80 Florence - Chinese Community Building, part 1

If you've gone by the corner of Gladstone and Kent over the last year, this would be a fairly familiar view to the north-west. The eight-storey apartment building with the scaffolding is at 80 Florence. In a three-part post, I'll share photos of the exterior renovations.

In this post, I'll go over some of the building's past, and how the top of the building used to look and progress of its renovation. In the next post, I'll take a closer look at the building's former ground-level architecture and streetscaping. In the third and final post, the big reveal of how the renovated building looks, with many before-and-after angles.

Twitter feed now avaliable @Centretowner

Just before leaving the Internet for Christmas, I hastily created a Twitter account. I get many hits to my blog coming from Twitter, and this seemed like an easier way to follow them than tredging through my blog statistics.

I plan to tweet links to my new posts, and extra comments about things that either don't warrant a full post, or are about posts in development. I've already been replying to other Ottawa bloggers' tweets about Centretown-related topics.

I've also configured Twitterfeed to automatically tweet my new posts. I'm testing it with this one.

Langevin Block at night

I really like the Langevin block--the building at the corner of Elgin and Wellington. It seems I've only posted one photo of it before, though I feel like I have so many photos of it. It's a nice counterpoint to Parliament Hill, and provides a strong anchor to the parliamentary precinct.

I took this photo last night as an STO bus drove past. In retrospect, I should have tilted the camera up a bit.

Expect to see a few more photos in the coming days/weeks from last night's photo expedition to Elgin/Wellington, as the busy winter season pushes my blogging time to the wayside and I resort to easy fodder. I'll probably also revert to Monday/Friday noon updates.

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

Images of Centretown Greeting Cards?

I'm not the type to send Christmas cards to everybody I know, but the last couple of years I've given out a few handmade cards with photo prints of winter scenes from the Rideau Canal to family and close acquaintances. Here's the set I'm giving out this year, from photos I took last winter (many of them are visible in posts with the label Canal), with customized greetings inside.

I'm thinking of producing them in larger quantities and offer the sets for sale to Images of Centretown readers next year, if there is enough interest (with a portion of the proceeds going to the community association). Leave a comment or drop me a line at centretown.ottawa@gmail.com if you would be interested in this for 2011.

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

Happy Holidays

I've got a lot of good series that I'll be working on over the holidays. Look for them to come out in the new year. In the meantime, I'll be enjoying a break from a hectic month of community association meetings.

Here's a photo of workers adding the crowning star to the Christmas tree at 150 Slater, which is nearing completion. See the live webcam for the site here

I previously posted a series on the demolition of the former buildings there and the excavation of the site. You can see those and other posts on the site at the 150 Slater label.

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

Nagle House, 77 Gloucester

This is Nagle House, at 77 Gloucester street, just West of Metcalfe. It is one block to the north of 89-91 Nepean, a pair of lots on which Claridge wants to build a 27-storey tower.

The heritage plaque on the house writes, "Thought to be the oldest house in Centretown, this house was built for Richard Nagle, a successful dealer in timber limits."

The Bytown Museum's Capital Neighbourhoods website lists little more about the house than is on the plaque.

A Google search for Richard Nagle brings up only a few more details. A web page listing Ancestors of Ryan Todd Morgan writes, "66. Richard NAGLE was born 1810 in Ireland and was baptized in Ireland. He died 1877 in Ottawa, Canada. Richard married Margaret MCCARTHY." The site says they had a child, Ann in Clare County, Ireland in 1832, who died in Kansas in 1920.

Another source he married Mary O-Brien in 1854, presumably after Margaret died in 1850.

As for 89-91 Nepean Street, it's pretty frightening what Claridge is asking for on that site. I'll spare the details here, but suffice it to say they're asking for a lot and offering nothing in return. For full details, check out the CCCA's letter to the City regarding this site. The letter includes a plethora of reasons why this application shouldn't be permitted, and Councillor Holmes' comments of a similar nature. This one will go to Planning Committee in the new year, but City staff are compiling their report on the application.

As the Ottawa Citizen writes in a recent editorial, intensification is good, but it needs to be done with a human face.

The CCCA's next regular board meeting is tomorrow, Tuesday, December 21, 2010 at 7pm at City Hall (Honeywell Room). All are welcome. There is a vacancy on the Board that will hopefully be filled at the meeting. Check the CCCA's home page for the agenda.

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

Signed, Gladstone and Bank

My keen observational skills, combined with a two-year archive of photos of a an intersection, helped me piece together a little puzzle at Bank and Gladstone that I came upon while preparing the post on 433 Bank Street.

Here's a shot of the intersection in question in December 2008. At the time, my intent was to photograph the Metropolitan Bible Church, but we also can see three street signs for Gladstone Avenue, at the NW (closest), SW (partly obscured) and SE (furthest) corners. It may not be apparent in this photo, but all three signs have a typo: they read "av. Gladstone Av." instead of "Ave." for the English name.

In the photo above, the Bank and Gladstone signs at the southeast corner were on the same post. The sign at the SW corner--the corner with the Esso station--is on the street side of the post. By June 2009, seen below, it had been flipped around to the building side of the post. The bundle of wires (which were there to accommodate the many changes to the traffic signals during last year's reconstruction of Bank Street) suggests a motivation. The Bank and Gladstone signs are at the same height. Gas is listed at 94.2 cents per litre, but the station is actually closed for repairs.

There are two extra holes on the far side of the sign, but the sign is nevertheless backwards (the arrow on the street numbers is pointing the wrong way). My guess is that the two new holes were drilled so that the sign could be flipped to use the new holes, but that the installers didn't bother to remove it from the mount to flip the sign.

In mid-October 2009, the Gladstone sign was flipped back to the street side, and the jumble of wires are gone. The Gladstone and Bank signs are at different levels, and gas is at 88.9. We know it's the same sign because it has the two holes.

Looking up at the intersection from McLeod street in mid-November 2010, the sign on the northwest corner was moved to a different pole and is facing away from Bank street. It's very definitely not visible from the southbound lanes on Bank.

That same month, a new "av. Gladstone Ave." (sic) sign appeared at the southeast corner--clearly a new sign. It's attached to the metal pole on this corner. Here's a photo of it on February 20, 2010, with the Metropolitan Bible Church facade in the middle of the street. Of course, at the time I wasn't taking a picture of the sign!

The Bank street sign on the east side had been relocated to the North corner. The "Gladstone Av." sign at the northwest corner had been returned to a position where it is visible from the southbound lanes on Bank.

In March 2010, there was some work going on at the southeast corner. The metal pole (being held up by the crane) was either being removed, installed, or relocated.

Meanwhile, here in late May as above in March, the Gladstone sign with the spare holes on the southwest side appears to have disappeared. Gas is still hovering around 94 cents per litre. (Okay, this picture is somewhat redundant, but I really like this shot of the Central's tower crane)

The sign at the southeast corner was moved to the wooden pole, possibly during the exercise in March. The photo below is in August 2010.

The mystery, from your perspective, might be where did these signs end up. For me, the mystery was where did it come from--I already knew where it ended up: in my window!

Appropriately facing Gladstone Avenue. Whatever the original reason for the spare set of holes, they came in very handy in suspending the sign with fishing line.

The other one is presumably still available from where I got this one--on the City of Ottawa's Decommissioned Street Name Signs listing. You can buy used signs for ten dollars, tax in, and pick them up at the Traffic Operations Division building on Loretta. But they're big. The photo above might be deceiving, as the window opening is around 60" wide, making the sign about four feet long (though this is a larger size of sign).

I posted a three-part tour of those facilities in March 2009. In the second part I showed their decommissioned street signs.

The sign itself is neat to own--especially living on Gladstone--and it's that much more interesting that I was able to track a bit of its history (even though, as one of the blue signs, it's no older than the City's amalgamation in 2001).

This story also demonstrates the usefulness of taking lots of photos, because you never know what little detail in the background might be useful.

Miele Showroom, 433 Bank Street at Gladstone

433 Bank Street, at the northeast corner of Gladstone, used to be home of Ginn Photography Company, which changed to GPC Lab Works when the photography store was bought by Vistek. It's in the same block as the Watch Clinic (which I believe is the only store in Centretown with shutters), the Ink Spot, Hackett shoemakers and Higgerty's shoes. This photo is from April 2009, before the work started on the reconstruction of Bank Street, and we can see what Bank used to look like, with the square, black steel garbage bins and high street lights but no pedestrian-scale lights. The "Bank Street Promenade" signs are haphazardly oriented.

Here's a closer view of the front of the Vistek building, in mid-May 2009:

The Gladstone Avenue frontage is mostly ignored by the building, except for a showroom window. The wall has collected street furniture and undergrowth. At the rear of the building, a service entrance is covered by a retractable blue awning. This is in August 2009.

In November, Vistek announced they were moving to the newly-renovated building at Bank and Flora (which is where I bought my current camera). On this late morning in mid-November, we can see the pattern of the concrete screen on the second storey of the entranceway. The concrete slabs have a recessed "v" shape to them, creating a shading pattern when the light is right. The same screen wall is in the opening along Gladstone. The new traffic light post has a traffic camera mounted atop it. You can watch it (and all others) at traffic.ottawa.ca.

Here's a front view of the effect. The Watch Clinic is also open, in case you've only ever seen it closed. The new mid-level street lamps on Bank are unique; the City's street lighting policy now requires a high-level street lighting and low-level pedestrian scale lighting for main streets (like on Preston and Wellington West, among others).

When the sun isn't out, or when it isn't at the right angle, the grooves in the screen wall's concrete blocks don't show, though the pattern itself isn't all that bland. The Vistek signs were blacked out in December 2009, but this photo is from mid-August 2010. The street reconstruction is mostly over by this point.

Then, in late September, work began on preparing the building for its next tenant. I knew it looked different, but I didn't notice until reviewing the photos for this post that the screen wall had been removed.

In November, a big red sign announced that this would be the home of Miele Gallery on Bank, a showroom for the well-known appliance maker. Appliances and furniture stores are making a comeback in Centretown with all the new condo units being built.

It opened in December 2010 and I paid them a visit, to welcome them to Centretown and to get a first look at the renovated interior. France Gascon and Mathieu Laquerre are co-owners of the store, which is a franchise and not a corporate store. They removed a mezzanine at the rear of the store which housed enclosed offices, and the result is an open two-storey showroom (which is conceptually reminiscent of the new Tommy & Lefebvre showroom just a block away).

Looking back toward the front of the store, the remaining mezzanine has been retained as an area for cooking demonstrations and other interesting activities. You can bring your comforter or large blanket and they'll show you that it can still fit in the compact laundry machines.

The upper level is not yet finished, but when it is it will brighten up the view from the outside. As it stands, you can't easily tell it's open. In the foreground of the above photo is a rotary press for ironing large quantities of linens. France gave me a demonstration of the funky device, which is geared toward owners of Inns with moderate ironing needs.

You can visit the store at Bank and Gladstone, or online at MieleOnBank.ca