In late May, the demolition of a rear shed at 293 Lyon Street revealed the neighbouring lot's peculiar shed featured in
this URBSite post. 293 Lyon is the red-brick building behind the blue and white one at the corner of Lyon and Cooper:
Since then,
this Sun story from June revealed that Carmen Argentina had bought 293 Lyon Street in April and plans to replace the oft-vandalized building with a multi-unit complex on the 31-by-99-foot lot. Photo #12 on
this Ottawa Sun collection shows an additional interior view with the graffiti.
Because the house is in a zone with heritage designation (it's right at the border of the zone, according to
eMAP), there must be a proposal to rebuild within five years before a demolition permit is issued. One assumes plans are ready, because a demolition permit was issued and will be carried out tomorrow.
This post contains a twice the usual number of photos because it combines shots from May and from earlier this week.
Here's the front of the house. In late May, previous graffiti had been recently cleared and the front door and window were boarded off. The window above the porch dormer was open. Since then, more graffiti was added. The plywood boarding up the front door has been removed, and yet another coat of graffiti is visible on the brickwork, as well as the front sidewalk and second-storey windows. A thin line across the middle of the facade suggests there was a full-length porch at some point many years in the past:
The front of the house has a bit of character to it. The roofline looks as though it were sliced off in a haphazard renovation some decades ago. (August photo)
Along the South side of the house, incomplete eavestroughing along the steep roof has led to damage to the brickwork. There's one window on the ground floor toward the rear of the building. (May photo)
The front porch is quite crooked, though the humble little porch light remains intact. (May photo)
On the North side of the house, along the laneway, there are two windows on each level. In May (first photo), the utilities were still connected, and the wall was relatively clean. You can see the yellow rear addition, and the gravel pad (at far right) where the previous shed had been. The shed featured in the URBSite post is visible on the other side of the fence. By this week (second photo), there is much more graffiti, and three sets of services are disconnected. The mesh cover over the basement window at the front of the house is also gone.
The two windows sticking out from the roof are undamaged by vandalism, though they've taken a beating from the elements.
At the rear of the house was an interesting extension. While the exterior wall is continuous, it's clear (especially post-demolition) that only half of it was built on a foundation. The demolition appears to have been done carefully, as some re-usable lumber is stacked up at the rear of the lot. While it was still standing, some Arabic girls drew flowers on the wall, and a dashed line with scissors around the rearmost doorway:
The rear of the roof back in May had a rope ladder slung over the chimney, probably by people breaking in through the (recent looking) rear window, whose screen is sliced and hanging down.
By August, the window has been removed (probably salvaged for future use), and surprisingly, the rope ladder has not.
Here's a view of the whole building from May, showing the relative proportions of the house and rear shed. The back wall has a cute little square window with a couple of panes broken.
Looking through the hole in the window, one could see the wooden dividing wall between the two sections of the rear part of the building (the sections with and without a foundation). The rearmost section was entirely uninsulated, full of litter and covered in graffiti. On the door dividing the section is written "Mort aux capitali$tes" ("death to capitalists")
In the corner between the back of the main part of the building and the rear extension were some bricks and a little shovel with a broken handle:
I was surprised to see the shovel still there after the rear part was removed. It was joined by a kitchen sink. I guess you can find anything at a demo site.
Here's the back of the building with its rear removed. You can see the foundation that was under part of the rear extension, and its interface with the main part of the building.
Looking closer at the side edge, you can get an idea of how the building was assembled, with a layer of brick exterior over a wood-board frame. At some point, a large opening was closed off and reduced to a single doorframe. The big gap in the crawlspace beneath probably made the whole house difficult to heat. And a couple of wires are still sticking out into the pit.
But they don't go anywhere. It's the end of the line for these wires--and for this house.
A couple of people I know who had looked at buying the house when it was on the market knew that it was a "fixer-upper" at least, and more likely a "tearer-downer." One person said it was only on the market for two days until it was picked up.
Let's hope the triplex that replaces it will fit in nicely with the heritage character of the neighbourhood.
An excellent demonstration that you don't need to stick a 20-storey tower on top of a heritage building to modernize it!
I'm out of town this week, so blogging may be spotty this week too.
You can sorta make it out in that picture, but it's much clearer in this crop of a photo from August: the door on the 24th floor coming out the side of the building, which Eric refers to in one of his above-referenced WSA posts. As he mentions, it was used to access the inside of a former illuminated sign on the side of the building, in order to replace the bulbs without having to hoist a crane.
Here, Ladder 11 and a number of other fire trucks were responding to an alley fire at Lyon and Cooper on Canada Day 2011. I don't think there was significant damage or injury, as the fire didn't make it to any of the papers. I also tweeted a couple of photos at the time from my Twitter account, @Centretowner
A great way to meet your neighbours and start getting involved in community activities is by delivering the Centretown Buzz newspaper, which is co-owned by the Centretown Citizens and Dalhousie community associations. We particularly need people in Lebreton Flats and south of Gladstone. The Buzz the only newspaper in Centretown that is written by and for other Centretowners (all volunteer except for the managing editor), and it is financially supported entirely by its advertisers.
Unfortunately, and as I mentioned in a post to Citizens for Safe Cycling's public e-mail discussion list, they're not exactly the most ambitious application of sharrows. For example, you can't even see them from Lyon, which defeats the purpose of having them out there to show cyclists where to go next when the lane ends. 
Here's what they should have done at Lyon and Arlington: sharrows going around the corner so that cyclists can see well in advance where the cycling route goes.
Once you get along Arlington to Percy Street, there also isn't much indication that you're supposed to turn left here. (Of course, in my cycling route plan for Percy, you'd also be able to continue straight on Arlington).
In Montreal, where I fell in love with Sharrows, they use them properly: to indicate (a) that cyclists have a right to use the road, and (b) where the otherwise invisible cycling route goes when you get to an intersection. When the cycling route takes a turn, the sharrows make it painless to follow the route, as in this Google Street View of Stuart and Saint-Viateur (click the image to go to the location in Google Street View):
Visit www.ottawa.ca/bikelane for more details, including the draft drawings of how the street would be configured and Vélo Québec's review of the proposals. The public meeting on Thursday is from 6:30pm to 8:30pm with a presentation at 7pm.
It was evident that someone in the road department was making the same case I was: no more band-aids for Lyon, we need an overhaul!
To my knowledge, the only other community gardens in the Centretown area are the Sweet Willow Organic Community Garden, the Nanny Goat Hill community garden near the Ottawa Tech High School field, one behind Umi Cafe, and the former BUGS garden at the CCOC's Beaver Barracks site, which is on hiatus during the construction of the new housing there.
The lot is fenced off with wooden posts, and an inner row of posts with chains. In between the rows of posts on the Lisgar side is a row of trees. Apparently it was a tough sell to the landowner to plant the trees, but they have taken nicely and are now bearing fruit.
In March, I noticed this ghostly face had been attached to one of the posts.
Since last year, the Centretown Citizens Community Association's Trees & Greenspace Committee has been working with the City of Ottawa, the Catholic School Board, the Just Food community garden network, and the CCOC to make this garden happen. The Committee's chair, Bonnie Mabee, deserves recognition for taking the lead on this, as does the CCOC's Meg McCallum. They worked out an arrangement among the School board, the City, the CCOC, and the garden, to get insurance coverage for the project, which was the biggest obstacle in getting the school board's permission to use the land. The CCOC will provide water to the garden.
The volunteers will be gathering bright and early tomorrow morning to assemble the boxes for the garden's 30 plots. Sorry--they're already all spoken for! Names were taken from the over 100 people on the waiting lists for the other area gardens.
A great congratulations and thanks are due to the many individuals and organizations responsible for making this new garden a reality. Good work, everyone!
[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]
Since then, this Sun story from June revealed that Carmen Argentina had bought 293 Lyon Street in April and plans to replace the oft-vandalized building with a multi-unit complex on the 31-by-99-foot lot. Photo #12 on this Ottawa Sun collection shows an additional interior view with the graffiti.
The front of the house has a bit of character to it. The roofline looks as though it were sliced off in a haphazard renovation some decades ago. (August photo)
Along the South side of the house, incomplete eavestroughing along the steep roof has led to damage to the brickwork. There's one window on the ground floor toward the rear of the building. (May photo)
The front porch is quite crooked, though the humble little porch light remains intact. (May photo)
On the North side of the house, along the laneway, there are two windows on each level. In May (first photo), the utilities were still connected, and the wall was relatively clean. You can see the yellow rear addition, and the gravel pad (at far right) where the previous shed had been. The shed featured in the URBSite post is visible on the other side of the fence. By this week (second photo), there is much more graffiti, and three sets of services are disconnected. The mesh cover over the basement window at the front of the house is also gone.
The two windows sticking out from the roof are undamaged by vandalism, though they've taken a beating from the elements.
At the rear of the house was an interesting extension. While the exterior wall is continuous, it's clear (especially post-demolition) that only half of it was built on a foundation. The demolition appears to have been done carefully, as some re-usable lumber is stacked up at the rear of the lot. While it was still standing, some Arabic girls drew flowers on the wall, and a dashed line with scissors around the rearmost doorway:
The rear of the roof back in May had a rope ladder slung over the chimney, probably by people breaking in through the (recent looking) rear window, whose screen is sliced and hanging down.
By August, the window has been removed (probably salvaged for future use), and surprisingly, the rope ladder has not.
Here's a view of the whole building from May, showing the relative proportions of the house and rear shed. The back wall has a cute little square window with a couple of panes broken.
Looking through the hole in the window, one could see the wooden dividing wall between the two sections of the rear part of the building (the sections with and without a foundation). The rearmost section was entirely uninsulated, full of litter and covered in graffiti. On the door dividing the section is written "Mort aux capitali$tes" ("death to capitalists") 
In the corner between the back of the main part of the building and the rear extension were some bricks and a little shovel with a broken handle:
I was surprised to see the shovel still there after the rear part was removed. It was joined by a kitchen sink. I guess you can find anything at a demo site.
Here's the back of the building with its rear removed. You can see the foundation that was under part of the rear extension, and its interface with the main part of the building.
Looking closer at the side edge, you can get an idea of how the building was assembled, with a layer of brick exterior over a wood-board frame. At some point, a large opening was closed off and reduced to a single doorframe. The big gap in the crawlspace beneath probably made the whole house difficult to heat. And a couple of wires are still sticking out into the pit.
But they don't go anywhere. It's the end of the line for these wires--and for this house.
A couple of people I know who had looked at buying the house when it was on the market knew that it was a "fixer-upper" at least, and more likely a "tearer-downer." One person said it was only on the market for two days until it was picked up.