriation of LeBreton Flats. Wellington Street viaduct, O'Keefe brewery, railyards tracks roundhouse, Chaudière Victoria Albert islands, Ottawa River. Somerset viaduct.

Friday, March 18, 2022

What to expect when you go Next Door in Ottawa

We interrupt the blog series about the history of Wellington Street to bring you this informational item.

In late January or early February, I got a letter in the mail (since discarded), addressed to "Dalhousie neighbour" (red flag #1), inviting me to something called "NextDoor Dalhousie", which claimed to be a social media site to "connect with neighbours". Sounds nice enough, but obviously somebody's making enough money off of of this "free" app to afford to mail out physical invitations. I've since discarded my letter, but here's a similar one received by a neighbour on Eccles Street in March, 2022:

A paper letter starting Hi Eccles St Neighbours, Our neighbourhood is now using a free app called Nextdoor Dalhousie and you should join us. There's a code that it says will expire in 7 days, and it's signed Your neighbour, [name and street name removed by me]

The top level takeaway—in case the reference to red flags wasn't clear enough—is don't bother signing up, but for the sake of others who, like me, wanted to know more about it before signing up, here's what I've observed after having been signed into the site for a month.

Monday, January 24, 2022

Wellington Street Part 9: The NCC's distractions (early-mid 1960s)

Part 9: The NCC's distractions (early-mid 1960s)

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In the previous part of this series about the renamings, connections, and disconnections of Wellington Street, we looked at the Ottawa Journal campaign leading up to the August 1969 viaduct transplant that broke Wellington Street apart over the tracks to connect with Scott. Today we'll skip back a few years now to look at what the NCC was up to around Wellington Street in the early 1960s.

December 2012. Looking from the park atop the cliff at Bronson and Sparks down to LeBreton Flats including old Wellington Street, Pooley's Bridge, and Fleet street. Water pumping station is undergoing repairs. Condos south of Fleet not yet started construction. Transitway, no Booth Street bridge yet. A light dusting of snow.