Metcalfe Boulevard loses another

I had previously blogged about the "surivivor" trees on Metcalfe which managed to grow despite being in a narrow strip of ground between a sidewalk and a four-lane roadway, both of which are drowned in salt in the wintertime. Unfortunately, due to the Emerald Ash Borer infestation, the ash trees among this group have succumbed. Here's the stump of one tree which had made it to a decent trunk size:

Here's that tree a month ago before they cut it down (barely). It had grown to four or five storeys tall, surviving thousands and thousands of cars passing by, but in the end it was done in by a little beetle. The Elphin apartments on Gladstone and the Museum of Nature are in the background.

Here's another shot of the same tree, in winter after a snowstorm this past February. If it weren't still summer, I'd have used this photo at the start of the blog post but I wouldn't want to startle you!

The City will likely plant a new tree, one of the little "Charlie Brown Christmas" trees like the ones planted further up Metcalfe. I hear the tree-planting crews are already fully booked for the fall plantings, so a replacement probably won't be planted until Spring. Assuming it survives, the new tree of course won't be as big as the one that died for decades. Due to the EAB, this story will be repeated many times across Ottawa.

384 Frank Street

Frank Street is well known for its grand houses, many of which span the entire block to Gladstone Avenue. It's also very pretty in the Golden Triangle. West of O'Connor, it's mostly apartment buildings of various sizes, vintages, and condition. But bucking the trend just behind the old Higgerty's Shoes building is this little house with a flagstone exterior.

Its star-shaped weathervane is a little hard to see in front of the new Central condos (formerly the Metropolitan Bible Church). It's also right across from the parking lot next to Centretown's only (thankfully!) big box store, Staples. Between the two, 384 Frank Street is much more pleasant to look at as you walk by!

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

Hidden away

For decades, Higgerty's Shoes was on the corner of Bank and Frank. It closed a few months ago. Gradually, the front of its backlit sign came off, and then the sign structure itself was removed sometime in April:

It would appear that Hackett Shoemakers, in the basement of the unit next door, is still there. Almost exactly two years ago, URBSite did a blog post on the history of this building showing many of its intricacies.

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

Kenniston Apartments, Elgin Court, and the Lieutenant's Pump

Here are the Kenniston Apartments at 341-359 Elgin, spanning Waverley to Frank. The building is over a century old (a Library & Archives Canada photo dates from 1909) and contains residential apartments surrounding a court.

At Waverley, the Lieutenant's Pump occupies the split lower level of the building, which comes right out to both streets.

City removes heads from parking meters; exposes bikes to theft (video)

The last couple weeks, the City of Ottawa has been removing parking meters as part of their plan to switch to Pay & Display parking, and convert some parking meters to ring-and-post bike racks. Unfortunately, despite various assurances, there won't be enough racks to replace the lost meters.

Here is a shot of the City workers removing racks on Somerset street at Arthur:

As was reported in the Ottawa Citizen today, the City has removed the heads of parking meters on Frank street that still had bikes attached. The City claims they have added a fixture to the tops of the posts to protect the bikes from being stolen, but they do not offer the protection of a parking meter head: bike locks can still be easily lifted over the tops of the posts and the bikes stolen, without any tools.

Ironically, we used to tell cyclists not to lock their bikes to signposts because the signs could be unbolted and the bike lifted over them. Instead, we recommended parking meters (which, since they contained money, had to be securely fastened into the ground). Now I guess the reverse is true!

See the video below for a demonstration of how a bike lock could easily be lifted over the bar. If the lock is only attached to the frame, a thief could easily lift the bike off and ride the bike away, and nobody would think it the least bit suspicious:

If you come across a place where there isn't anywhere to lock your bike, please e-mail 311@ottawa.ca and cc your councillor, especially if there used to be a parking meter there.

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

Bank Street Phase III, Part 2: Lights

[This post is part of a series on Bank Street's new look. See the introduction and part I here]

Last time, I talked about the new, wider sidewalks, and the installation process for those. This part I'll be talking about the new street lamps on Bank.

Phase I of the reconstruction project, from Wellington to Laurier, has these decorative lamps. They have a flat arm, from which is suspended a round lantern. I took this photo a month ago, after the Shopper's Drug Mart moved out of this building (it's now on the ground floor of the Mondrian). What I find remarkable about it is that the noon-hour pedestrian traffic actually resembles the types of busy pedestrian environments you see in architectural renderings:

But I'm focusing more on Phase II and Phase III of Bank Street, from Laurier to Somerset and Somerset to Arlington, respectively. They have a different style of lamp from the Northern section of Bank.

Here's what the street lamps looked like. They only decorative element were the retro Bank Street Promenade roundels. You'll note that the old posts were suspended on pyramidal bases. When the ground freezes and thaws, the sidewalks ride up and down the slanted surface, creating cracks when they settle back down.

The new streetlamp bases can be seen here lying just south of Somerset, awaiting installation. They are elliptical on the cross-section, but the sides are vertical. They have large bolts built in for attaching the street posts, and holes in the side connect to conduits coming through the middle for electrical connections. Some more concrete utility access ports are stacked behind them.

As mentioned in the previous post, Phase II of construction (Laurier to Somerset, mostly done in 2008) had separate installation for the pieces of sidewalk with and without lamppost bases. This allowed for views like this one, where we can see the connections under the sidewalk looking North from Lisgar. The photo was taken in late October 2008, when the Mondrian's podium was still under construction in the background.

South of Somerset, in Phase III, the sidewalks were constructed more continuously. In this shot (from the same day as the photos in front of Hartman's in the previous post), it's clear that the square of sidewalk with the lamppost is being installed at the same time as the other squares on the block.

As you can see above, they were pouring the sidewalk where the lamppost had already been installed on the West side of the street, in front of Hartman's. Across the street at the same time, they were installing the lamppost where the sidewalk had already been poured. This was at the end of this past August, as you can see by the nearly-completed Mondrian.

Here's a lamp in early September near Gilmour, shortly after installation. They had not yet been illuminated. There's something about the style of the lampposts that doesn't fit here, though. It's just too modern for the ornate buildings on this block.

Not that they're ugly. They make a decorative touch on the rest of Bank street, and the series of them creates a nice rhythm when you view them at the right angle. This shot is looking South along the East sidewalk from Gloucester.

Unfortunately, the hydro wires were only buried North of Gladstone, paid for by the Bank Street Business Improvement Association (BIA). South of Gladstone, there's no BIA to pay to bury the hydro wires, and the City didn't want to cover the cost, so wooden poles were kept for overhead hydro wires. As with on Preston Street, a variant of the street lamps were used to keep the rhythm of the lamps while using the wooden poles (having separate lampposts in addition to the hydro poles would have cluttered up the streetscape too much).

But the result is really really tacky. Here's one of them in front of the Metropolitan Bible Church building:

I was also surprised to see many of the old poles with the 50's Diner-style Bank Street Promenade roundels still up after much of the work was done. Particularly this one at Bank and Florence, where the sign was destroyed in the fire that consumed the building on the corner back in 2003. Surely they wouldn't leave that old frame up there?

There's another one here in front of Hackett Shoemakers at Frank Street. This view is from late April, before most of the work reached this part of Bank Street.

Not sure which one is Hackett? Maybe that's because its sign was obscured by this roundel, which is still there after the new lampposts were installed!

Now, a keen eye would note that the sidewalk squares with these old posts were not poured with concrete. That's because the posts were only kept long enough for the buried hydro wires to be installed and activated. When the posts and overhead wires were no longer needed, they were removed in late October/early November, greatly simplifying the streetscape (though one of those big ugly sign advertisement boxes was installed in front of the Watch Clinic). Note also that a Vietnamese place is opening up in the former Don Alfonso's restaurant. Vistek has also moved from this location, down to where the art supply store used to be at Argyle.

The new lamps create a great ambiance for Bank Street. I had to take a few versions of this photo to get the lighting right. But this photo (looking South from Gilmour) was taken at 9:30 pm and it's pretty dead--let's hope that when the street is re-opened Bank Street once again becomes a vibrant place to live, work, and shop all hours of the day.

Tune in in a couple days for Part III: Trees