Jane's Walk Ottawa 2014 this weekend

This weekend (May 3-4, 2014) is the annual Jane's Walk Ottawa series of free urbanist walking tours, and as with last year, I'm publishing a list of walks in Somerset Ward.

I mentioned two of the walks I went on last year in my blog posts The Lonely Elm (Dennis van Staalduinen's walk on Wellington Street, who this year is giving a walk in Champlain Park) and The stones don't fall far from the hill (Quentin Gall's talk on Ottawa's Building and Monument Stones), both of which seem to have been one-offs.

Here's the rundown of Jane's Walks in Centretown for this year:

3D Thursday: Super Men's barbershop

On March 12, 2014, I learned via Twitter that 504 Gladstone was on fire. I didn't get there until around 10pm, after it had been successfully defeated. The fire damage appeared relatively contained to the end unit, and the street had reopened to traffic. I took a 3D photo, which is actually a bit chilling because you can see right into the damaged unit through the window opening:

Source photos for the 3D image: Left, Right

I learned about the fire shortly after a neighbour across the street tweeted a couple photos around 6:30 p.m.:

Gladstone totally shut down pic.twitter.com/RgxeCq91Ok
— Upgrayedd (@DeportPanther) March 12, 2014

By the next day, the units on the west end of the row had been boarded up. The fire appeared to have been most severe in the commercial ground-floor unit at the west end, which contained an antique store, and previously a "Teleologist" (which a few years ago sparked a discussion, of which I can't find any record any more):

This wasn't the first close call for this building. In January 2007, a rather nasty (though, I understand, non-fatal) collision at this corner tore a traffic signal pole right off its footing and just missed smashing the windows of the art classes.

At the east end of the row are an art class place and the Super Men's Hair Stylist & Barber Shop. I started going there a few years ago after my previous barber on Bank Street kept jacking his prices up with decreasing customer service. These talented Iraqi men do it for much less, seven days a week (though the price has increased slightly since this photo was taken in November 2011):

Due to the smoke damage, the barbershop decided to move across the street, next to Fil's Furniture. It's a much larger space which will allow one of the barbers to move his art studio into the back:

His website is www.FirebySaba.com; an unfortunate name given the circumstances, but arising from his technique. His thickly-covered canvasses are a "controlled riot of colour" (according to the website description), and I'd say some of them are even astral. The first time I met Sabah, he had been in Canada for just two months and had never experienced a real winter. He's easily one of the most interesting and passionate people I've met.

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

Peds on Weds: Back turned on the public realm

[Note: at 2pm today, the pedestrian advocacy group Walk Ottawa will be holding a ceremony to place a pedestrian memorial marker at Rideau and Waller, where a pedestrian lost her life to a tractor-trailer in February. Details can be found here, here, and here]

This is a topic I wanted to post about months ago but never got around to, around when Urbsite thoroughly covered the 1970's guidelines for a second-floor enclosed pedestrian system. These guidelines implemented ideas envisioned by such documents as the 1965 Hammer Report (discussed in this post of mine) for a completely segregated pedestrian system, which would allow motorists dominion over the street-level public right-of-way downtown:

Urbsite is almost finished its nine-part series on the planning and (more planning, and) development of the Rideau Centre. In the most recent post, instalment 8 of 9, the author used a bunch of photos I'd taken which I shared with him. (I figured letting him post my best Rideau Centre pics would help me focus on Centretown... I'm not sure that worked!)

I took this photo this past Boxing Week, showing the wider of the two pedestrian overpasses/skywalks/pedways between the Rideau Centre and the Bay. The Bay has made use of this space for additional merchandising. It's perhaps not the best use of such a space, but at least it's being used. This was envisioned in the plans for the Rideau Centre skywalks, and for Ottawa's skywalks in general:

In this photo, one of the ones used on Urbsite, we can see how this affects the outside though. As hinted by the phrase "inward-facing merchandise" in Urbsite's caption for this photo, the merchandise is entirely focused on the shoppers inside the skywalk. As if the skywalk doesn't close in the streetscape enough on its own, the Bay's merchandise literally turns its back on the thousands of potential customers outside.

It doesn't need to. The little drawings of skywalks envisioned in the '70s showed lots of space around the shopping racks, where shoppers could peruse, peer out, and peer in. The skywalk was an extension of the public realm, but instead it has become part of the closed-off public space. They could have at least hung some display merchandise on the backs of the cabinets to serve as long-distance window-shopping!

I highly recommend reading Urbsite's series on the development of the Rideau Centre. It's a fascinating story with many twists and turns (and period images!) Start with part 1 here.

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

An urban gas station in Centretown

The Petro Canada at Bronson and Somerset quietly reopened this past Friday after about six months of construction, which started shortly after the reopening of newly reconstructed Bronson Avenue. It comes complete with a convenience store at the corner, seen best at night in HDR.

Even though about three-quarters of Centretown residents walk, bus and bike as part of their regular commute to work and school, the car ownership rate in Centretown is about 1.3 cars per household. So when residents of Centretown, Chinatown and Dalhousie eventually have to fill their tanks, they have to go somewhere. After the closure of the Shell station at Gloucester, this station just on the far side of Centretown's Bronson border is one of the closest to downtown. (I'm not saying I regret the closure of the gas stations that used to pepper Centretown much more heavily!)

But just because a gas station is a car-oriented business, it doesn't mean it can't also fit into the fabric of a walkable urban neighbourhood. Before the construction photos, let's look at how the station used to look:

3D Thursday: China Doll, karaoke queen

Shanghai restaurant on Somerset Street West near Bronson is home to China Doll, the infamous Ottawa drag performer who hosts karaoke every week and every New Year's Eve—each time in a different, outrageously fun outfit.

I caught up with China Doll during the Chinatown Craft Sale earlier in December, wearing something that was screaming for a 3D photo:

Source photos for the 3D image: Left, Right

Of course I'm referring to the hair...

While I'm on the topic, here's China Doll at New Year's a couple of years ago, with a balloon dopplegänger drawn by Chinatown artist Julie Cruikshank:

In fact, China Doll is so famous, the Bytown Museum included some of China Doll's accessories in their 2010 "Evocative Objects" exhibit:

I also ran into China Doll at Bluesfest this past July in advance of the Björk concert. A friend of mine described the ensemble to me and it sounded pretty strange until I met up with her and realized she had been describing China Doll. Though I suppose it can be a bit much for the uninitiated:

Anyhow, whatever your plans are, have a happy new year!

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

From the "fake trees" department...

There was a brief period in the design for the Bronson Avenue reconstruction when the consultants responded to residents' desire for more trees by suggesting fake metal 'trees' to provide shade to pedestrians, since there would be no room for real trees in the widened Bronson Avenue. Thankfully, this suggestion was short lived, and circumstances changed to permit a lot of real trees.

Across from the Rideau Centre's food court a couple of weeks ago, I noticed this row of branches lined up outside the entrance to 45 Rideau Street, next to the Chapters. It looks like they have been lined up as fake 'trees' to provide a structure on which to mount decorative lights.

In fairness, if these were real trees they wouldn't have leaves at this time of year anyway.

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

Lifting Centretown's Spirits

Yes, there are decorations on streetlamps, lights in store windows, and powdery white snow on the ground, but last week's opening of the new LCBO at Bank and McLeod has not just spirits, but also wine and beer.

(pre-Photoshop pic)

Ottawa Citizen columnist Joanne Chianello sparked a twitter conversation earlier this month about the location, and the relatively uncommon location of this LCBO at the base of a condo tower (certainly unprecedented in Ottawa).

A spin-off twitter conversation by Metroland's Laura Mueller sparked a discussion about the impact of this location on the other nearby LCBO locations. CBC's Giacomo Panico pointed out that this location was moving from 240 Sparks ... LCBO store locator [Edit: I got some stuff wrong here earlier. Fixed now, I think.]

Meanwhile, the LCBO 7 blocks down Bank Street in the Glebe, which would be visible from the Bank and McLeod location if not for the Queensway, isn't going anywhere anytime soon, apparently. (Sadly, all three of the large ash trees in front of that location succumbed last year to the Emerald Ash Borer beetle infestation).

Equidistant from those two locations, the LCBO next to the Loblaws on Pretoria is being rebuilt in the location of the former Beer Store (which, by contrast, is closed permanently) with nothing but air above it.

There is also supposed to be an LCBO at the new Lansdowne Park big box plaza/mall.


There's a lot I can't comment on by the mere fact that I don't drink alcoholic beverages, but it's still an interesting case study in terms of, "what do you put in a mid-size mainstreet commercial space when there's already a Shopper's Drug Mart only a block away?"

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

Chinatown's other panda

On Monday, I posted about a panda-based artwork in Chinatown. However, there is another painted panda on a Chinatown storefront which has become iconic of Chinatown:

This is in the entryway of the vacant storefront that had previously been Manphat Grocery, at the corner of Somerset and Booth. Here's the rest of the window:

As with the other panda, this was done as part of the storefront mural project that runs throughout Chinatown.

The storefront of 800 Somerset Street West wasn't particularly attractive, even before the store closed down in 2008. The Booth Street wall was painted with a mural to brighten it up:

After the store closed, it was papered up from the inside. For a number of years it made the corner pretty dead, and it has only been used for storage for one of the nearby businesses. I've heard it speculated that this unsightly building contributed to the failure of the Chi Developments' 288 Booth condo project diagonally across the street, which was an attempt by an amateur developer to rebuild on the lot left vacant by a fire took in August 2007.

In early June, the mural was still in its early stages. White flowers on their own represent death, which—while perhaps reflective of the level of activity of this space—doesn't contribute to the goals of livening up the street with murals.

With a few blue and bright pink flowers as highlights, the mural has been a welcome splash of colour since it was finished (and retouched after a graffiti attack).

The flowers are just scenery; the real surprise is when you're walking down the sidewalk and the panda pops out at you!

I encourage you to head down to Chinatown to check out the artwork on the many doors, walls and storefronts on Somerset Street between Bay Street and Preston Street. Leigh and Karen from Highjinx have added seasonal decorations to many of the store windows, and the Somerset Chinatown BIA has installed red and white Christmas lights to many of the buildings.

A great place for a Christmas lunch or dinner for your office, family and friends!

Panda prints in Chinatown

In the alleyway between the Chinese restaurant, Ju Xiang Juan, and the Somerset travel agency, is one of the Chinatown murals. This one is of a panda, though not the panda mural that has become iconic of Ottawa's Chinatown (that's a blog post for another day... maybe tomorrow):

(note: I've tweaked the above photo with Photoshop's lens distortion utility. What a versatile and useful tool!)

The mural on the side of the travel agency building is a colourful stencil print of a panda in bright colours. But look closer: those dots are themselves little pandas, each a set of three looking left, centre, and right. Each row of pandas is standing on the edge of a piece of the building's otherwise drab beige siding:

The other side of the alley had a certain je ne sais quoi to it that also caught my eye. The rough brick has an authentic quality to it, obviously having seen many iterations of graffiti, painting over, and sandblasting away. The mural project on Somerset had a dual purpose of livening up the place and deterring graffiti.

You can't see these types of angles while walking by on the sidewalk. If the panda prints hadn't drawn me in to the alley, I wouldn't have caught this view either!

Mayflower Pub, 1979-2013

As has been reported, the Mayflower Pub and restaurant—an Ottawa fixture—is closing this month.

As says the sign above the pub's entrance, the place has been around since 1979:

On the busy corner of Elgin and Cooper:

As the signboard says, for a limited time only.

Cheers.

Bronson reopens for the last time

After two years of construction, Bronson Avenue reopens to through traffic today, whereas it had been closed between Laurier and Somerset (the headline of the linked PSA wrongly states Gladstone). I thought I'd post some snapshots to summarize the progress.

As with last year, the reopening isn't necessarily something to celebrate, as Bronson will no doubt return to its status as a traffic sewer for hasty drivers with little or no connection to Centretown, the roadway is the same width as before the reconstruction (despite the Community's strong desire to get it rebuilt otherwise), but without all the potholes to slow them down. There will hopefully be some degree of relief on the side streets which have been host to cut-through traffic when Bronson was closed.

Recall how disruptive the closure was to road users of all modes. Not only did it disrupt the patterns of people who were just passing through, but when the intersection of Somerset and Bronson was closed, bus riders had quite a walk to get to the nearest bus stop. Customer traffic to the businesses along Bronson slowed to a trickle when Gladstone was closed. There were some attempts to maintain temporary sidewalks for pedestrians also, as seen here in the muddy mess of a street, looking north along the former east sidewalk:

Around 150 Slater

I haven't written much about the Export Development Canada building at 150 Slater since the three-part series on the demolition and excavation. I doubt there's much interest in construction photos, but here are a few shots of the building itself.

Here is the building at nighttime, from Slater and O'Connor. Notice the spotlights on the underside of the podium canopy:

The finishes make for some interesting surfaces. You can see the exposed concrete pillar inside the building, next to the shell that surrounds the podium.

Within the podium enclosure is a two-storey marble projection above the ground floor. The counterpart is a set back ground floor with retail (the Slater Street frontage seen below is still vacant in 2013).

Along O'Connor, a Bridgehead and a Marcello's have opened up. Like the other small downtown locations, this Bridgehead closes at 6pm. If I recall correctly, the Albert and Bank location is the only one north of Somerset to open late, and even then it still closes earlier than the ones in residential areas.

In contrast to the Slater and O'Connor frontages, the Laurier Avenue frontage on the south side of the lot (separated from the corner by a smaller office building) is very unflattering and hostile to the streetfront. Not one, but two sets of garage doors and a bleak surrounding.

The massing of this side is similar to the Laurier Computer building that was torn down for 150 Slater (I assume this is merely a coincidence). Although that building used to be larger, as covered in a history of the Rideau Winter Club and other curling rinks in the city over at URBSite.

Chinese New Year Dragon Parade 2012

Today's post follows the theme of last week's 3D photo of the Chinatown Gateway Arch, in that the Lunar New Year is around this time of year.

Every year, there is a dragon dance through Chinatown down Somerset Street. Last year, I made a point of checking it out, and I got some great photos. The parade is physically short, only a handful of floats, but the performances and audience interaction stretches out the time of the parade.

The parade stretches twice as far if you count these four #2 buses that slipped by in a gap after being held up behind the dancers:

Mags & Fags switches up some more

In April, I posted that Mags & Fags cleared a newspaper rack out of their entranceway.

Even earlier in the year—in January—there was a water main break on Elgin Street right outside the store, closing it and Vanilla until water could be restored. There's a guy with a shop vac emptying out water that presumably got into his store's basement.

By the evening, crews (I presume from the City) had excavated a hole to expose the break in the water main. The vacuum truck on the far side of the backhoe is used to remove soil near gas lines, since a shovel can do lots of damage if it gets too close. You can also see the pipe leading up to the fire hydrant underneath the sidewalk, which, while unrelated, is still something neat you don't see every day.

Once the water main had been repaired, the hole was filled up and a cold patch was applied to cover it with rough asphalt. In the spring (June, actually), the road was resurfaced with good smooth asphalt, and the sidewalk was also replaced. An intricate ramp and plank system was used to retain access to the stores while the concrete sidewalk was curing. Some sections of sidewalk along Elgin Street were replaced when the street was resurfaced in 2011, and even more when Bell ran new cables under Elgin in 2010. Actually, Elgin Street's sidewalks have had over a century of turnover.

The minimalist magazine racks have been in the window for as long as I can remember. However, while I was walking past it last month, I noticed that they'd changed this up for a different style display.

The new shelves are busier than the old metal racks—two of which remain on either end of the display, but it works. It lets the store owners display other materials, to let potential customers walking by know that they don't just sell magazines.

Winter & Summer across from Snider

Entirely by accident, I managed to take the exact same photo twice, six months apart. Just the tiniest amount of cropping and rotating was needed on these two photos of 353-355-357 Bank Street, on the east side between Laurier and Slater, across from Snider Plaza. Having done that, making an animated GIF of the two images was just irresistible:

From left to right, the stores are BabyFace, Bowitch, Jade Spa, and Kiddytown. It's interesting to see what changes and what doesn't. For example, unchanging are the "Summer Discount" signs in Kiddytown's windows, even in February. Under the 'change' heading, it is possible to see how the weight of the leaves weighs down the branches of the smaller tree.

Since the GIF reduces the image quality, here are the two source photos as JPGs (after rotation and cropping) in case you wanted to play with them. (Picasa 3.8 lets you view two photos side-by-side and zoom in, which is perfect for this). Click them to view/download larger. If you're sufficiently nerdy to want them, you'd probably also like to know that the summer photo was taken in August around 6:30pm, and the winter one in February around 3:30pm.

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

Red, Red Apron

Every now and then when going by Red Apron on Gladstone Avenue, there is a confluence of red on the street out front. This time, a week and a half ago, three hanging pots with red flowers were joined by three red cars parked out front, which in unison were compelling me to take a photo:

If I recall correctly, an OC Transpo bus had just gone by too. If I'd gotten my camera out moments earlier, it could have been in the photo too!

I had a similarly red photo in the post where I documented Red Apron's opening. In that photo (toward the bottom of the post), there was a red dump truck, two red ladders, and a worker with a red vest and hard hat.

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

3D Thursday: Bronson press event

A couple weeks ago, the City's Infrastructure Services Department held a press event whereby they used Bronson Avenue as an example to showcase the many things that go on beneath the surface—literally—when the city rebuilds a road. Being dug up, it was opportune to demonstrate the watermains, feedermains, hydro, sewers, Bell, Rogers, gas, and other utilities that all have to squeeze under the street. As it happens, the media briefing was scheduled for the same time as Premier McGuinty's keynote speech at the AMO conference and most of the City Hall press corps was covering that.

Still there were a handful of journalists there and some stories came out of it, including two in the EMC and the Metro.

I went along to check it out, and managed to get a 3D photo of the journalists interviewing the City's engineers. In the vests from left to right are Ziad Ghadban, manager of municipal construction projects on the east side* of the city; Wayne Newell, General Manager of Infrastructure Services for the City; and Bruce Kenny, the project manager for the Bronson Avenue reconstruction project.

Source photos for the 3D image: Left, Right

As it happens, just a few days before this media event, Ottawa Citizen columnist Kelly Egan wrote a column in which he rhetorically asked why it takes so long to build a road, given the length of time and the extent of disruption that has been caused by the Bronson Avenue construction on the street's businesses. I say "rhetorically" because he didn't bother to wait for an answer and instead assumed, without knowing the scope of the work, that the project could have been finished many times faster.

(Aside from living and working within two blocks of it, Bronson Avenue is one of the files I work on in Councillor Diane Holmes' office, and prior to working in her office I was on the Public Advisory Committee as the CCCA representative, so I'm rather familiar with the back end also. There are many legitimate complaints about ways the City or the contractors have screwed up in terms of communication, but the underlying work has many many constraints that make this a difficult job for any crew. Incidentally, nobody from the Citizen, including Egan, came to the Bronson Avenue media briefing.)

I had written back in January of 2011 about the former gas station at the southeast corner of Bronson and Gladstone, Norm Egan's Esso, and I suspect that's a clue to why Kelly Egan's attention is drawn to Bronson Avenue.

It's a pity that Egan put out that uninformed column about the construction process, because it took away from the more important story about the plight of the businesses on Bronson Avenue. He wrote such a column back in July focusing on this issue.

Bronson Avenue's businesses are at a disadvantage because they depend on passing traffic (both vehicular and pedestrian) for customers, and they don't have a BIA like most of the other commercial streets in Centretown do to promote the street with advertising campaigns. They're nearly all owner-operated. Many places have had to cut staff and reduce their hours, and most business owners are squeezing by, worrying about how they'll make the next mortgage payment on their house. The Quizno's has closed and is being renovated into a new restaurant.

The Bronson construction has an impact on everyone, from the noise endured by residents and business owners, to the detoured traffic cutting through neighbourhood streets, to the occasional disruption of water or power, and of course the massive drop in customers suffered by the businesses. The appearance of the street will improve significantly when the work is all done and the new landscaping is in, but the businesses will need to make it to that point if they're going to reap the benefits of a nicer street. Whenever you can, please visit some of the many restaurants, takeout places, hair salons and car shops along Bronson Avenue.

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