Bank Street Phase III, Part 2: Lights

[This post is part of a series on Bank Street's new look. See the introduction and part I here]

Last time, I talked about the new, wider sidewalks, and the installation process for those. This part I'll be talking about the new street lamps on Bank.

Phase I of the reconstruction project, from Wellington to Laurier, has these decorative lamps. They have a flat arm, from which is suspended a round lantern. I took this photo a month ago, after the Shopper's Drug Mart moved out of this building (it's now on the ground floor of the Mondrian). What I find remarkable about it is that the noon-hour pedestrian traffic actually resembles the types of busy pedestrian environments you see in architectural renderings:

But I'm focusing more on Phase II and Phase III of Bank Street, from Laurier to Somerset and Somerset to Arlington, respectively. They have a different style of lamp from the Northern section of Bank.

Here's what the street lamps looked like. They only decorative element were the retro Bank Street Promenade roundels. You'll note that the old posts were suspended on pyramidal bases. When the ground freezes and thaws, the sidewalks ride up and down the slanted surface, creating cracks when they settle back down.

The new streetlamp bases can be seen here lying just south of Somerset, awaiting installation. They are elliptical on the cross-section, but the sides are vertical. They have large bolts built in for attaching the street posts, and holes in the side connect to conduits coming through the middle for electrical connections. Some more concrete utility access ports are stacked behind them.

As mentioned in the previous post, Phase II of construction (Laurier to Somerset, mostly done in 2008) had separate installation for the pieces of sidewalk with and without lamppost bases. This allowed for views like this one, where we can see the connections under the sidewalk looking North from Lisgar. The photo was taken in late October 2008, when the Mondrian's podium was still under construction in the background.

South of Somerset, in Phase III, the sidewalks were constructed more continuously. In this shot (from the same day as the photos in front of Hartman's in the previous post), it's clear that the square of sidewalk with the lamppost is being installed at the same time as the other squares on the block.

As you can see above, they were pouring the sidewalk where the lamppost had already been installed on the West side of the street, in front of Hartman's. Across the street at the same time, they were installing the lamppost where the sidewalk had already been poured. This was at the end of this past August, as you can see by the nearly-completed Mondrian.

Here's a lamp in early September near Gilmour, shortly after installation. They had not yet been illuminated. There's something about the style of the lampposts that doesn't fit here, though. It's just too modern for the ornate buildings on this block.

Not that they're ugly. They make a decorative touch on the rest of Bank street, and the series of them creates a nice rhythm when you view them at the right angle. This shot is looking South along the East sidewalk from Gloucester.

Unfortunately, the hydro wires were only buried North of Gladstone, paid for by the Bank Street Business Improvement Association (BIA). South of Gladstone, there's no BIA to pay to bury the hydro wires, and the City didn't want to cover the cost, so wooden poles were kept for overhead hydro wires. As with on Preston Street, a variant of the street lamps were used to keep the rhythm of the lamps while using the wooden poles (having separate lampposts in addition to the hydro poles would have cluttered up the streetscape too much).

But the result is really really tacky. Here's one of them in front of the Metropolitan Bible Church building:

I was also surprised to see many of the old poles with the 50's Diner-style Bank Street Promenade roundels still up after much of the work was done. Particularly this one at Bank and Florence, where the sign was destroyed in the fire that consumed the building on the corner back in 2003. Surely they wouldn't leave that old frame up there?

There's another one here in front of Hackett Shoemakers at Frank Street. This view is from late April, before most of the work reached this part of Bank Street.

Not sure which one is Hackett? Maybe that's because its sign was obscured by this roundel, which is still there after the new lampposts were installed!

Now, a keen eye would note that the sidewalk squares with these old posts were not poured with concrete. That's because the posts were only kept long enough for the buried hydro wires to be installed and activated. When the posts and overhead wires were no longer needed, they were removed in late October/early November, greatly simplifying the streetscape (though one of those big ugly sign advertisement boxes was installed in front of the Watch Clinic). Note also that a Vietnamese place is opening up in the former Don Alfonso's restaurant. Vistek has also moved from this location, down to where the art supply store used to be at Argyle.

The new lamps create a great ambiance for Bank Street. I had to take a few versions of this photo to get the lighting right. But this photo (looking South from Gilmour) was taken at 9:30 pm and it's pretty dead--let's hope that when the street is re-opened Bank Street once again becomes a vibrant place to live, work, and shop all hours of the day.

Tune in in a couple days for Part III: Trees

Bank Street Phase III, Intro and part 1

Last year, I posted a single post on Phase II of the Bank Street reconstruction project, between Laurier West and Somerset West. This year, there's much more to post about: The new bike racks are up, and there are so many more blocks of construction to blog. I already blogged about the streetcar rail ties dug up from under Bank Street back in May.

While paring down last year's set was hard, I took many more photos of this year's work. In September, I selected the best photos, printed out thumbnails, and sorted them into groups over a cup of Earl Grey at Bridgehead:

Then I got busy, and by the time things had died down, I had taken many more photos that I wanted to incorporate into the series.

I've finally gotten around to sorting them out for posting. Click below to go to the relevant post:

• Part 1: Sidewalks (below)
• Part 2: Lights
• Part 3: Trees
• Part 4: Benches
• Part 5: Surfaces
• Part 6: Bike racks
• more to come....

Part 1: Sidewalks

Old sidewalks meet new on Bank near Catherine Street in this photo from last week. In the background is the Bank street Queensway underpass:

Here's a reminder of what the sidewalks looked like on Bank before the recent reconstruction. This shot looking South from Bank and Gloucester in front of the Tim Horton's shows a rather rather cluttered, claustrophobic, uncoordinated corner--and that's after they moved the newspaper boxes away shortly before this photos was taken in October 2007. Many intersections had an engraved stone block with the name of the intersecting street laid into the pavement. The one at this intersection had long been removed and filled in with asphalt. Another at Gladstone (photographed in this post) had been broken up through wear and tear.

Construction on Phase three of the five-phase Bank Street Reconstruction project began a year ago this week, with the removal of the sidewalk at the plagued South-East corner of Somerset and Bank.

Most of the other sidewalks down to Catherine survived until the majority of the utility work under the roads was complete. These squares of sidewalk in front of the James Street Pub were being delicately removed in late May.

Once the old sidewalks were removed and a bed of foundation gravel was laid at the right height, the new sidewalk was outlined with a guide rope suspended from a series of posts. In this mid-August photo at Bank and Gilmour, the bulbout outline is clearly visible, and guarded by yellow caution tape. The spool for the rope is visible in the foreground.

The wire is used to line up the wooden concrete forms, as shown here on Bank and MacLaren in front of the Quizno's restaurant. A gas-operated tamping machine is used to compress the gravel underneath to avoid damage to the sidewalk caused by settling.

On long, straight sections of sidewalk, they don't use wooden forms, but instead a curb-laying machine such as this one in front of the Rogers Plus store on Bank and Gilmour. It's faster, smoother, and more consistent. Eric Darwin has photos of one of these machines in use on Preston Street over at West Side Action.

Here's a closeup of the working end of the machine:

Here's the old sidewalk in front of Hartman's, looking South from Bank and Somerset. This was always a narrow block to walk down, especially where the Bank Street BIA's big black advertising box occupies a good portion of sidewalk real estate. (The old round Bank Street Promenade sign is also visible on the post in the foreground, and others are visible in the background in various rotations) This photo was taken in early December 2008.

During construction, the sidewalk had been removed. By mid-August, you can see some wooden stakes beginning to mark the new sidewalk outline on the other side of the Modu-Loc construction fence.

At the end of August, the curb was poured, and another tamping machine sits in this nighttime photo waiting to compress the gravel under the sidewalk to be poured.

Two days later, forms have been installed for the sidewalk, and a moving assembly line of Local 527 workers pour, level, and smoothen the sidewalk. The worker in the blue helmet is holding a paintbrush, which he's using to add a border around the street lamp.

And here's the finished sidewalk. The traveled portion of the new sidewalk is as wide as the entire old sidewalk, and there's an extra section for furniture to be installed. On the North half of the block, it's even wider. A new bus shelter was installed in the wider part of the sidewalk in the last couple days, which will be welcome to the many, many people who wait at that stop. Grooves increase traction at the intersection, and double as a guide for the visually-impaired.

I think the construction process was refined over last year (Bank will reopen two weeks ahead of schedule). For example, the section pictured in the photo below shows some squares of sidewalk yet to be poured in the Phase II part of the project between Laurier and Somerset. There's an earlier photo of that block in the aforementioned post from last year, showing just how many people walk through this block looking North from Gloucester:

These squares of sidewalk hold the foundations for the street lamps, and are reinforced with steel rebar. The sidewalk in front of Hartman's doesn't have rebar, and the squares with the lamps are poured at the same time as the rest of the sidewalk.

But the really peculiar thing with this stretch is that temporary wooden pole in the middle of the street!

Here's another peculiarity I spotted yesterday: six sewer grates are built into the sidewalk across from Lewis street. Six. One presumes a lot of water collects at this corner during storms. This in-curb design is great (pun unintended) for cyclists, because you don't have to swerve around them into traffic. Since they aren't in the asphalt portion of the street, cars don't run over them and break apart the surrounding asphalt, meaning they don't require repair nearly as often, meaning less patchwork of asphalt to be broken up. Sewer grates on the roadway make for vicious cycling.

All in all, the new sidewalks are much wider, fresher and cleaner than the old ones. Here's another old-and-new shot of the sidewalk in front of Herb & Spice at Bank and Lewis, December 2008:
And September 2009. Finally there will be room for adequate bike parking!

The Google Street View car went down Bank street in March, before most of the work was started. Pop a step or two down the cross-streets for a later view. While you're waiting two days for the next post, why don't you take a few minutes to check out what Bank Street used to look like on Google Street View, then take a stroll down Bank Street and notice the difference.

Tune in Tuesday for the Part II: Lights

Echo of a former house

In June 2008, I rode by this house on Echo drive which was undergoing some renovations. It's an unremarkable Victorian red-brick home built in 1924 with a green-shingled roof and third-storey dormer. As always, I took a photo and naively named the file "echo street porch reconstruction.jpg".

When I went by that August and the roof had been removed--along with chunks of brickwork along the front and sides--I realized this was no simple porch replacement. It may even be a demolition, I thought.

In mid-September the wooden framework behind the new front windows was removed. By mid-October, the interior had been gutted and a new structure was well underway. A projection, perhaps an awning, was installed on the top of the building above the door.

The projection grew through the middle of October into something more resembling a box at the third storey.

By mid-November, the box frame was more or less finished, and the walls around the remainder of the house was raised to create what would become a rooftop terrace. One of the utility lines along the side of the house near the front was also removed.

In late November, a temporary railing was installed on top of the box, presumably for the safety of workers. A number of bricks are missing near the former window along the window on this side of the house, exposing the house's wooden frame.

Though it's Winter and snow is on the ground at the end of December, the front of the box is left open. White vapor barrier plastic was installed on the exposed wood parts of the third-storey box. New windows have been installed along the front of the building, as well as on the sides of the opening at the front of the box. From this angle, you can see that the bricks on the front of the house had been painted red, except for the ones behind the former porch.

In January, the Rideau Canal Skateway opened, providing another vantage point to view the construction. Here's a shot from the canal, with a full moon in the background (the same full moon from the third and fourth shots in Rideau Canal: The Limit"). It turns out that there's a squirrel nest in the tree. As for the house, windows have been installed on the front of the third-storey box.

Without its green hat, the house got cold, so it put on a jacket in early February 2009. Actually, this orange tarp is to provide cover as masons to reinstall brick along the front of the house. They had just finished doing the same along the side of the house.

Despite the chills of February, the brickwork on the front of the house was finished in under a month, covering up the scars:

Here's a closer view in April. It's pretty clear which bricks were undisturbed and which had been reinstalled. There's some sort of flat box structure protruding from the side of the house. You can also see the new front door; the steps are temporary.

Here's a view from the other side, which you can still see since the wonderful large tree has not yet brought out its leaves for the season.

Here's the view of the house as you come up Colonel By Drive. I wonder if the NCC can be coaxed to install more trees on that escarpment...

By June, the exterior of the third storey box was complete, though I still expected (hoped) that more work would be done on it. There are also two paint swatches on the face of the house at lower left, which I didn't notice at the time I took the photo. A pair of signs advertise the architects.

Kariouk Architecture, and G.M. French Construction Co. Ltd. (Links at the end of the post).

When I came back in October 2009 to check up on the house, I was rather shocked by the end result: it had been painted black. Having looked at it for so long, I now have difficulty looking at this ultra-modern building without seeing the red-brick house buried underneath. The front lawn was built up to avoid the need for steps to the front door (I guess the design motif is to avoid embellishments like a porch, patio, or balconies)

Here's that great old tree in full foliage.

Can you teach an old house new tricks? According to Kariouk Architecture, you can.

Be sure to check out the photos of the interior of the house on the architects' project page for "Echo House". The ultra-modern exterior looks old hat compared to the inside, which features a giant two-storey open area with modular living/work spaces designed specifically for the residents' needs (be sure to check out the analysis of the dog's living requirements--the architects have a good sense of humour). Come to think of it, the interior's modular design reminds me of the Ottawa Public Library's main branch, which is decidedly unpractical and inaccessible for public use. Maybe it works at a smaller scale.

The architects' website has a few photos of the construction as well, including this shot of the view from the master bedroom, which is at the front of the third-storey cube.

Here's a before-and-after side by side:

Whether this building is a creative adaptive use of an old home, or a black spot on a picturesque drive, is up to the beholder. The interior is certainly cutting-edge, and in terms of size the house overwhelms neither its neighbours, nor its former incarnation.

Not that this is necessarily one, but there is a trend, however, to build big, ugly houses in heritage neighbourhoods. Ironically, these new residents have a great view of the heritage homes surrounding them, but their out-of-place dwellings spoil the view for their neighbours who live in the houses that give the area its cherished heritage character.

- RG>