Chinatown double-flyover

I found this well-timed photo as I was catching up on sorting my significant backlog of photos. Looking up at the corner of Somerset Street West and Booth Street, the sky is divided by the traffic signal arms. In the left quadrant is a gull, and in the right quadrant is a low-flying Air Canada jet:

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

3D Thursday: Rideau Canal Skateway

On Twitter yesterday I asked if I today's 3D photos should be of the Rideau Canal or of the World Exchange Centre theatres, the only vote was from the Rideau Canal Skateway account. This is notable because in previous years there were only accounts for Winterlude (which is now run by the Department of Canadian Heritage) and for the Rideau Canal waterway (which is run in the non-skateway season by Parks Canada). Now both the Rideau Canal skateway and the NCC itself both are on Twitter, and the Skateway account actively engages with the public.

Given the warm temperatures on the weekend, today might be your last chance to skate on the canal for a while. So to entice you, I bring you photos of the canal, which opened on the relatively early date of December 31, 2013. Here it is that day at dusk at the Concord rest area at the far east end of Centretown:

Source photos for the 3D image: Left, Right

The night before, I also took photos of the Canal. Here's a stunning 3D nighttime view of Bank Street bridge with Lansdowne Park's construction cranes in the background. Make sure to view it full screen and zoom in if you can:

Metropolitan Centretown

Looking south at Bank and Gladstone on a rainy dusk in early September. (Sigh, at a quarter to 8pm!)

I'm not particularly fond of the development here, nor the way the former Metropolitan Tabernacle's façade has be entirely de-animated as it has succumbed to death-by-Shoppers. But because the building is so close to the street, the developer was forced to bury the power lines. That on its own is a plus, but in addition it has meant full-fledged streetlights instead of the light heads tacked on to wooden hydro poles.

I suppose that arguably there is a pedestrian component to that to warrant adding "Peds on Weds" to the title of this post, but really I just wanted to post this picture because I like the colours.

[Tune in on Wednesdays at noon for a new pedestrian-themed blog post. View the Pedestrians label for previous Peds on Weds posts]
[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Summer sunset

After my summer hiatus, I started with a post from the north-west corner of Centretown. As the summer comes to an end itself, it seems fitting to post this photo of the opposite corner, looking south-west from the Museum of Nature's east parking lot. Aside from the very pretty pink clouds, the skyline is populated by 467 Elgin, the Ottawa Police headquarters at 474 Elgin, and the small office building at 100 Argyle.

This past Monday, the Museum of Nature had a meeting about the future of its west parking lot. I'm composing this before the meeting, but presumably they are presenting the latest iteration of their plan to renege on their promise to reinstate the west lawn as a public park. They promise to post the latest plans to nature.ca/west.

By the way, you can see my three-part tour of the Museum of Nature as it appeared on the day it reopened after years of construction. Start your tour with part 1.

P.S.: Speaking of sunsets, don't forget about the second edition of Nuit Blanche Ottawa Gatineau tomorrow night, 6:21pm to 4:22am!

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

Peds on Weds: street trees as eye candy

Street trees/urban trees improve the urban fabric and increase property values. The shade they provide in the summer softens the pedestrian experience.

These ideas are generally taken for granted among urban planney-types. It is these positive associations that get trees sprinkled into architectural drawings such as this one for the building under construction at 150 Elgin:

This little stand on Preston and Louisa, even without the blooms Eric found, make a pretty solid aesthetic case for landscaping over vanscaping.

More often, however, they go in looking like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, like these three installed on Metcalfe back in 2010:

When the Garden of the Provinces and Territories was built in the early '60s, it too had tiny trees, as seen in this photo via Urbsite

Half a century on, these trees have grown considerably, giving the park a much different (though not necessarily worse) feel. The canopy provides a low green ceiling to the park, making it a more private and reflective space to appreciate the grass and water features.

Street trees have a harder time than those in parks or front yards, due to the smaller area of land for rain to fall into and the increased exposure to salt, but they do sometimes make it. This row is on the north side of Place Bell, 160 Elgin at Gloucester. At the far left you can just make out Grant House (Friday's) and the construction site for the 150 Elgin office tower, mentioned above. The tree canopy has grown higher than the artificial canopy surrounding the building, but there is still much light coming through.

Closer to Elgin, the trees are noticeably shorter. There may be many reasons for this, but I suspect the tower of 160 Elgin blocks a lot of sunlight, stunting their growth. (Indeed, you can see in Google Street View that the one at the Elgin end, which would get more morning sun, is taller)

On the Nepean Street side of Place Bell looking west toward Metcalfe, the story is a bit different. The condo towers at 18 and 22 Nepean Street block out much of the light that would fall on the North sidewalk, the awning blocks out the sky immediately above, and the tree canopy blocks out the sliver of sky that remains. At eye level, there's little sunlight, and nothing but concrete, bare glass, and tree trunk to look at. The view on the North side will soon resemble this as 150 Elgin climbs toward the sky.

While we can't remove the buildings that are already there, we can make sure that as new towers are built there is sufficient space between them to let light through. The 27-storey tower approved for 91 Nepean and its identical siblings at 70 Gloucester and 96 Nepean, were approved by City Council on lots barely wider than the towers themselves. That sets a nasty trend: if the lots next door are allowed to be built the same way, we'll have a wall of building as dark as the one across from Place Bell, only twice as tall and closer to the street. There are trees shown on the drawings for 96 Nepean, but this is mostly eye candy on the drawings; we (and the future residents of the building) would be lucky if anything green grows at all.

It's actually fairly impressive how well these rows of trees surrounding Place Bell have survived in what looks like such small plots of ground*. And that's not a bad thing—removing these trees would certainly make this scene even worse—but the trees were originally added to soften the view at eye level, and now that they have grown beyond that height, something else is needed to fill this role so that this stretch of sidewalk can be more hospitable again. Maybe not a Zen pond, but something.

For now, the trees on the opposite side of the street at 150 Elgin will probably have to suffice.

(*See the street tree-related posts in my series on the reconstruction projects for Bank Street and Somerset Street)

[Tune in on Wednesdays at noon for a new pedestrian-themed blog post. View the Pedestrians label for previous Peds on Weds posts]

Crescent Moonset

As I was heading to meet friends for dinner in Somerset Village, a giant red crescent moon made itself apparent right in my path. I diligently got my tripod out and took photos from the middle of the street.

As I was fiddling with the camera settings, a party of twelve came out of Mama Theresa's and watched me while they tried to figure out what I was doing. When I returned to the sidewalk and saw they were still watching me as I put away my tripod, I pointed to the end of the street and said "look, the moon!"

One ventured hesitantly into the street, saw it, and was soon followed by the rest of the group to admire the spectacle. After a minute or two, they figured it was time they got out of the road. There's a certain bemusing thrill to stand in the middle of the street to admire a sight, especially when traffic is so sparse.

Generally the moon illusion is associated with a full moon, but clarly it works just as well with a crescent moon.

Back in May, I tweeted a similar photo of the moon over the Plaza Bridge by the NAC, Parliament Hill, Rideau Canal, and former Union Station. That was a cropped version of this one, which is a stunning and classic Ottawa nighttime shot even without the moon:

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]

Two towers

About ten days ago, something happened in downtown Ottawa that hasn't been seen in quite a while: a second tower crane was installed on a single construction site. Located at 90 Elgin (the Lorne building), this new "building" will actually be two connected office towers (that seem to read as one in the various renderings).

I mused about this two-crane phenomenon, and wondered when the last time there have been two cranes in one hole in downtown Ottawa. So far, 240 Sparks is the leader, built during a previous growth spurt in downtown office space. The Midcentury Modernist slipped me a mid-'70s rooftop photo of the C.D. Howe building (i.e. 240 Sparks) construction site with two tower cranes in the mostly-empty block-sized construction hole, with the Bank of Canada building and the 255 Albert office tower both nearing completion in view, three of a number of buildings erected during a previous growth spurt in the downtown office space market.

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

Centretown flyover

Small planes over Centretown aren't that uncommon; there is a regular route by a historic biplane that does tours from the Aviation museum and for $100 they'll take you all the way downtown (I'll have to try that myself some day).

This one was flying behind the crane at the demolition site of the Lorne building on Elgin street.

I wrote a post on the context and history of the Lorne Building in October 2009.

There are also three articles on the Lorne Building at URBSite:

• Renderings of the proposed building
• History of the development of the Lorne building (the one being demolished, and its predecessors)
• The Lorne building's opening, early photos of it after opening, and related architecture

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

Gladstone Sun

Last week as I was checking out the progress on the Centropolis condos, there was an Ottawa Sun balloon floating to the south. The red-and-white colours match the signs of Gladstone Auto Repair just underneath it!

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

Movie theatre with a view

Looking up from the ground floor of the World Exchange Centre's atrium, looking through the skylight to the tower along O'Connor:

Don't get too dizzy!

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

L'Esplanade Laurier incognito

On one day in late June, dark clouds loomed over the North part of Centretown, with clear skies further South.

With the cyan reflection of the clear skies in the windows of l'Esplanade Laurier's two white marble towers, it's as though they weren't there, and Bank street was once again a two-storey 1900's main street.

L'Esplanade Laurier was recently bought by Public Works and Government Services Canada for a pretty good price, but they're also plagued with problems, particularly with the white marble, which is poorly suited to Ottawa's climate or high altitudes.

The patchy rain/sun patterns have played other interesting visual tricks this summer, as with the post Light Rain from late July.

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

Gone Festin'

Sorry the blog has been quiet. I've been volunteering at Bluesfest, supervising the volunteers at the free valet bike parking. Lots of fun.

While the bike parking is fast and free, we are once again collecting donations for Citizens for Safe Cycling and Blues in the Schools.

Why don't you stop by?

Rideau Canal: The Limit

Since I've been averaging about two hours a day on the canal since it opened on January first, I haven't had much time to post. And frankly, I'd much rather be skating on the canal than blogging about it! But while I've been skating, I've taken lots of photos! (In fact, I have few photos of anything else!)

So, as long as the canal is open this year, Images of Centretown will effectively be Images of the Rideau Canal. Going through hundreds of canal photos so far this year, I've decided to go by theme.

And I can't resist starting with my sky shots. This canal is really photogenic, you know. Especially at dusk.

Here's a shot from the pathway coming down towards Fifth avenue, with the sun behind and lots of skaters having fun on the fourth:

A few days later, looking in roughly the opposite direction, a nice blue sky with fluffy clouds came out:

The moon came out to enjoy the canal as well. Here it is over Pig Island:

I was surprised that the moon followed me down to Immaculata High School the same night:

A few days later, it was really cold, but the rest of the canal had opened up. It was still pretty bumpy at Dow's Lake, especially along the south edge. Here it is, with the sun reflecting off the ice:

As dusk fell, the sky seemed to burn:

Night fell, and the moon hid behind some thin, stringy clouds around Clegg:

The following week, there was more cloud than open sky, but the moon managed to peek through again heading toward Hartwell's Lock:

And another week later (January 25), the sun burned white through the clouds over Centretown.

Extraneous shot for Woodsy: I've seen a few Pook Toques on the ice, including this one I photographed for you at Pretoria Bridge on January 8:

Other Canal themes I hope to post include night shots, snow, and bridges (Boy do the bridges over the canal take great photos!) We'll see if I can find time to post them!