480 Somerset West

I know, I know — it looks lopsided as hell. That's what I get for trying to center a symmetric building that has an asymmetric element tacked on to one side, as they both sit on a gentle slope rising toward Nanny Goat Hill. Live and learn...

There are still a few of the original brick houses on this stretch of Somerset, so this building sticks out nicely. Institutional from the get-go, #480 demonstrates how a coat of paint and some colour-coordinated trim can make a cinder-block box look like a converted Kingdom Hall. Sadly (or not) the low-relief door and window treatments recede under that wash of ecru.

So, if not a house, what then? An office now, obviously — that Co-operators sign looks like it came with the place though we know it didn't. Surrounded by narrow, single-family houses, 480's flat roof and basement-stairway enclosure show up clearly on geoOttawa's 1958 aerial photo. The width of the lot makes me wonder if 480 replaced two old houses, but Goad 1912 (sheet 55 block 373) shows a "contractor's yard" with wooden sheds and empty space between houses 474 and 490.

Ottawa's Golden Age of Cinder-Block was a post-WWII phenomenon, so that gives us a 13 year window of likely construction, from war's end in '45 to the aerial photo-op of '58 — Can we hone that date? Time to hit the newspapers...

...and we hit pay dirt with an Ottawa Journal article from the summer of 1948.

Later mentions cite the "No. 2 Health Centre" as one of four built around the same time, in response to the post-war baby boom.

A January 1954 Journal spread (and a great excuse for half a page spread of cute baby photos) describes an afternoon's DPT vaccination clinic at #480 while a piece from '58 mentions a "Salk vaccine" (polio jab) clinic. When it opened, #2 Health Centre was in the vanguard of community walk-ins designed to ease the burden on emergency rooms — by the 1970s it was focused (with a certain irony) on family planning, viz a bizarre October 6 1971 article opening with this jaw-dropper, emphasis mine...

"Parents protesting a lack of day-care facilities in Centre Town Tuesday were told "this is a family planning clinic — if you'd come here before, you wouldn't have this problem."[ouch!]

The problem was 11 infants and children and their parents who camped in the basement of the Ottawa-Carleton Regional Health Unit office at 480 Somerset Street West Tuesday for 10 hours.

The protesters, members of the year-old Bronson area day-care co-operative said that they would remain in the basement until either their demands [adequate daycare in a permanent location] were met or they were removed bodily..." — Sandra Woods, Ottawa Journal

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where our heads were at in the '70s. The Journal indicates that #480 continued as a clinic until at least 1979 (the daily ceased publication in 1980), after which date I sort of loose interest — although the row houses to the west are worth looking at. I remember Octopus Books and later(?) Thuna health food store, which moved and morphed into Herb & Spice. I retain a mental picture of a young Jeff Sugarman standing shirtless in the doorway, telling two (female) Jehovah's Witnesses (regarding religion) that "my body is my temple". Okay, you had to be there ;-)

424 Lisgar Street

424 Lisgar sits on the south side of the street, a block and a half west of Bank. I'm not a fan of painted brick but sometimes it makes you stop and look, and take a picture as I did, heading home from Massine's YIG. The pair of trees (maples? should have looked at the leaves) largely hide this building in summer — here, their bare branches emphasize its bilateral symmetry.

The foundation — real masonry by the looks of it — tends to put construction before 1910 while the mass, symmetry and lack of fussy brickwork look post-1900. We have evidence that the mansarded third floor is an add-on, and surely the cinder-block porch and iron balconies replace wooden originals.

#424 seems to have been a walk-up apartment for much of its life, though how it got its start is a bit murky. My copy of Goad 1888 (sheet 55, block 300) bears a glued-on bit from 1891 showing a squarish foundation (reassuringly labled "foundation") with a smaller, squarish rear extension. The lot bears the alternate address of #78, since abandoned, indicating a previous numbering scheme that may have commenced at Bank Street rather than by the Rideau Canal as it does today.

Goad 1888 amended '91, note #78 between 418 and 434

The Might Directory for 1901 lists an unfinished building next to a vacant lot. Neither are numbered, either would date completion to after Victoria's death in January of that year, though as we have seen, someone had ideas about at least ten years previous.

Might 1909 lists four tenants. Three years later, Goad 1912 depicts the two-storey, brick-on-wood "Lisgar Apartments" with a flat roof and rear light-well, in keeping with a four unit building, though without the rear extension shown in the 1891 drawing. And yet, that same year Might lists only one occupant, a Miss Ruby E. Legendre. This makes my head hurt.

#78 renumbered, the two-storey "Lisgar Apartments" — note the light-well

Ruby is still alone the next year. Then, from 1914 to 1916 Might lists the six unit "Camille Apartments" with Mrs. Letitia Legendre (Ruby's widowed mom most likely) living in unit 1. Does this mean that the third floor was added between 1912 and 1914 or was the Camille stowing two extra tenants in the basement? I have no idea.

Nor did I find much about the Legendres, apart from the fact that Ruby and her sister Jessie were active in the YWCA circa 1900 and participated in that organization's "Band of Hope". Ruby sang and Jessie played piano and organ. Musical training suggests there was some money in the family, though I can't identify the father with any certainty. I do have reason to believe (public school mentions) that Ruby was in her early 20s by the time she lived at #424 in 1912 and '13. My tentative theory is that Mr. Legendre had planned a family home at the address. Construction was halted by his death until Mrs. Legendre, with the help of her young adult daughters, reconfigured the plan as an income property. But of course, this is guesswork.

The six-unit Camille appears in Might at least as late as 1928 — I have no records for 1929 to 1940. During WWII and for some years after, rooms were often rented out within apartments as was common practice. I'm guessing that the porch/balcony treatment dates to the 1950s.

One oddity — I haven't been behind the building in person, but Google seems not to show the rear light-well indentation from Goad 1912. If it were me, I would have filled it in when I added the third floor.

388 Albert Street

The Albert/Lyon/Slater/Bay block (#261 per Goad, sheet 44) was roughly half built-upon by 1878 — with small-to-medium houses, most of wood, a few brick-on-wood. The original #388 was a wooden one-and-a-half, almost certainly front-gabled. It had a rear summer kitchen with rear sheds attached. Ten years later Goad would depict the same house as a two-storey, with sheds reaching back to the rear property line.

By 1912, Goad shows the house in its present configuration — a two-and-a-half-storey gambrel with a two-storey front bay window and two-storey flat-roofed rear extension, all brick-veneered. The boxy front room is a later, cringe-worthy add-on. It's likely that the present house incorporates the original 19th Century structure.

The A.S. Woodburn Directory for 1875 (pg. 19) notes "Sparks George, laborer" at this address — was he related to Nicholas? By 1884, Woodburn lists "Sparks Abraham, of Sparks & Edey, carpenters and builders". They sound like they could do renos.

The 1875 date gives the house (in whatever form) an occupancy history of at least 143 years. It's now one of only three buildings (all domestic) left on an otherwise empty block. Like they say, "Watch this space" — it just might do tricks.

See Good Eats here.

Oh Hey, it's Another Map

With my left foot on the mend I've finally been able to scope out the neighbourhood in person. And with a fresh Borg implant in my right eye I can actually make out the contour lines on geoOttawa's interactive map of the city — hence the following...

This map covers much of same area as Goad's did in the previous post. The brown contour lines are calibrated in metres above sea level (ASL) — all contours, including the light brown "minor" lines, are two metres apart. As always, click on the image to view large.

You can see two yellow patches on the map. They don't exactly match the yellow areas on Goad's map but they are related. The lower patch is that part of Nanny Goat Hill which rises beyond 80 metres ASL.  The upper patch is Parliament Hill, where the elevation reaches the 80 metre mark just north of Wellington Street — think of the embankments directly behind the stone and iron fence. Three minor contours looping across the Parliamentary front lawn confirm that the Centre Block is built on an 86 metre ASL plateau. No other ground on this map reaches, let alone exceeds an 80 metre elevation.*

The red triangle demarks this walker's subjective impression of all that is NGH, its shape roughly echoing the "yellow tongue" we saw in the last post. The lower right corner of this triangle sits  at the northwest corner of Dundonald Park, where a gentle rise that began near Bank Street flattens off noticeably. The top corner, as we've already seen, sits at the junction of Bronson and Laurier Avenues. On the west... well, that cliff is hard to ignore. And as to the bottom left corner, things do start to drop away somewhat around Empress and Arthur — by the time you reach Somerset and Booth, it's all downhill with a vengeance.

Oh, and I think I figured out where that "Nanny Goat Hill" restaurant whatever thing used to be, back in the '70s — it looked bigger back then.

*For a list of significant Ottawa elevations, check out Wikipedia here.

Before the Bowery

The Bowery, promotional image via Richcraft

Less than a week after I moved into my new apartment, a flyer landed in my mailbox suggesting that I move again, into a newer, larger and more prestigious building. Prestigious, edgy, hip, whatever — what is one to make of a condo tower named after one of New York City's most notorious skid rows, lately gentrified? I checked out the flyer (which included the above rendering), noted the floor-to-ceiling windows (I'll bet the view is awesome) and realised that I could move in immediately if I withheld condo fees and stopped eating.

The Bowery (from Frisian/Dutch bouwerij = a building) by Richcraft — "NYC come to Ottawa" — sits at 255 Bay Street, facing west. Its somewhat T-shaped footprint straddles the block between Gloucester and Nepean Streets. I first noticed the site excavation in the spring of 2015 as I cycled past en route to Tech Wall. Construction was well under way the following year.

Architect's renderings like the one above can be forgiven some license when they portray a building's surroundings. In this case, a bit of adjoining built heritage has been glossed over. Notice the shrubby trees tucked into the indent at the base of the tower. A similar clump is hinted at on the far side of the tower's main entrance. Neither planting exists, but something older has been preserved in their stead.

Here's a photo of the southeast corner of Bay and Gloucester, followed by the northeast corner of Bay and Nepean.

Bayscorner Grocery, 245 Bay St.

Ricardo's Pizza, 267 Bay St.

Cosmetic details aside, they're like peas at either end of the same pod. Were these two stores built at the same time? Were they the first permanent structures on this piece of land? And were they both purpose-built as "corner" stores?* Let's see what the records have to say.

*     *     *

The earliest Goad Maps at my disposal appear to date from 1878 — or at least a sheaf of undated individual sheets have been tipped into a folder labeled "1878". The block bounded by Bay, Gloucester, Nepean and Lyon (then "Sally"**) is found on sheet #42. As of the assumed date, Goad shows the block halfway built-up with simple houses, a mix of singles, doubles and rows, some of wood, some of brick, and a few brick-on-woods. One-and-a-half and two-storey construction is the norm. A few houses have simple front verandahs, most have summer kitchens out back, and beyond that, a tangle of wooden stables and sheds. I see none of the Victorian turrets, conservatories and cross-gables that would signal wealth or prestige. Those houses were built further north and closer to the cliffs. If you view this image at full size, you can just make out the widths of the pine sidewalks, five and eight feet.

The block under discussion is #264, directly above the word "Bay

Neither store has been built yet. Nor indeed have many of the houses. Notice the square wooden shed at the corner of Gloucester and Bay — the eventual home of Bayscorner. The numerous, small orange/yellow houses on this plan were also made of wood, while brickwork is shown in red. Notice St. Patrick's Irish Catholic Church (extant, completed 1875), built of stone in block #255 facing onto Kent. The associated orphanage (block #254) was also built by 1878, as was the Catholic school (evidently rebuilt, currently St. Patrick's adult school, ESL and computer). The orphanage grounds are now the site of Centennial Towers at 200 Kent, a 15-storey glass box with a cruciform footprint, built in 1965 — I'm sure it was the cat's meow at the time.

My next set of records date to 1912. Here's Goad again, this time with a closeup of block #264.

Infill is denser and sheds, if anything, more rife. The Bay/Nepean shed has been replaces by a small one, set back from the roads. Houses have been built on Bay, constructed of wood with brick veneer. The present building at the corner of Bay and Nepean shows up here, making it over 100 years old. I have to believe that its twin across the block showed up shortly thereafter. The building at Nepean displays a signature angled doorway, suggesting to me that it was purpose build as a storefront — a drugstore in this case. The street numbering suggests an apartment above the store and a second address (2 storey) in the rear (?), facing on Bay.

The Might Ottawa city directory for the same year lists this strip of Bay Street thus...

So, we know that Clarence H. Lewis was our druggist and that #s 249, 251 and 259 were occupied. Directly across Nepean a Mrs. Rose Ventura sold fruit, while across Gloucester, a nameless Chinese person or persons plied the laundry trade. It's noteworthy that Mrs. Ventura (likely a widow) warranted a listing by name despite her gender and probable Mediterranian heritage while the "Chinese" was reduced to an adjective and a function.

Might 1914 lists druggist Lewis as having moved to 245-'47 Bay so yes, the Bayscorner building was built within two years of its Nepean Street twin. The nameless Chinese were still washing clothes on the north side of Gloucester and Mrs. Ventura still sold fruit south of Nepean. The following year another Chinese laundry had taken over the original drugstore location at 267 Bay — the older laundry at 239 was apparently still in business.

FF to the present, Bayscorner could making a killing on those Bowery residents if they play their cards right. As for Ricardo's pizza, I don't know how long they've been in business, but sitting right next to a new condo tower can't be all bad, can it? And what's not to love about their green pepper, mushroom and onion mascot?

*Almost, yes-ish, and probably.
**Possibly Sarah "Sally" Olmstead, wife of Nicholas Sparks, widow of Philemon Wright Jr.

An Old Yellow Tongue

...seen sticking up lewdly from the bottom left.

This is part of a map prepared by Charles E. Goad for his 1878 Ottawa Insurance Plans. Unlike his detailed "Goad Maps" which portray individual buildings, it's a contour map, great for spotting stuff like hills, our current obsession. Let's get oriented...

The signature footprints of the Parliament buildings are hard to miss. Of course, the Centre Block shown here was destroyed by fire in February, 1916 and replaced over the following decade. Only the Parliamentary Library (the round part overlooking the cliff) remains from that original structure.

Though I've cropped this map to focus on Ottawa west of the Rideau Canal, two features along that rudely clipped right margin are notable. The vacant plot east of Elgin Street and south of Laurier Avenue (here called "Maria") is Cartier Square, where the Drill Hall would be built a year after his map was prepared. The marching field to the west of that building is now the City Hall campus.

One block north of Cartier Square, a small watery-blue finger pokes into the image. This was the western half of a turning basin carved into the Rideau Canal to accommodate the larger boats carrying cargo to warehouses and coal bins on what is now the National Arts Centre property. This artificial pond extended from  the northeast corner of now-Confederation Park, across the Canal into the now-Shaw Centre conference halls. When the Canal was first built, this area was a swampy "beaver meadow". Indeed, early military engineers toyed with the idea of turning the land now occupied by Confederation Park and the Lord Elgin Hotel into a reservoir — this was well before anyone though that "Fort" Bytown might grow into a city of any size.

The southern and western edges of the map are as Goad intended. Neither edge corresponds with Ottawa's city limits at the time and each discrepancy tells it's own story.

When Charles Goad prepared this set of maps, Ottawa (officially) extended as far south as Gladstone Avenue (then called "Ann"). Goad chose to cut things off well north of that, at Lisgar Street. Ottawa's "suburban" development would soon reach south, across Stewarton and into the Glebe, but as of 1878 this was waste ground with marshy tendencies, ill-suited to cultivation and sparsely populated. By whatever agreement between Goad and the City Fathers, these fields were deemed not yet worth documenting.

Contrast this with Goad's western boundary, where rail lines serviced the lumber mills of the Chaudiere Islands and spurred the growth of LeBreton Flats, Mount Sherwood, and Rochesterville. These developments, paired with a dynamic topology, compelled Goad to extend his map past the then city limit of Bronson Avenue (formerly the "Concession Road").  Where is this Concession Road on our map?  It runs northward through the yellow, tongue-shaped feature jutting up from the bottom-left. And whose yellow tongue is that? It's the Nanny Goat's, stuck half-in and half-out of then-Ottawa.

*     *     *

With its festive hues, one would expect a colour key to accompany this map but such is not the case — perhaps Goad anticipated later black & white reproductions? Instead, we are told the following...

Contour lines 70', 85', 100', 115', 130' and 145' above datum  (lowest sill at the Rideau Canal locks)

That is to say that there's an interval of 15 feet (4.6 metres) of elevation between contours, where the reference point ("datum") is 0 feet at the sill of the canal's lowest lock on the shore of the Ottawa River. And if you squint really hard, you can just make out those elevations, scrunched up against their respective contours. Let's use the yellow areas to compare Nanny Goat Hill with another feature we all know well.

We aren't helped by Goad's draftsman's ones, which look like his fours, nor his threes resembling his fives. Still, some head-twisting (and squinting) confirm that the Nanny Goat formation sits at 130 feet above datum, at no point rising above 145 feet. Compare this flattened, yellow acreage with Parliament Hill — whose tight contours describe a lop-sided but distinct cone, surging up toward the Centre Block.

We tend to think of Parliament Hill as something that happens north of Wellington Street, but Goad's map reminds us of its true extent and of its roundness. Emerging from the valley levels of Laurier West and Slater, the hill rises toward a gentle southeast flank (pale blue), where construction (the LRT) and gas-line installation (a certain fashionable restaurant) still unearth skeletons left over from Bytown's first boneyard.

Climbing higher, a patch of yellow tells us that the Parliamentary front lawn matches the elevation of the Nanny Goat plateau, as it partly encircles an eggshell-coloured table-land, this last rising above 145 feet and creating a dais for the Centre Block.

Goad saw no reason to extend his 1878 maps as far as Somerset Street, but as Centretowners know, the ground south of that roadway falls off quite sharply. The old cartographer  has drawn (most of) the Nanny Goat's triangular mesa, sitting at a not-insignificant elevation of between 130 and 145 feet and matching that of the Parliamentary lawn. We should note that Goad depicts this elevation as exceeding that of Sparks/Bronson cliff, Nepean Point and Rideau Falls. The Nanny Goat was not a hill to be sneezed at.

That which isn't

Look into the void.

This post finds me well-installed in my new digs, with one leg sadly propped on my desk à la Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window thanks to a crippling attack of gout. For the time being, my computer will have to stand in for Stewart's honking big telephoto lens as I explore my new surroundings from the confines of my apartment, Thus availed with long hours to over-think the whens and wheres of Nanny Goat Hill, a perhaps odd plan occurs to me.

Fans of CSI and Dexter will easily pick out the "void" on the left side of the (obviously staged) blood-spatter field in the above photo. The blood "shadow" bears the clear outline of a sturdy hunting knife, since removed from the scene — a telling piece of negative evidence, as it were.

So. what if we could infer the boundaries of Nanny Goat Hill by delineating that which it isn't — a "Nanny Goat Void"? For example, if NGH lies immediately to the west of the downtown core (which apparently it does) then we can arguably set the eastern edge of NGH alongside the core's western edge. We've already somewhat established that NGH lies around an axis running from Bronson at Somerset, north to Bronson at Laurier. By identifying all the neighbourhoods surrounding this strip of land, we should be able to delineate a void in their midst and that void, roughly, will be Nanny Goat Hill.

Of course, this plan is iffy from the get-go. Neighbourhoods come and go — sometimes they overlap or even sit one inside the other. Nor are they always carved in geopolitical stone. Some boundaries are more obvious than others — Downtown is definitely south of the Ottawa River just as Overbrook certainly looks like it's north of the Queensway. A neighbourhood may be a designated "study area" or part of a business improvement zone, but neither necessarily respects local, traditional borders.

No matter,  let's give this a shot, starting with our aforementioned downtown core. Ottawa's version of a finance and admin district. Wikipedia may not be the final word in all things but it can be a good place to gather (indeed shape) consensus. Here we are told that Ottawa's finance-and-admin district is bounded by the Ottawa River, the Rideau Canal, Gloucester Street and Bronson Avenue.

Ouch. If the core extends as far west as Bronson, does it shoulder Nanny Goat Hill right up against the cliff in Dow's drawing (see previous post)? I've always thought of Bank Street as the core's western edge, given how much of the property past Bank was once residential. Or is that just me living in the past? Of course, we must concede that the core has expanded westward. Still, I'd like to suggest a compromise boundary somewhere between Percy Street and Bay Street. Bay in particular marks much of the current transition from hotels and offices on its east side, to a burgeoning forest of apartment towers beyond. And Percy has some intriguing topology worth checking out.

Chinatown offers NHG a clear and convenient southern boundary — as long as we define Chinatown strictly as a Somerset Street business district rather than a somewhat more nebulous "ethnic" neighbourhood. And while we're talking about hills, notice how all the land south of this Chinatown strip slopes predictably downward — something else for us to get back to.

Heading west, Chinatown abuts Little Italy, which extends north along Preston Street, from Carling Avenue towards LeBreton Flats reaching into the very shadow of Nanny Goat's cliffs. When I first moved away from home, some school-friends and I shared an apartment just north of Somerset at 80 Spruce Street (#2, where for one glorious winter, sex, LSD and Ouija boards reigned supreme). Our building sat near the bottom of a steep climb running from Preston Street uphill to Rochester, then Booth... and beyond, to the edge of a plateau. That plateau (or a part thereof) features the old St. Vincent Hospital at Cambridge North and Primrose. The hospital itself overlooks a cliff that's contiguous with Dow's Nanny Goat Cliff. Surely this modest acreage must be part of NGH.

So far our map of NGH features a question mark to the east, Somerset Street to the south and a jagged escarpment to the west. But any hope for our "if not this then that" criterion falls flat as we turn northward.

Abutting the Ottawa River, the Supreme Court /LAC grounds north of Wellington were the site of Upper Town, Bytown's original posh-toff enclave. Well-removed from the Lower Town rabble east of the Canal, the cliff-side portion of Upper Town nevertheless became the first Ottawa neighbourhood to suffer wholesale obliteration at the hands of the Feds as the "Parliamentary Precinct" expanded westward.

The land immediately south of Wellington slopes down from Parliament Hill, and again from a proud outcrop at the west end of Sparks Street. We can sense the drama of this arrangement by walking south along Bronson from Sparks, descending a steep bank until we reach the corner of Slater. Ahead of us looms the "Techwall" graffiti wall. Behind this concrete retaining structure, the northern tip of a great Centretown plateau rises along the western end of Laurier Avenue.

This NGH thing is starting to come together — in the shape of a flat-topped hill.

Jimmy Stewart is eager to explore his neighbour(hood).

Caprice

The Ottawa Journal,  February 24 1971

This whimsical drawing of a boy climbing Nanny Goat is the work of "Dow", who was for many years the in-house go-to illustrator at The Ottawa Journal. I was introduced to him by a friend with a Yorkshire accent, which led me to misunderstand that "Del" was a cartoonist at the Journal in addition to the man who signed his work "Dow". But no, there was no Del, just Dow.

I can't find any biographical notes on the man and somehow I'm not surprised. Dow (I never learned his real name) was not a prized ornament at social gatherings. Pale-skinned and scrawny, he looked to be past his best-before date by the time we met. His gaze was furtive, his gait a hunched scurry. Long, thinning (once blond?) hair framed a bespectacled face dominated by a nose so distorted and bulbous (rosacea?) that even the charitable viewer would wonder "Can't they can just cut the damned thing off?" I can picture him climbing aboard a Bank Street bus wearing a grimy trench-coat, though this last detail may be a false memory.

Appearance notwithstanding. Dow was a gift to the Journal and to the people of Ottawa. Almost every day one, sometimes two of his drawings would give pause and make thousands of us smile. Dow wasn't interested in skewering politicians, or anyone for that matter. His subjects were most often local "human interest" stories. Dow was sharp observer of people — his quick, sure lines rendered his characters with kindness and affection, often mid-gesture. Shoulders would pivot, glances were bewildered, smiles knowing —  children ran and cars screeched, objects flew through the air. Dow's little pictures always drew the reader's eye to whatever story he'd been asked to illustrate. And after you'd read the story, you would always go back to his drawing and nod. And like I said, smile.

The above drawing (taken from the Journal's "Be Heard" feature) illustrates the ideas that 1) there were indeed goats on the hill and that 2) the area's northwestern escarpment was and is a climb best left the young and the athletic, or to goats. Regarding item #1, anyone who has seen John Taylor's Ottawa, An Illustrated History will remember the lovely period watercolor he chose for the cover. It shows several head of cattle being driven past Parliament Hill and toward the Dufferin Bridge on their way to the Byward Market. If we once had cattle on the east end of Wellington Street, goats on the west end shouldn't surprise us.

Unlike so many of Ottawa's place names therefore, "Nanny Goat Hill" recognises neither royalty nor  peerage nor community prominence. It simply recalls a farm animal scampering up and down a cliff.

*     *     *

I first met with the "Nanny Goat Hill" name some time in the mid-to-late 1970s. This was when Sunday brunch was still considered a cutting-edge fashion statement, a see-and-be-seen affair — eggs Benedict, croissants and fruit salad, servers scurrying to refill bottomless café au lait, mimosas and, for the truly piss-elegant, a Kir Royale or two.

Every so often, the in crowd would decamp en masse to the next hot venue. This migration typically played out over three weekends. The avant garde would sniff out the new bistro or whatever on the first Sunday, the Beautiful People would flock to it on the second, and the sad-sack wannabes would trickle in on the third.

It was in the prelude to one such hejira that a friend and brunch avant-gardiste invited me to tag along and sample the Sunday scene at a new restaurant... something something Nanny Goat Hill something whatever. The eatery had opened in a newly completed commercial building on the north side of Somerset, not far from Bronson (a bit west of, I think) and set on an actual slope. I can't find the building any more. Did it burn down? At any rate, my friend judged the food, the decor and the clientele to be blandness incarnate and not worth a second visit. I had to agree.

Not long afterward, a handful of us were invited to what became known as "Stephanie's Human Curry Luncheon" at her townhouse just off Island Park Drive (a peculiar story for another time). Well settled in at a long teak table, we looked forward to our main course, getting rather too sloshed on Beaujolais Noveau as the early winter sun streamed into the dining room. Someone mentioned "that Nanny Goat Hill restaurant" — "Why yes, we've been there" my friend piped up. flashing me an eager smile, "and trust me, don't bother!" Conversation turned to the restaurant's peculiar name as Stephanie wafted into the room, uncorking a crisp Chardonnay ("to sober us up") and pointed out that "it's a real name. The hill. It's called that." Which, frankly, was more than anyone else present that day could offer.

If this anecdote seems as pointless as it is gratuitous. well that's my point. Between Dow's drawing of a cliff, the position of the Nanny Goat Hill Community Garden at the corner of Bronson and Laurier, and that of an erstwhile restaurant on Somerset Street, the whereabouts of our neighbourhood is drifting into focus.

On the other hand,  the conversation at Stephanie's luncheon demonstrates that compared to, say Rockcliffe or Barrhaven or even Old Ottawa East, most Ottawans had/have little idea of what a Nanny Goat Hill is, nor as the francos among us might say, ce que ça mange en hiver. Well, we have all winter to find out.

Rise and Fall and Rise

In Advance of the Broken Skull — date, artist unknown

For many us, the word "hill" calls up the image of a roughly conical land-form, like a mountain but smaller. Or a breast, but larger. It might be topped with blueberry bushes, possibly interspersed with thrills. Or we could think of something to be climbed, both and down — a more subjective, functional definition. Our illustration does a fair job of wedding the two, even as some of us wonder why anyone would dig a well at the top of a hill.

In time, we'll encounter settings in which people do dig well on top of hills, or on hillsides. Nonetheless, some authors argue that the first line of Jack and Jill  subverts the expectation of finding water at the bottom of a hill to signal its young audience that they are being told a nonsense story, an airy froth in which a little boy can crack his skull open on a rock, then run home to be healed with no more than a bandage of brown paper soaked in malt vinegar.

On first hearing that Ottawa has a "Nanny Goat Hill", many people will forgivably picture a cartoon hill, topped not by a well, or by berry-bushes, but by a grass-munching goat, her udder close to bursting with milk soon to be turned into rounds of cheese, each bearing a label with a picture of a cartoon hill, topped not by a well...

Nanny Goat Hill is no such thing. If there was a goat, she's long gone. Nor is there a cartoon cone with a pinnacle to which one can confidently point and say "there a goat once stood, her udder close to bursting...".

But if the measure of a hill is in the climb, try walking (or cycling) up Somerset Street West, from Little Italy, up through Chinatown to Bronson Avenue. And should a cliff be your criterion, consider the limestone escarpment overlooking LeBreton Flats. Fall off that and no amount of brown paper or vinegar will goat-herd your brains back into your skull.

What are we to make of this "hill" sans peak, sans goat, with half of its flanks unaccounted for? It has no Wikipedia entry and its name only appears on Google Maps appended to a vest-pocket community garden at the west end of Laurier Avenue. Historically, newspapers hardly mention it. And still, it's a thing...

...une chose

Two Small Things

Deux choses...

"So." — as everyone has taken to saying before saying anything worth saying — this is a blog about the history and geography of a small, loosely defined Ottawa neighbourhood, affectionately named "Nanny Goat Hill". There are two things you should know about that which follows.

Thing One: After some twenty-two years, I'm moving from my apartment in Ottawa's "Golden Triangle" to one just west of the downtown core, close to if not actually within the bounds of said  Hill — a loosely defined place, as I was saying. I look forward to learning as much  as I can about my new home-base and I might as well share my findings with the handful of people who care about such things.

Thing Two: I've lately become obsessed with photographing houses. I hope to include many such pictures in this blog, but over the past summer I've gone more or less blind, this thanks to a matched pair of very agressive cataracts. Surgery is scheduled for this winter, so here's looking forward to looking forward again.

D. Chouinard