Monday, December 31, 2012

Spark of a New Year

This year, Sparks Street is planning a big New Year's Eve bash, which it has been hyping on its Twitter Account for the last few weeks. They've also been busy decorating:


Here's hoping their 2013 celebrations go off without a hitch!

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

Thursday, December 27, 2012

3D Thursday: Victoria Island #idlenomore

The Idle No More movement has been embodied by Chief Theresa Spence's hunger strike.

I took some 3D photos of the island back in October, including this one with the Peace Tower in the background.


Source photos for the 3D images:
Left, Right

Spence is Chief of the Attawapiskat First Nation. She's been hunger striking since December 10 to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Governor General David Johnston. So far, she's still striking. There is plenty of mainstream and alternative media coverage for the latest updates, as well as, of course, the #idlenomore Twitter hashtag.

[Tune in on Thursdays at noon for a new 3D image. View the 3D label for other posts with 3D images]

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

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas

Most of the construction sites downtown (or at least the ones near Elgin) have installed decorative lights on their tower cranes. The first to do so was Morguard at the 150 Elgin office tower behind the former Friday's roast beef house:


On top of the building is a mock Christmas tree in lights. They also had a hallowe'en themed banner on their building back in October. Some festive folks there!

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

Friday, December 21, 2012

No more trading at the Athlone

The Athlone Apartments, 225 MacLaren Street. Unfortunately, I can't find any information online about the building's history, date built, etc. Just some apartment listings with scant information. That's unfortunate, since I go by it often on my way home from Bridgehead just up the street at Elgin.


There aren't even many good pictures of the building online (though this one has some indoor views of a bachelor apartment). Which means this post is probably going to get a lot of hits for people searching for it. This one shows nicely the bands of deocrative brickwork on a warm mid-September day in 2009:

Thursday, December 20, 2012

3D Thursday: 3D through the aqueduct, part 2 of 2

Today's 3D blog post continues our journey through LeBreton Flats' aqueduct, which began with part 1 last Thursday.

We left off last time on the outcropping over the bridges spanning Lloyd Street and Lett Street, just north of where the Transitway turns toward Albert Street. The Claridge condos are visible in the background for reference. In the foreground is the top of the second, newer aqueduct ("newer" being 1908) under what used to be Ottawa Street:


To further get our bearings, here's a winter shot from atop the cliff at the North end of Bronson Avenue, taken in March 2011 (I had a 3D photo of a similar angle at the top of Part 1). Here we can see the Lloyd-Lett bridge at the upper-left, the grassy area past the stone building. J.R. Booth's trains ran diagonally over this bridge, then through the 20' wide curved alignment along the aqueduct's far embankment, just behind the stone building. Beyond the bridge, we can see the aqueduct, following roughly along the Transitway, before the two split, with the aqueduct heading underground toward the river on the right, and the Transitway heading left toward Bayview. In the foreground we can see Pooley's Bridge, which was narrowed significantly during its restoration in 2001. More on that below.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Bronson's Back

Bronson is reopening to motorized traffic for the winter at 9am this morning, ending the short period where pedestrians had the whole road to walk over.


Construction will resume next year.

On the bright side, businesses will have their passing customers back, and residents on detour routes (formal and informal) will have less traffic in front of them.

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

Thursday, December 13, 2012

3D Thursday: 3D through the aqueduct, part 1 of 2

Today's 3D Thursday blog post is one I've been working on for a while. It's a two-part series—with lots of 3D content—on the aqueduct that runs through LeBreton Flats. URBSite did a great (2D) post on the history of the Fleet Street pumping station, which is the subject of part 2, coming next Thursday. Reminder: 3D photos are best viewed full screen with a dark backdrop.


The first image that comes to my mind at the thought of the word "aqueduct" is a high stone-arch wall dating from the Roman empire. But really, it's just any conduit that carries water, usually by gravity. In fact, as this Discovery Channel special shows, most of the Roman aqueducts were on, or under, the ground level.

Ottawa's aqueduct is in a channel and partially buried under what are technically considered bridges. In the 3D photo above, taken from atop the escarpment, you can see the bottom end of the aqueduct, where it leads to the historic Fleet Street water pumping station and Pooley's Bridge in the foreground, and you can sort of follow it backwards along the line of trees through LeBreton Flats, curving back to the Ottawa River behind the condos of 250 Lett Street on the right. I don't expect you to see all that from the vantage point of the photo above, though if you zoom in close (zoom gradually if you can so your eyes can adjust along the way) you can make out the parkway bridge over the aqueduct inlet.

Here's where it comes off the Ottawa River, first passing under a prefabricated steel bridge that carries the Ottawa River Pathway. Nepean Bay in the Ottawa River is at the left, and the water headed to the aqueduct flows toward the right.