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.

Five years since Somerset House collapse

While a petition and articles in both the Centretown News and Centretown Buzz have recently suggested that it happened in November 2007, the collapse of the wall at Somerset House in fact happened exactly five years ago, on Friday, October 19, 2007. In this post, which is the longest so far on this blog with 30 photos, I'll go over some of the highlights on and since that day that mark the ongoing saga of the historic building. Given the milestone, I'm publishing at 9am instead of noon.

As the Citizen reported the day after the collapse (I can't link directly to archived Citizen articles; you'll have to log in to the Proquest database with your Ottawa Public Library card and PIN and search for them), a 44-year old Bobcat operator was stuck under rubble for about two hours when the southeast part of the building collapsed on him just before 3pm.

When I got there around 7:30pm, the whole area was taped off by the fire department, and it was raining hard. The Fire Department had connected tethers from the north sidewalk across the street into the building.

An hour later, a large crane arrived on scene. I didn't stay around for much longer, since it looked like work would continue all night.

Peds on Weds: L'Es try something different (or not)

Recently some workers have been spotted on Laurier Avenue affixing drywall to the central podium section of the l'Esplanade Laurier office tower:

Stepping back a bit, both literally and figuratively, the building is a full-block structure surrounded by Laurier, O'Connor, Gloucester and Bank streets.

Fortress of Modernism

Decades after construction, some repairs are being undertaken to the PSAC building at 233 Gilmour, prompting me to photograph it. Its distinctive oval shape is very familiar, but from a certain angle it more closely resembles a hefty windowless tower. There are echoes of the medieval in this angle, as though an invading force had broken away some of the bricks, before using ropes to scale it.

The building, irrespective of its occupant, is representative of the "march of the hirises" that hit Centretown in the 1960s, demolishing sets of houses to build temples of modernism and the commuter culture (with ample parking, of course). As it happens, Ottawa author rob mclennan discovered that his mother lived in one of the houses demolished for this building.

As I documented in the video chronicling the origins of the CCCA, Centretown's community only started to organize itself in response to the indiscriminate revision of whole downtown neighbourhoods. They largely succeeded, as much of Centretown has remained residential; however, some may question whether the towers currently planned and under construction—while residential—echo the forces that threatened to redefine Centretown five decades ago.

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

Bridgehead Roastery opens Tuesday!

Local fair-trade organice coffee chain Bridgehead's long-awaited new flagship roastery at Preston and Anderson will be opening tomorrow to the public. This will be the 15th shop Bridgehead has opened in 12 years. In addition to the on-site bean storage and offices, there is a coffeeshop, with all the familiar trimmings of Bridgehead stores, and more. Because I had bought a "Plant A Bean" card (a form of community-supported financing where my upfront payment is repaid in installments every six months on my Bridgehead card, with interest), I was invited to a special preview of the roastery yesterday morning.

The above panorama is a view from just inside the entrance, which is off of Anderson Street, only a few steps from Preston Street. You can see the coffeeshop in the foreground, the roasting equipment off to the left, and the second-floor offices at the back.

The building was constructed in 1921 as stables for the Bell telephone company. Its double-peaked roof with riveted steel trusses is unique in Ottawa.

More recently, it was the home of Preston & Lieff Glass. Here's a view from April 2011, looking from the corner of Preston and Anderson (two blocks south of Somerset, across from Plouffe Park):

Fields of Asphalt

Perhaps you've also stood at the corner of Elgin and Queen and marvelled at the geometry of the intersection. It's a large area dedicated to vehicles, smack dab in the middle of downtown Ottawa. If you're a cyclist, you've also probably cursed the potholes, too.

The entire length of Elgin Street was resurfaced this year, and this intersection was naturally repaved as part of that project.

With fresh smooth, black asphalt, not yet marked up with dashes, the intersection looks even more vast, and the blacktop continues down both sides of Confederation Boulevard.

The miniature street sweeper

Back in October when the Occupy Ottawa protest was still well-established in Confederation Park, I went by a couple of times to see what there was to see. Someone with a generator, bucket, and various tools was at the NCC's miniature bronze map of downtown Ottawa-Gatineau. The more tourist-oriented streets appear to be brass, and this person was cleaning them with a Dremel and various abrasive sponges.

I didn't realize she wasn't with the protesters, as a gasoline generator and water jugs was the kind of thing the protesters would have with them. But it turns out she works for the firm of the original artist, which was hired by the NCC to do some cleaning and updating some features on the map (like adding the new Convention Centre and removing the Capital Infocentre).

I chatted with her briefly, but unfortunately it's been too long for me to remember any noteworthy details.

Click on the photos to view full-size. I think it's a neat throwback to the scale models used by Jacques Gréber to illustrate his plans for the capital (Such as #151 and others listed here)

Tim capsule

Here's looking inside a brick wall being built at 151 Bay Street:

In late June the local media covered the conflict among the residents. As I recall (I can't find any articles online), the parking garage had to be repaired, and there wasn't enough money for the condo board to completely reinstate the gardens above them, which were the only greenspace of such a size right in the downtown core, particularly for a condo. I tweeted a photo of the gardens after they'd been marked for demolition back in July.

Well, they've cleared out the gardens, done the various repairs, and are starting to rebuild the brickwork, including some four- to five-foot high walls that demarcate the pedestrian access to the building. The walls are thick, but evidently hollow. The wide stones to cap them off hadn't been installed on this section when I went by.

If you've ever wondered what was inside those walls, now you know!

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

Reflections on the Crowne

Both URBSite and West Side Action covered the renovations to the entrance to the Delta Ottawa City Centre hotel (previously the Crowne Plaza hotel and originally the Skyline), on September 5 and 7, respectively. WSA also has a post from February showing renderings of the new entrance displayed in the lobby. [Sep 2013: updated WSA links, both originals were broken]

Well, I've taken a few photos of the hotel over the years myself, and a couple days after the other two did, I went down to get my own shots of the renovations. I tried to get some angles that weren't covered in the other blogs, like this one of the hotel reflected in the glass of Constitution Square:

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.

A Percy Street pleasure for pedestrians

If you walk up or down Percy Street, you probably recognize this house at the corner of MacLaren. It has addresses at 607 MacLaren and 141A Percy. It's notable by the turret coming out of the corner of the second floor, which is one of those features that makes Centretown so interesting to walk and bike around in.

It was renovated in the last year or so. Between the photo above, from April 2010, and the one below, from July 2011, you can see that the turret has been renovated.

Refreshing Piazza Dante

Across from St. Anthony's Church at Gladstone and Booth is Piazza Dante, one of those public spaces that can be hidden in plain sight, even from those who reside in and frequent Little Italy. The name is derived from Dante Alighieri via St. Anthony's School, kitty-corner from the piazza, which was originally called Dante Academy (as described in this blog entry about a nearby school).

A November 2000 article in Il Postino explains that Piazza Dante was built in 1967 and was "funded and constructed by the provincial and municipal governments together with the Italian Canadian Business and Professional Men’s Association led by Mr. Italo Tiezzi. It was one of the projects dedicated to celebrate Canada’s 100th birthday."

Accessible Upgrades at City Hall

Over at OpenFile, there's a thread on accessibility; specifically, spaces that aren't designed with all users in mind. This comment reminded me of a recent renovation to Ottawa City Hall's information desk in the rotunda, seen here during an art exhibit in mid-June:

For reference, here's a December 2009 file photo showing what the info desk used to look like:

In May, I saw workers installing a countertop. Once I clued in to the gap cut into the counter, I realized it was to allow wheelchair users to communicate with the person behind the desk.

Since I'm a tall person (I took some of these photos from the second floor--I'm not that tall!), this accessibility obstacle hadn't occurred to me until I saw them fixing it.

It's good to see it occurred to someone. And it didn't require a whole new desk, either. Just some small modifications.

CCOC Housing Pays Off

This 1975 issue of the Centretown News reported on the very first building purchased by what would grow to become the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation, which owns nearly 50 properties worth over $80 Million, providing affordable housing to over 2000 people.

As their history page explains (though I think it's a bit out of date), the CCOC started as an offshoot of one of the two groups that later merged into the CCCA. Irving Greenberg (of Minto development fame and brother of former Ottawa mayor Lorry Greenberg) was president of the CCOC at the time that they got their first grant and loan to buy and repair the rowhouse at 530-540 McLeod (at Percy).

35 years later, that loan is now paid off and the CCOC can now use the rental income from this property to invest in more affordable housing for Ottawa. The CCOC celebrated their first "Mortgage Burning Party" yesterday:

Stonecliffe Bare

Here's a shot of the Stonecliffe apartments at Bronson and Laurier. I've posted photos of them before, but only from afar and above. I believe the off-blog photoset of mine I linked to from the post Images of Bronson includes a good one.

All that to say that I had aunts and uncles living there whom I visited dozens of times as a child, and I've passed by it a fair number of times in my adulthood, but never noticed until the day I took this photo that there was a flagpole there. (The balconies are under repair, hence the lack of railings)

[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.

Lawn Toilets

At 18 Macdonald (corner of MacLaren)


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Elphin Reno

The Elphin is an apartment building at the south-west corner of Gladstone and Metcalfe. The front entrance is currently being renovated, and the exterior lobby doors have been removed. Perhaps they're being permanently removed to leave the buzzer outside, as is the trend for new developments.

For reference, Google Street View shows the previous entrance, without the "no dogs" signs.

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

80 Florence - Chinese Community Building, part 3

Welcome to the big reveal--the final part in the series on the renovations to the exterior of the apartment building at 80 Florence, the Chinese Community Building.

In the previous two parts, I covered the former look and construction progress of the tower and of the ground level.

In this post, I've got a bunch of before-and-after angles, and some other views of the new look. Here's the view in mid-construction with the now-closed Stinson & Son/Main Garage in the foreground at Kent and Gladstone, in mid-October:

And here's a similar angle last week: the exterior uses two different shades of beige and light red brick to add variety to the view. The beige is contrasted by vertical stripes of blue-green window fixtures.

80 Florence - Chinese Community Building, part 2

This is the second post of three covering the renovations to the Chinese Community Building at 80 Florence (at Kent). In the previous post, I gave some background on the building and the site, and showed photos of the progress of work on the eight-storey tower part of the building, shown below in April 2010. Today I'll be discussing the details of the lower part of the apartment building.

On Kent Street, mid-block to Gladstone, the building steps down to what used to be a gymnasium, but is being converted to miscellaneous commercial uses. By the brickwork in this late-August 2010 photo, you can see that the upper levels are already pretty far along.

McDonald's on Bronson: the plywood gem

This is a McDonald's. It's on Bronson Avenue, seen in June. It has a distinctive roofline--in this case in red and white, but also seen with brown roof tiles and yellow beams, and it has a large freestanding sign out front with golden arches that sticks out prominently in front of the store.

This is an automotive service centre (Midas, 450 Bronson). It's also on Bronson Avenue. It has a rectangular shape with flush aluminium siding, large raised lettering of the name of the centre and uses a red band to provide contrast to the grey of the rest of the building.