Bike rack blunders

They've started to install the bike racks on Preston where they've finished the reconstruction. (The art racks on Bank have yet to be installed, though triangular racks have been there since December). These will be very important as the City eventually replaces the parking meters with Pay & Display units.

Here's one of the new Ring & Post racks on Preston:

As any cyclist will plainly notice, there are a number of problems with the rack.

First and foremost, it's too close to the wall to accommodate more than one bike, even though the ring-and-post racks are designed for two bikes. The definitive guidelines on proper bike rack selection and installation is published by the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals in an easy-to-read 8-page PDF.

Second, it's made with fairly thin metal, and third, it's only bolted to the ground, as you can see in this shot:

I was easily able to shake it a bit loose by hand, which means these racks will stat to fall apart pretty quickly.

The sad thing is, the City knows better.

A number of years ago, when Bank Street was redeveloped in Old Ottawa South, they installed racks very similar to this one in front of the Mayfair:

They are no match for snowplows and drivers who inadvertently "park" their cars on the sidewalk.

In the Glebe, they tried embedding the posts into the pavers, with similar results.

When they rebuilt Richmond Road through Westboro, they tried something that has held out a lot better. A three-inch diameter bollard was embedded into the sidewalk on either side of every tree. The ones that weren't right next to a driveway were installed with a bike parking ring attached. The post was then filled with poured concrete.

Solid stuff. Here's one near Westboro Station:

So it's disappointing to see the City reverting to the worst design of the ones they've tried.

But at least they are installing bike racks. When you don't have enough bike parking to accommodate your patronage, you get problems like this cluster at the Bronson Centre:

You also have to install secure racks. This "wheelbender" kind makes it hard to lock anything other than the front wheel, an invitation to thieves, asone cyclist learned the hard way here:

(Hint: if you're trying to get management to upgrade wheelbender racks, point out that they have a low profile and are a tripping hazard in the dark. The ones at uOttawa were replaced very shortly after this was mentioned to the right decision-maker)

And even though you can secure your bike to the rack, you have to make sure the rack itself is secure. This one, installed at the Canal Royal Oak last summer, is only secured by a very flimsy chain. Since it's behind the building, it's entirely possible for someone to pull up a pickup truck, cut the chain, and take the rack and bikes together (and yes, this does happen).

In the meantime, bike--and park--safely!

111 Sussex Drive, part two

Here's part two of the series on the former Ottawa City Hall at 111 Sussex drive, in anticipation of Doors Open Ottawa next weekend.

In part one, we looked at the old building designed by Rother, Bland, Trudeau, and we left off at the courtyard behind the old building.

Today we'll look at the south-west part of the 1993 addition designed by Moshe Safdie and Associates (who also designed the National Gallery of Canada).

Below, we see the West block of offices, the East block reflected in it, and the walkway between them. The courtyard steps down in the foreground, with a water feature (the darker stone) not operational on that day in late April 2009.

The water feature comes out into a pond at the back (again, not filled in this photo). In the middle of the fountain are some sculptures, one of a polar bear balancing on a pyramid. In the foreground, we see a second walkway between the East and West sections of the building.

As we continue along the West side (to the left in the above photo), we come around to the glass hallway leading to the "new" council chambers, which replaced Whitton Hall (shown in part one) as City Council's official meeting room.

In the background, we see Unity Tower, controversial at the time of construction due to the perception of public funds going to what is effectively a functionless feature. (Two plaques at the base of the tower indicate, however, that it was paid for with donations) Originally, it was planned to also be covered in the beige precast panels and an observation deck at the top, but these plans were scuttled due to lack of funds, and consternation from neighbours worried about their privacy.

Here's an interior shot of door to the former "new" council chambers, called Victoria Hall (after the Queen), with the peaked roof of the vestibule visible through the glass roof of the hallway. The chambers have been remodeled to flatten the floor, which used to dip down. The feds also removed the fine custom crafted furniture--the Mayor's chair and podium are still on display in the Heritage building of the current City Hall on Laurier. The chamber is currently being used for the Oliphant commission, a.k.a the "Airbus Inquiry." Back when it was used as City Hall, councillors had their offices on the left, each with a balcony out to the hallway.

What look like balconies without railings on the exterior photo of the hallway are actually awnings to keep the hallway from becoming a greenhouse, as visible in this photo. You can also see the DFAIT headquarters, whose employees have spilled over into this building next door.

Looking back toward that section from the base of the pyramid, we see that the hallway has a slight curve to it.

Ending the hallway (or starting it, if you're just arriving), is the pyramid entrance. Through the windows, we can see that the columns surrounding are stuffed with boxes of files.

In the foreground is a sculpture that looks like a circle of metal birds reaching up; there's a second one on the other side of the front of the building. These were designed to sit in fountains, with jets of water shooting up through their centres. You can still see the water line at the feet. Unfortunately, the nozzles could never get aligned quite right, and the jets would end up spraying into the then-openable windows along the front of the building. So they ditched the fountain idea and left them as static installations.

At dusk, the hallway lights up and contrasts nicely with the dark blue sky. This view, not counting the old building in the background, reminds me a lot of Safdie's Art Gallery.

Tune in June 4 for the last installment (part 3) in the series on 111 Sussex. Also make sure to check out some of the 140 buildings (including this one) open for Doors Open Ottawa this weekend!

111 Sussex, Part one

[Edit: On September 19, 2011, the former Ottawa City Hall at 111 Sussex was renamed the John G. Diefenbaker building in honour of Canada's 18th Prime Minister.]

In honour of Doors Open Ottawa, which this year is being held on the weekend of June 6-7, I'm posting some photos of one of the buildings open for tours during Doors Open 2009, the City of Ottawa Archives, Main Branch, located at the former City Hall at 111 Sussex Drive. (Also open for Doors Open is the City's Traffic and Parking Operations building, which I've blogged: part one, part two, part three.)

I took these photos on a sunny Friday afternoon in late April, on a visit to the City's archives, which are housed in the building.

I've broken up this series into three posts: the old building, the southwest side of the addition, and the northeast side of the addition.

So without further ado, here is the old City Hall at 111 Sussex:

The building was constructed in 1958, a time when a City Hall was expected to be a large stone-type building with Romanesque columns and whatnot. Ottawa took a gamble to build its new City Hall in the Modern style that it did.

The Ottawa City Hall was designed by Rother, Bland, Trudeau - the leading architect being John Bland, an influential modernist who taught at McGill, and the Trudeau being Charles, brother of the Prime Minister. The addition is by Moshe Safdie and Associates.

At the front of the building, a two-storey walnut-lined hall protrudes from the, front supported by square columns. Whitton Hall, as it was named, was used as the council chambers until the addition was built on the back of the building. At the front is a large aluminium crest of the City of Ottawa, and an official viewing platform (i.e. where powerful people stand to watch parades go by). Now that the building is being used by DFAIT (the federal Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade), the former chamber has mostly been converted to cubicles, leaving no public building or facility named for Ottawa's first female mayor.

Inside, the original Modern first floor was restored when the Safdie addition was added. Previously, it had been cannibalized by the City for extra offices.

In the centre of the first floor is a marble-walled core containing the elevators and some offices. An inscription lists the mayors of Bytown and the (pre-amalgamation) City of Ottawa. The hanging orb lights are reflected in the polished marble.

The centrepiece of the foyer is the lovely spiral staircase leading up to the second floor. You can also see that the hallway extends around the full length of the back of the building:

At the back is a courtyard surrounded by the old building, at right, and the new buildings. While the old building was one of the first to use aluminium on exterior trim, the windows have been replaced. The stone rectangles used to house the heating and air conditioning units, and the short row of middle windows can no longer be opened.

That's it for now. Tune in at noon on June 1 for part two. In the meantime, don't forget to plan your visit to Doors Open Ottawa!

263, 267 and 271 Besserer Street to be demolished (Sandy Hill)

Tomorrow, the City's Planning and Environment Committee will be considering the demolition of three Besserer Street properties, 263, 267 and 271 Besserer in Sandy Hill.

From the Report:

263 Besserer Street

The building at this property is the most westerly building of the three and City records show that it is occupied by a two storey duplex dwelling. It is vacant and was constructed in 1892. It is a Category II building on the City's Heritage Reference List, which means that this building has been identified, as being of heritage interest but it has not been officially designated under Part IV or Part V of the Heritage Act.

267 Besserer Street

This is the middle building of the three and it is a two-storey single detached dwelling. It is also vacant and was constructed in 1892. It is a Category III building on the City of Ottawa Heritage Reference List...

271 Besserer Street

This is the most easterly of the three buildings. Like the other two, it was also constructed in 1892 and is two storeys in height. City records show it has been used as a duplex dwelling. Like the building adjacent to the west, this building has been listed as a Category III building on the Heritage Reference List...

The report shows a site map, but doesn't have photos of the buildings themselves. I had taken some last time I was in the area, so here they are:


They're clearly dis-used and the balconies have been removed.

Apparently, they've been empty for a while and vandalized while the property owner waits for the right time to develop the whole block (including Steve's Music and Nate's Deli on the Rideau side) into another mega-condo, like this one a couple blocks over, which has taken the place of Mexicali Rosa's and whose conjoined twin is currently under construction:
There's still no planned timeline for the replacement building to be built, and the demolition of these three 1890's houses is merely to keep them from being inhabited. Reminds me of the boarded-up buildings at Bay and Nepean, which could have remained in use for the many years they've sat there empty.

Hopefully new residences will be built in less time than it has taken to rebuild Lebreton Flats.

Sandy Hill heritage photographers should snap some shots of these buildings while they're still there.

Down, down, down conculsion: Laurier Computer

This is the fourth post on the 150 Slater development, and the last in the Down, Down, Down series (the name needs to be retired).

On the lot where 150 Slater is being built were a number of buildings, all now demolished. In the first Down, Down, Down post, I detailed (among other demolitions) the building at the corner of Slater and O'Connor, which housed the Café Deluxe and O'Connor Smoke Shop.

In Down, Down, Down Update 1, I detailed the Premier building. More historical information about that building:

"The Premier Apartments were built in 1938 for David Epstein, a developer specalizing in apartment buildings. His most notable project is to be found at Bank and Central Park. Architect W.E. Noffke introduced the Spanish Colonial Revival style to Ottawa in the years prior to WWI. Twenty-five years later he was still employing some vestiges of it at the Premier-using a fringe of red clay roof tiles over the third floor balconies, twisted wrought-iron railings, and glazed terra cotta panels flanking the storefonts."

In Down, Down, Down Update 2, I detailed the other two buildings fronting on O'Connor, and I also posted a couple of photos of the former Laurier Computer building. This last is the focus of today's post, and it perhaps has the richest history.

Laurier Computer building

I hadn't realized that this building was going to be demolished also, so I hadn't taken any "before" photos of it, and I regrettably had no incidental shots of it in my collection. Luckily, when I walked into Laurier Computer's new location next door, Martin Yshikawa had a couple that he e-mailed me. Here's how it looked before demolition:

There were also some carved inlays in the front. Here's one of curling stones:

And here's one of a badminton racket and birdies:

So what were those doing on a computer store? Well it wasn't a computer store for its entire life. For a long time, it was actually an indoor sports facility, called the Rideau Winter Club. A building this small? No! In the '60s(?) it was chopped down to one storey and pretty shallow off Laurier.

It actually went to the back of the lot, as you can see in this aerial shot from 1948 or 1950. You can see the arched roof of the Winter Club (with a more square fronting on Laurier, highlighted by the yellow rectangle). You can also make out the old Carnegie Library, and the two other older buildings demolished for the 150 Slater project:

There are a few other buildings still in the neighbourhood, in fact. I've highlighted them in the image below. Compare them with this 2007 version composed of modified images from the City of Ottawa's eMap application:




As you can see, the Rideau Winter Club had a much taller and longer profile, and you can even make out in the eMap aerial shot the outline of the foundation still going all the way back to the lotline.

So knowing that that was there, we can find other evidence of the building's size. Here's some on the building next door:

The roofline of the shortened Laurier Computer building is evident from the height of the graffiti, but less obvious is the shadow from the Rideau Winter Club's former roofline, about 2.5 storeys above the top of the graffiti. They chopped off all but the first storey, and shortened the depth from the streetfront considerably.

As mentioned above, the foundation of the Rideau Winter Club is still there--the surface parking was essentially on the building's first floor level. It stretches all the way to parking lot of its rear neighbour:

You can see closeup of foundation composition. Clearly not a modern concrete mix:

When they chopped the top of the buliding off, they kept a couple feet height of the I-beams along one side to serve as fenceposts, as visible here with smaller fenceposts added in between:

Here's empty foundation hole. It appears they had built a new rear foundation wall on the shortened building. You can see that the I-beams along this back wall were not as big as the ones for the taller former building:

Along the ledge between the hole and the next building over are some very old soda pop cans and bottles that somehow survived decades, albeit dirty and rusty. It takes a good eye and some tools to distinguish them from behind the fence, but I could identify the ~1960 10oz cans second on the list here: http://www.diamondcokecans.com/diamondcanada.htm

There were some 10oz sprite cans, Canadian versions of the US 1960 version shown here: http://www.diamondcokecans.com/sprite.htm

The above cans are so old, they didn't have pull tabs; you had to open it with a can opener (the kind that creates a triangular opening).

I could also identify a slightly more recent can with a foil pull tab, with multiple holes revealed by it, like the 10oz/284mL aluminium can pictured fourth down on this page (no date range on that page): http://www.bigredtaxi.com/Best%20Pieces.htm

I also saw a couple intact bottles, including a gin bottle with some liquid still inside and its cap still on, and a pepsi bottle that looked similar to the one in the second-last photo on this page: http://www.doghouse34.com/porchpix2.html, but the logo has larger swooshes, like in the top logo on this bottle: http://www.flickr.com/photos/boydhouse/2622450499/in/photostream/

On the side of the hole opposite this ledge were some more leftover structures, shown here before the rubble was cleared away:

Laurier Computer has relocated next door (how convenient!). I'd like to thank Martin Yshikawa at Laurier Computer (Laurier.com) for the photos of the Laurier Computer building and inlay detail.

I'm eager to see the excavation of the basement. What other treasures are to be found underneath?

(If you have photos, perhaps from a family album, of the former Rideau Winter Club, I'd be very interested in borrowing it to scan it!)

Centretown Heritage Project

Welcome to the Centretown Heritage Project!

The Centretown Heritage Project is designed to commemorate the history of Centretown, as well as the history of the Centretown Citizens Community Association, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2009.

The website for the Centretown Heritage Project, www.centretownheritage.ca, is currently being hosted on the Images of Centretown Blog. Simply follow the link to http://centretown.blogspot.com/search/label/CHP to see all posts with the CHP label.

The CHP will eventually branch out to include on-site posters of locations of interest, interviews of people who were involved throughout the history of the community, and clippings from old editions of the Centretown Buzz.

Update: the CHP video on the early history of the Centretown Citizens Community Association is now online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlPtm2dN95E

If you'd like to get involved with the Centretown Heritage Project, please contact me at centretown.ottawa@gmail.com

Elgin & Somerset hot patch

I'm trying to avoid the omnibus blog posts, and keep to one topic per post. Here goes...

In October 2007, some road workers were applying a hot patch to the South-West corner of Elgin and Somerset, presumably to cover the cracks and to reduce the depth of puddles that form there in rainstorms. According to the weather network, October 26 had a high of 15.8C and a low of 2C, and 4.4mm of precipitation. This photo was taken around 10:30 in the morning.

Here we can see them laying down the tar adhesive, painting it with a brush within a border made with a thinner brush:

Here's the finished patch job at 3:15 that afternoon. Looks spiffy. Nice and smooth. (Still no sign of rain... Did it even rain that day?)

I guess it must have rained that day, because that patch is long gone. By September '08, most of it was gone. In this photo, you can still see a little right at the corner of the sidewalk, and on the near side of the sewer grate. (Also note the old facade on the Scrim's Florist building)

As of this past Friday, the patch was all gone. And then some. More of the asphalt beneath is crumbling away.

While we're in the neighbourhood, a gratuitous shot of St. John's church in that oddball snowstorm we had on April 6.

Calling all urban design geeks!

"Midcentury Modernist" has been involved in Centretown issues for over 30 years, and he is my primary mentor in the history of Centretown.

I've been encouraging him to join the blogosphere, and to contribute directly to the Centretown Heritage Project blog posts here on Images of Centretown, instead of just feeding me information.

Well, he's gone one step further, and has started his own blog:

Urbsite.blogspot.com

So far, he's got a post lamenting some losses in the ongoing renovations of the Warren Arms building (below), and one on the fountain in Confederation Park, which used to be in Trafalgar square (and a photo to prove it!)

We don't have nearly enough of this type of blog in Ottawa.

If you are interested in blogging about Centretown (or your central Ottawa neighbourhood), whether on your own blog or on this one, let me know. I've given M-M a start, and I've helped Eric Darwin (West Side Action) fix some problems on his blog.

Just drop me a line at centretown.ottawa@gmail.com