Somerset Street Reconstruction Part 11: Planning the O-Train Pathway

In the previous part of the 15-part series on the reconstruction of Somerset Street West, we looked at the City Centre complex, shown here with one of the many piles of garbage scattered behind the building.

The City Centre's connection to the Somerset Street reconstruction has to do with the tunnel built under Somerset last year, which will connect a new pathway in an existing corridor between the City Centre building and the O-Train tracks. Here's that corridor from the Somerset Street bridge, looking North to Albert and Bayview station.

Cooper Street jump

These are two houses on Cooper Street, between Lyon and Bay. The house on the right is Whelan Funeral Home at 515 Cooper. The house on the left is a house numbered 611 Cooper. Across the street, 514 Cooper and 610 Cooper are also neighbours.

While many people lament the inconsistency of Centretown's house numbering from block to block (at least there's a reason for that—namely, that some streets start at the Canal or Elgin, while others start at Bank), this big jump in numbers must surely cause some confusion for people searching for these addresses. It probably doesn't help that Cooper is one way in descending numerical order.

The direcitons that Whelan Funeral Home gives on its website avoid mention of the numbering, and probably for good reason (though they may want to adjust their suggested route now that Bronson is closed for construction).

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Peds on Weds: No Pedetsrian Crossing... yet

It's the second Wednesday of the month, which means two things: a Walk Ottawa meeting (7pm at Jack Purcell Community Centre room 101, also noted on OttawaWalkingProblems.ca), and the weekly Peds on Weds post.

This week's post features a jogger trying to cross the car-dominated junction of Wellington Street, the Ottawa River Parkway, and the Portage Bridge. Facing our intrepid pedestrian is a sign that reads "NO PEDESTRIAN CROSSING". Pedestrians and cyclists are expected to navigate the labyrinth of pathways under the bridge to get to the side they want to be on.

Luckily all those pylons aren't there to make an obstacle course of the surface also; it's because the intersection is being reworked. Segregated bicycle lanes will be added to Wellington in both directions, and at-grade crosswalks will be added to allow pedestrians to cross in all directions.

Construction is expected to be finished by the end of June, following which it will be much easier to walk to the Mill Street Brewpub at the old mill.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Somerset Street Reconstruction Part 10: City Centre

In the previous part of the 15-part series on the 2011 reconstruction of Somerset Street West, I rounded out the reconstruction of the roads and sidewalks. But there is another project tied into it, the north-south pathway along the O-Train corridor. Much of this corridor goes along the City Centre complex and it's worthwhile to take a minute to make a brief tour around the complex before talking about the pathway in the next post.

The complex, officially 250 City Centre Avenue, is comprised of an office tower and industrial bays that span from Albert Street to Somerset Street West along the O-Train line. For many years its dingy white sides and illuminated red lettering were a familiar eyesore to residents of Ottawa, as seen here in a photo from September 2008:

Posters

A couple months ago I caught this photo of a poster collar with its posters partially removed. According to the notice on the collar, all posters are removed twice a month. This means that in just a couple of weeks, this collar had amassed about ten layers of posters for various events!

Just imagine how many layers it would have been if not for the expanded surface area of the collar!

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Peds on Weds: A walk to the garage

While many parking garages can be accessed from inside the building, an often overlooked aspect the design is pedestrian access from the street level. In the CCOC's recent Beaver Barracks development, steps down to the parking garage are physically separated from the curved car ramp to give pedestrians a safe access.

This is useful for people who live in one of the other buildings in the development, or for people walking down to get their bike, and I'm sure many others.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles and Pedestrian-related posts under the label Pedestrians

Somerset Street Reconstruction Part 9: Bridge Sidewalks B

In this, part 9 of the 15-part series on last year's reconstruction of Somerset Street West, we continue along the sidewalks of the bridge over the O-Train tracks.

Unlike the precast paver sidewalks further east on Somerset described in part 3, on the bridge the sidewalks are poured concrete with a red band along the edge (as described in the previous post).

In 2009, some of the bridge's expansion joints were repaired and the sidewalk was expanded with the new red band on that section. Here's a closeup from June 2010 showing how that red band weathered the year.

Joe Cassey, 1926-2012

Last Friday, longtime Centretown resident Joe Cassey passed away.

I had the pleasure of meeting Joe when I interviewed him in 2009 for the video celebrating the 40th anniversary of the CCCA. The video was debuted at a special event in April 2010 where the four couples featured in the video (Joe & June Cassey, Nan and Tony Griffiths, Maureen and Mike Cassidy, and Elspeth and Jim Menendez) were each given a special CCCA Legacy Award for getting Centretown organized in the first place back in 1969. Here are Joe and June with their certificate:

As a result of that interview, his is one of the voices that tells the story of the community association's beginnings in 1968-1969 in the video:

Joe was born in 1926 in Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay) Ontario, and served in the Navy in World War II.

He subsequently moved to Ottawa in 1959, and in 1968 moved into a house at the end of Cartier Street with his wife June, where the couple became famous for giving the best parties in Centretown, for which Joe did most of the cooking himself. The house dates to the late 1800s and served as a branch of the Bank of Ottawa from 1911 to 1919:

Just months after moving in, Joe and June learned that their house might be demolished (as previously described in the video, starting at 2m50s) in order for the City to run offramps through the neighbourhood as a replacement to Pretoria Bridge. This was part of a greater scheme of proposed massive downtown road projects including the 17-lane downtown distributor.

The fight to protect the Pretoria Bridge (and the neighbourhoods) involved many existing and nascent community associations banding together to form the Federation of Citizens' Associations (described in the video at 9m19s). As Joe recounts in the Video, he felt it was important that these efforts be recognized, which they were with a plaque that named the associations following the reconstruction of the bridge in the '80s:

After helping to found the community association, Joe succeeded Mike Cassidy as alderman for Wellington Ward (the Eastern half of what is now Somerset Ward) in 1973-1974, where he worked alongside Britannia Ward Alderman Marion Dewar, another community-based representative who treated the position as a full-time job.

Joe worked on many issues, including improving conditions in rooming houses (he told me of a pair of young women who had to use a garbage bag for a door or be kicked out if they complain to the landlord) and raising awareness of gay issues.

In the following municipal election, Joe made an unsuccessful bid for the Board of Control, coming in fifth in the race for four spots. A 1974 issue of the Centretown News covered his candidacy, as well as that of Marion Dewar who did get on the Board of Control that year, eventually to become Mayor of Ottawa: (click to view full size)

In 1976, Brian Bourns, who played a central role in the development of the Centretown Plan and who is still active in the CCCA, was running for a second term in Wellington Ward. Joe instead put in a successful bid against incumbent alderman Don Lockhart in Capital Ward, just on the other side of the Queensway. Here is an ad of his that ran in the December 1976 Glebe Report (PDF) days before the December 6 election:

The same issue has a profile of Joe on page 6. Already by this time he had served on community associations, the FCA, the Air and Water Pollution Board, the Regional Housing Committee and the Youth Services Board.

As he told me in the interview (mp3, 0m36s, 585KB), he got some criticism for not living in the ward. June recounts, at the end of the clip, that Joe's response was "Do you want an alderman who works in the ward or one who sleeps in the ward?"

Joe later served as President of the Central Canada Exhibition Association (he credits Nancy Smith for saving the Aberdeen Pavillion from demolition) and as the founding Chair of the Ottawa Congress Centre.


I didn't meet Joe until long after all this activity, but every time I stopped by he was always in the mood to talk.

I visited him in hospital a month before he passed away and he was still on top of current events at City Hall, asking me one by one for the latest news on each of the files. He was quite a force and I am glad to have known him.


Arrangements are to be held at Hulse, Playfair and McGarry (McLeod and O'Connor) this evening and tomorrow. Details are at Legacy.com, as is the virtual guestbook. Donations in memory of Joe can be made to the University of Ottawa Heart Institute Foundation.