If you don't have to go South of Gladstone between Bronson and Rochester, you might not know that there's a school there.
I was surprised to first find it in early April of this year, by which time it had ceased to be a school, and was undergoing renovations. I took some photos, not realizing the connection I would later have with the building.

The building is now significant to me because my office has relocated to the building—in fact, I'm typing this entry from my office inside the building! (As a corollary, my blog entries will include more Dalhousie content, in addition to the regular Centretown content.)
In this series:
- This post: History of 18 Louisa Street (below)
- Wednesday: Exterior transformation
- Friday: Dalhousie Food Cupboard and interior tour
History of 18 Louisa Street
There are scant references to 18 Louisa Street and St. Agnes School on the web, which is the extent of my research.
The Ottawa-Carleton Catholic District School Board has a comprehensive history of the School Board from 1856-1997 on their website, available in flash or PDF version.
In the School Board's History document, "St. Agnes School on Louisa Street existed as early as 1890-91 as indicated by the Ottawa city directory of that time." (p. 150)
However, this crop of a 1923 map of Ottawa shows distinctive residential-sized plots on the block, suggesting the school was either very small, or located elsewhere. (The current building wasn't built until the '50s, with an extension and gymnasium added in the '60s.) The History goes on to mention that St. Agnes worked in tandem with St. Anthony's school, built in 1925 (known as Dante Academy at the time).

The building was purchased by the Polish community and was affiliated with St. Hyacinth Parish on the same block, operating as Ottawa Polonia Centre.
Incidentally, the Ottawa Polonia Centre has an album of images of 18 Louisa pre-construction on their website (the first few are all of the North entrance):

In fact, the Gladstone Sports and Health Centre was incorporated in August 2008, and by January 2009, Table Tennis Canada had already had plans underway to convert the building to their national training centre, as announced in their January 2009 newsletter (PDF):
"The National High Performance Training Centre has a new address in Ottawa. After many years of looking for a new permanent site, Table Tennis Canada, in cooperation with [the International Table Tennis Federation] and [TMS International] are now leasing a 24 hours/day, 7 days/week training facility. The gym is equipped with brand new tables, special flooring for table tennis courts and a state of the art lighting system."The completion of renovations would later be postponed to May 2010 (PDF), and eventually to August 2010. The exterior renovations will be the subject of the next post, available this Wednesday at noon.
Throughout this time, the Dalhousie Food Cupboard has operated (and continues to operate) out of this building, serving the Dalhousie neighbourhood. I'll be profiling the Dalhousie Food Cupboard in Friday's post, along with a tour of the interior. Stay tuned...
This is very interesting...
ReplyDeleteI attended st agnes school in 1935-36, 36-37, grades one and two. I am working on a book about growing up in ottawa in the thirties and am eager to find more pertinent data about my first school. It gets such brief mentions. Do you know where I could find teacher names, floor plan etc? lots of memories and I do recall a few fellow pupils names e.g. fay cullen, patsy going, jimmy brady. I was betty carroll. If you are interested I can fill you in with my recollections. thanks for any help liz carroll
ReplyDeleteHi Liz,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment; that is very interesting! I got most of my information from the Internet. You may want to try the Ottawa-Carleton Caholic School Board; presumably they have an archives.
Since the school was expanded in the '50s or '60s, any floor plan I'd potentially have access to would be much different than what you would have known.
I'm currently out of the country, otherwise I'd take you up on your offer of more information. Good luck writing your book--be sure to let me know when it's finished!