More Street-Art Finds

Nagle House, 77 Gloucester

A City of Ottawa plaque next to the front door of 77 Gloucester Street dates this house to 1872 and reads...

NAGLE HOUSE

Thought to be the oldest house in Centretown, 

this house was built for Richard Nagle,

a successful dealer in timber limits.

Some six years after its purported date of construction, Goad (sheet 37, block 224) depicted the house as part of a neighbourhood being built up for the first time.

after Charles Goad, 1878

Goad showed "77-79" as a solid brick building with a square footprint, projecting front entrance bay, brick rear summer-kitchen and attached rear sheds including a stable. Goad's "2" indicates a 2-storey house, though by 1888 he'd be calling it a two-and-a-half. The 77-79 numbering seemed to have been a function of lot numbers and not any indication of a duplex. Again, by 1888, Goad had struck off the 79, leaving only the 77.

Notice the sizeable vacant lot to the east of the Nagle House. This would soon be occupied by St. George's Anglican Church (now St. Peter and St. Paul's, 152 Metcalfe). You can see part of the church in the photo at the top of this post. Although the house is older, the church looks much older, thanks to an adherence to revival architecture (notably neo-Gothic) which prevailed in Ottawa (as elsewhere) well into the early 20th century. After that, modernism (think First Church of Springfield on the Simpsons) became the rule.

Directly cross Metcalfe, more vacancies straddle the block. These will soon be taken up by the YWCA on the north corner and the "Raquet Court" Dance Academy to the south. The latter would eventually be replaced by the (now defunct) London Arms Apartments (remember, "Maria" is now Laurier West).

As to Richard Nagle, the man — what would we do without obituaries? This notice appeared in the Ottawa Evening Journal on November 30 1896.

 

"[H]e was withal manly and straightforward" — thus is posterity well-served. Personality aside, we learn some salient facts about Mr. Nagle —  of his career in the timber trade, his sideline as a hotelier, and his association by marriage to the Friel family. "Still under seventy" suggests a birth-date in the 1820s, though we're not told where.

One detail mentioned in this piece brings us back to the Nagle House plaque. Having learned the timber trade from the forest floor up, we're told that "... it was not in this line that he made the greater portion of the considerable fortune he died possessed of, but in buying and selling limits, in which branch of business, many fortunes have during the last twenty years been made." Or as the plaque more simply states, he was "a successful dealer in timber limits."

"Timber limits" are a function of the fact that the timber barons of old didn't typically own the land they logged on. Rather these were "Crown Lands" for which "limits" or harvesting rights were granted. The excellent website "Outaouais' Forest History" explains the idea thus...

The system of timber limits of public forests was very old. It went back to the mid-19th century. Holding a timber limit granted the right to harvest the timber that grows within the limit, subject to the payment of premiums and stumpage fees and the discharge of certain obligations to ensure the sustainability of the resource. The revenues from the timber limits were the most important source of income for the Government of Quebec in the 19th century. In the second half of the 20th century, 151 limit holders controlled over 215 000 km2 of forest area in Quebec. This was an area equal to more than one and a half times that of England. In the Outaouais, 20 companies had such rights on public forests.

Or more simply...

timber limit noun (Canadian)
1. the area to which rights of cutting timber, granted by government licence, are limited.
(Collins English Dictionary)

...gotta love those Canadian nouns, eh?

The upshot being that while Nagle may have known the timber trade like the back of his hand, in the end, he made his money trading logging rights.

Cinder Block and Stucco

Like oil and water — not a question of if, but when.

O.G. Whatahole

Excavation at 70 Gloucester, February 2018

Something Claridge this way comes. Behind the hole, #s 160 and 162 Metcalfe — neither original to the site but both over 100 years old. We'll starting hearing more about this one soon enough.

Kent and Nepean

Kent Place, 225 Kent Street Ottawa

Kent Place was built in 1938 and went rental in September of that year. At that time it was called The Courtland Arms*, and would be known as such until well into the '80s. I don't know why the name changed but I do know that someone didn't center those letters properly.  The building comprises some sixteen units at the time of writing.

The Courtland is a decent example of an Ottawa pre-WWII** walk-up, though not as elegant or forward-looking as some — neither a lion couchant like Elgin Street's Kenniston of thirty years previous, nor a deco darling like its late '30s contemporary, the Park Square (again on Elgin). The main entrances quoining certainly yearns more for the past looking to than the future, while the main entrance's cornice-and-brackets are so flattened one can't be sure which one is holding the other in place — if nothing else, they provide an excuse to stop quoining two-thirds of the way up. Had the Courtland been built a decade or three previous, window lintels would have been de rigueur. Here, they're replace by soldier-coursed bricks running the length of the facade.

Another telling touch is the high-waisted "sandstone" foundation — like the door treatment, more reference than substance. The prestigious yellow masonry apron lavished upon the building is actually a veneer, applied to a concrete base of coarse aggregate. The veneer (itself concrete, I suspect) is artfully incised with lines suggesting individual stone blocks where there are none.

Vestigial bracket — the road to hell is paved with ornaments.

Beneath this thin veneer, a foundation of coarser aspect...

I don't mention these faux elements to in any way disparage the Courtland/Kent. Not every apartment house can be a shining exemplar of its moment in built history. Rather it is structures like this one that speak to the tastes and aspirations of their day, especially as one-time structural elements are flattened (in this case literally) into social signifiers (when, outside of an episode of Midsomer Murders, did you see Tudor-style half timbering actually holding a wall together?).

We know that the Courtland Apartments were put up for rent in 1938 thanks to a full-page ad published in The Journal on Saturday, September 17 of that year. This announcement not only introduced us to the Courtland, but relaunched the career of a smaller, adjoining apartment building, Nepean Court, just around the corner at 255 Nepean Street. Here is an architect's drawing of both buildings that was featured on the page...

That's the Courtland left-and-center, with the older, refurbished Nepean Court on the right. I've drawn a couple of lines on the drawing for the amusement of photographers who always try to work with the "rule of thirds" and who avoid bisecting their frame (viz the green line) at all cost.  The red line reveals the sweet spot between a looming building and a vertiginous viewpoint. Analyse and discuss...

Robert Smythe has discussed these buildings as greater length here. The Courtland wasn't the first building on this site. Goad (1888, sheet 38) shows us the wooden six-row that preceded both it and Nepean Court.

Note 221-231 Kent, lower left of block 244

Unlike the Courtland, Nepean Court was a reno of an older building — see a construction photo via Smythe here. His killer find seems to show some last minute exterior work at #255.

Check out this picture from a few days ago...

Goad (1912) indicates that the projecting front entrance and balconies were not original to the building. Here, decorative brick courses have been carried forward onto the addition (presumably 1938) while the old limestone masonry (on the left) has been replicated with troweled cement. The cornice and brackets over the door certainly look like they came from the same "Cornices 'n' Brackets 'r' Us" as the ones on the Courtland, just around the corner.


* Re: "Arms", The Word Detective wrote (in part), in July of 2010...

Back when England was awash with Dukes, Earls and similar nobility, many happy centuries before motel and restaurant chains, the local inn or pub (or, indeed, the whole town) frequently sat on land owned by the Duke of Earl, or whomever. This was also a time when many people were illiterate. So pubs and inns relied on highly recognizable graphic signs, perhaps calling themselves “The Blue Swan,” signified for non-readers by a blue swan on the sign. In many cases, the most recognizable symbol in town was the coat of arms of the local nobility, so if one paid rent to the Duke of Norfolk, it made sense to feature the Norfolk family coat of arms on your sign and to call your establishment “the Norfolk Arms.”

You can read his entire post here.
We were saddened to learn that as of February 2017, Evan Morris, "The Word Detective" was living in poverty, suffering from MS and battling stage 4 cancer. We have not heard of or from him since and fear the worst. He brought joy to many of us.

On a lighter note, my favourite play on "arms" usage dates back to the mid-20th, when Dale Messick's comic-strip protagonist, Brenda Starr, took up residence at the Lovely Arms Apartments.

** And again on a darker note, British PM Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler were already contemplating war. Via the Ottawa Journal...

"LONDON, Sept. 1 1939 — Secret diplomatic exchanges between Fuehrer Hitler and Prime Minister Chamberlain were published by Great Britain tonight in a White Paper which disclosed an agreement on one ominous point — that if war should come it would be long and bloodier than the Great War..."

172 O'Connor — O'Connor House, formerly The Rothesay

O'Connor House, formerly the Rothesay Apartments

I do like to get a clean shot when I take pictures of buildings. Then again, today's mess will be tomorrow's historical detail. I was surprised to learn that #172 is over 100 years old but I shouldn't have been — the limestone foundation pushes its date back to the first decade and a half of the 20th century. Goad (sheet 38, block 233) drew it as a fait accompli in his 1912 "reprint" maps.

The all-brick, three-storey Rothesay Apartments had a nearly-square footprint and an idiosyncratic rear light-well that penetrated to the heart of the building in a three-segmented curve. The adjacent houses at 168 O'Connor and 137 Nepean still stand. The stables were operated by a Mr. James Kennedy. Horses, as you can see below, have been replaced by cars and a gas station, the latter recently taken over by Andalos Shawarma.

Might didn't list the Rothesay in 1909. His 1913 Directory (presumably based on 1912 data) mentioned it by name but without tenants. 1914 did list tenants, so I'm guessing at a construction year of 1912. I'm unsure at what point it was renamed "O'Connor House".

This Google Street View screenshot confirms that O'Connor House is indeed the former Rothesay — the peculiar light-well is identical the one in Goad's drawing. The building is now occupied by Cornerstone Housing for Women. CCTV and window-bars guard the perimeter and the light-well, which I would have loved to explore, has been fenced off.

You can make out the little front-gabled one-time-house next door at #168. It's been a convenience store for as long as I can remember — wasn't it Heck's Confectionery back in the day?

Heck's, from Google Street View, April 2015

 The above photo is Street View's last record of 168 O'Connor operating as Heck's Confectionery. By May of 2016 it was empty, awaiting a new tenant. From a June 1976 Ottawa Journal article by Colleen Anderson Kong...

"...Heck's, 168 O'Connor St., ... owned since 1953 by former tailor Harry Hecht from Rumania*, who married an Ottawa girl, sells 150 papers a day, twice that on weekends, as well as all the popular magazines. "My customers, from cabinet ministers to street sweepers, are all my friends," declares Mr. Hecht. "A heck of a good store," giggled a lady customer..."

I've already mentioned "Dow" and his work for The Journal — here's his illustration for Ms. Anderson Kong's piece, an appreciation of downtown news-vendors...

"Read all about it!" — "Newsy" drawing by Dow, June 1976

Both Goad and Woodburn show the house that would eventually become Heck's back in 1888, making it at least 130 years old — not too shabby for a tiny wooden building.

*No "sic" here, "Rumania" was accepted spelling back in the day.

Back to the Garden

When I started this blog I mentioned that one of the few existing properties or institutions explicitly bearing the Nanny Goat Hill name is a community garden at the northeast corner of Laurier West and Bronson avenues.

Anyone who visits the garden will notice that the plots are ringed and divided by retaining walls of varying height and some apparent age. These stone barriers, buttressed here and there by slatherings of concrete, once defined property boundries and held within them an infill of topsoil. This allowed lawns to be cultivated around erstwhile houses, atop of what was, by nature, a rugged limestone bluff. What do we know about those original properties? Let's start with Goad's insurance map for 1878 and try to picture the corner (indeed the whole block) in it's heyday.

after Goad, 1878 — sheet 44, block 271

The stone house (shown in blue) at #571 Maria (now Laurier W., lower left corner) sits on what is now the upper level of the NGH garden. The gap to its right corresponds to the garden's lower level. The house was built on a prestigious bluff — the land to the north and east of it slopes downhill, from 78 metres ASL down to 72, a drop of about 20 feet across the block in both directions.

Notice the wooden (grey) shed-and-stable to the upper right of the house (the stable is the larger section marked with and "X" — it's the only one on the block). Notice that this out-building is as large, or larger than the rest of the actual houses on the block. Finally, notice that most of these latter houses are built of wood, (yellow) and only a handful of brick (red). A lone stone house at Bay and Maria isn't much larger than the rear wing of #571. Oh, and one more notice — 571's outbuilding is downhill and at some remove from the "house on the hill" a version of the "upstairs/downstairs" principle. It seems the property straddled the block, backing onto Slater Street.

The previous paragraph thoroughly flogs the notion that by 1878, block 271 was a dramatic example of a prestige gradient emerging as old Upper Town spread southward, morphing into a newer, more working-class Centretown. But who was the laird of that lofty lot at the west end of later-to-be Laurier?

There's a bit of a numbering discrepancy between the maps and the directories. What Goad calls "571 Maria", A.S. Woodburn calls "575" — both in 1875 and 1884 (Goad would eventually go with 575 as well). Woodburn's intent is very clear when he lists the same resident in both years at 575, followed immediately by "Concession st intersects" — it's the house on the corner, occupied, he tells us, by "Clemow Francis, coal mercht etc".

 Francis Clemow, 1821-1902

"Coal mercht etc" doesn't quite address the scope of Mr. Clemow's life and eventual career in business (water, gas and eventually electricity) and politics (culminating in a senate seat). Of course, "Clemow" and "Powell" (Francis's wife Margaret) are well known street names in Ottawa's Glebe neighbourhood, roughly a mile to the south. According to the late Christa Zeller Thomas...

Two of the Glebe’s most fascinating streets surely are Clemow and Powell avenues, because they are not just exceptionally good-looking (wide boulevards, grand old homes, plenty of trees) but also because they exude an aura of influence and prestige. Even without knowing anything about the men and women behind these two names, one can easily surmise that they were part of Ottawa’s elite. But reading about Francis Clemow, the family patriarch, I find that counting him among Ottawa’s early “in” crowd is almost an understatement: the man was such a wheeler and dealer, so “firmly entrenched in the sinecures of the city corporation,” as John Taylor observed in his illustrated history of Ottawa, that it seems as though he had a hand in a great many of the city’s affairs...

Please read Ms. Thomas's account of Clemow's wheeling and dealing here. Interestingly, she states — "In 1847, Francis Clemow married Margaret Powell of the Perth Powells [...] and thus the association of Clemow and Powell began. The couple lived in a mansion, “Hill and Dale”, on Maria Street (now Laurier Avenue)." And if "Hill and Dale" doesn't perfectly describe the hilltop house at Concession and Maria, with a "dale" behind it, running down toward Slater Street, well I don't know what does.

Although the couple owned property in the Glebe, the Might Directory for 1901 shows the Clemows living at Hill and Dale until at least 1901. Francis would die in 1902 and Margaret in 1907. The 1909 Might Directory lists their daughter, Miss Adelaide "Ada" H. Clemow, living alone in the house (by that time a Laurier W. address.) She and her cousin would eventually develop the Clemow/Powell Glebe property. She died in 1931, still at the family mansion. If you're curious, a discussion of the Glebe land (PDF, City of Ottawa) can be viewed here.

Miss Ada Clemow

But back to Centretown — one thing you should know about the buildings shown on the Goad map at the top of the page... every last one, including "Hill and Dale" has since been demolished.

*     *     *

Through the late 19th century and into the 20th, Centretown Ottawa continued to grow around the Clemow house. Here is Goad's take on block 271 from his 1912 reprint series, and OMG SINCE WHEN IS THIS AN INDUSTRIAL PARK???

after Goad 1912, sheet 44

This corner of sheet 44 shows block 271 east of the Clemow mansion. Not only is it well taken-up by (mostly) small wooden houses, many sporting brick veneer, but almost a third of the land east of Hill and Dale is given over to light industry. We see the G.E. Kingsbury ice-houses at 458 Slater (grey, upper left) and to its right, the Ottawa Electric Company's lumber yard. Whether the OEC was producing lumber or consuming it, I'm not sure, but let's face it, the stuff was everywhere back then. Facing onto Bay, whatever stood there before has been replaced by a seven-house brick row and, at #200, the R. Irving soda water factory — a stable attached to the rear of the building suggests they delivered their product straight from the bottling plant. Did they even have zoning back then?

Check out the generous lot at 553 Laurier, the one with the little wooden house and the stable out back. This property will eventually become the lower level of the NGH garden.

For whatever reason(s), Goad shunted the Clemow house onto the adjoining sheet for this series. Map 46 picks up from where #44 left off — here's a detail...

We can see 575 Laurier, solid, stony and symmetrical, with a wooden conservatory running off its west side — perfect for tea or evening drinks in summer. We also notice that the stable/coach-house/garage has been reconfigured slightly over the decades. Did someone spring for a motor car along way? If you enlarge the image and squint, you can see a six-foot high stone wall separating the estate from the rest of the block. And an eight-foot high stone wall along Slater. If you're curious as to where these walls met, stand between the two Victorian brick houses at 467 and 475 Slater and look directly across the street facing the graffiti wall.

Speaking of which — notice how Goad has drawn the Nanny Goat escarpment — on the west side of Bronson (north of the red brick "Fleck House") but not on the east behind the Clemow residence. He seems to be indicating a gentler slope at Hill and Dale, not the severe drop we now see at the Techwall graffiti/retaining concrete structure.

*     *     *

A parting shot from 1965 shows Hill and Dale with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. I've outlined the land that would become the Nanny Goat Hill Community Garden in green.

via geoOttawa

The "dale", and the light industry directly east thereof, has given way to the Ottawa Technical High School playing field. A new retaining wall casts its sharp shadow along the south end of the basketball courts. A handful of the original working-class houses still face onto Laurier (upper right) while the Clemow house, its conservatory torn down, sits in a parking lot. It will soon disappear, as will the walk-up apartment block next to it. This flat-roofed building with its distinctive rear light-well (no, not a chimney shadow) was built some time before 1928 and demolished circa 2000. It made way for the lower NGH garden.

By way of a post-script, notice the apartment tower casting shade across Laurier near the bottom of the photo. Those are the Stonecliffe Apartments at 175 Bronson Avenue. Their lot was once the home of Ottawa businessman and mayor, C.T. Bate — a lost exemplar of Ottawa's historic "Bate Houses." Again, a story for another time.

584 Maria (in blue), across the street from the Clemows — Goad, 1878

Mind the Gap — Block 261

In addition to debate about how to revive the Sparks Street Mall (and no, I don't think special events or a zip-line are the answer), Albert and Slater Streets have been getting their names in the news of late. These latter two are presently choked with bus traffic which will, we are told, will largely disappear when the Confederation Line of our new LRT starts to run. That launch date, as you've likely heard, has been moved back — from Victoria Day 2018 to the end of November, which is to say December, which is to say early in 2019 — which is to say in the dead of next winter.

Conversation about making the Albert/Slater corridor safer, less polluting and more inviting has thus-far focused on the Mackenzie Bridge to the east and the descent toward Lebreton Flats in the west (between the Nanny Goat and Cathedral Hills). For example, see Jon Willing here.

There is a third part of this corridor that may or may not warrant attention as part of what is a significant piece of planning for the future of the city core. In keeping with the time I spend with my nose buried in Charles Goad's insurance maps, may I present block 261, as featured on Goad's map 44...

Looking south across block 261—  the two grey-roofed buildings are no longer standing.

Goad applied a system of map and block numbers to his volumes. In neither case are those numbers fraught with any great meaning — rather, their value lies in the fact that he assigned them consistently over the years. Block 261 in 1878 was the same patch of ground so-designated in 1912. This helps makes his oeuvre a damned bloody joy to work with.

Block 261, as portrayed above in an already dated image adapted from Google's Street View, was and is bounded by Albert and Slater on the north and south, and Lyon and Bay on the east and west. Set in a bit of a valley between Old Upper Town / Cathedral Hill and Centretown/ Nanny Goat Hill, block 261 represents a transition from Upper Town commerce and poshness to a mix of white and blue-collar residences. Or rather it did. Only one house of Victorian-era provenance remains of the block — the gambrel-roofed house at 388 Albert which I've already mentioned here. The twin walk-ups at 408 and 414 Albert (corner of Bay) date from either the late 1920s or early '30s and were preceded by a commodious brick house and its side yard, the one clearly "posh" house ever built on the block.

Goad 1878 shows block 261 with its eastern half largely built up with modest houses and its western half vacant. By 1912, the rest of #261 had been filled in by a couple of brick-on-wood singles, a 4-row and a five row.

A handful of aerial photos at geoOttawa help us understand #261's development through the 20th century. A grainy image from 1928 show us a block largely identical to that portrayed by Goad sixteen years previous. With some squinting and imagination one can even see the old house at the corner of Albert and Bay. Sadly, 261 is not included in the imagery for 1958. By 1965, the houses between 388 and 408 had been razed and their lots were biding time as a car-park. Also by that year, a low-slung concrete office building had taken over the south-west quarter of the block, again displacing several homes.

By 1976, most of the houses on the east end of the block had been replaced by parking, while the relatively new office building had been rear-adjoined to a similar structure filling in the 388-408 Albert gap, as it appears in the photo above. 261 would remain thus-configured, at least until 2015. Then, at some time between 2015 and 2017, the two low-slung office buildings were demolished, leaving the block as we see it today, three-quarters vacant.

Two snapshots — aerial photos of block #261 from 1965 and 2017...

More than half of the present vacant space is designated as "400 Albert" (per geoOttawa), suggesting a single owner, which in turn presages development, sooner or later. At the time of writing I don't who plans to do what — we'll all find out soon enough, and my approval or lack thereof won't do much (anything, let' face it) to temper that course of events. I do however think that as we discuss the eastern and western gateways to the Albert/Slater corridor, we should devote some time and attention to the gaping question-mark in its middle.

Later...

The latest information I can find on the proposed development of this block cites Broccolini Construction as the developer and a 27-storey apartment tower as the intended project. Folks facing the site (Centretown Place at 400 Slater) will be watching the space with interest dread.
See an Ottawa Citizen article from the fall of 2015 here.

As of late 2017 the project was still being described as "in preconstruction". I wonder if the upcoming tunneling of the E-W limb of the CSST sewer project along Slater Street is in any way affecting Broccolini's construction schedule.

Let us know what you...

Glass Houses and a Brutal Chameleon

258 Argyle Avenue, east of Bank Street

This is how one glues a brutalist concrete cuboid onto the side of a century-old baronial-style church. The method calls to mind a golem wearing a jumper with bunnies printed on it — incongruous but actually quite likeable. Prominent front and angled corner balconies, applied to a two-stage facade soften the street-side impact. Stone (or is that "stone"?) cladding and verdigris accents play Zelig to the Centretown United Church, originally Stewarton Presbyterian, a thin slice of which can be seen along the right hand edge of my photo. The rooftop forest is, of course, the sweet green icing on the cake.

The morning sun cuts across this Google Street View image of the corner of Argyle and Bank. From the street, Centretown United Church seems a good deal larger than #258 — here we can see that the two buildings are a fairly even match for size. If a lion and a tiger got in a fight, who do you think would win?

Remarkably, the lot at #258 seems to have had no permanent building on it prior to the present apartment block, built some time during the 1990s (per aerial photos). The crane looming in the background is associated with the construction of the "SoBa" condominium tower (Brad J. Lamb Realty). The SoBa ("south on Bank") is going up on an interesting piece of "lost" Ottawa real estate...

Goad, reprinted 1912 — I've indicated the position of 258 Argyle in red type.

Here, Goad shows us the extensive Scrim greenhouses, across Catherine Street street from the bustling Grand Trunk rail-yard / linear industrial park what-have-you, now the Queensway. Charles Scrim lived at 240 Argyle, just to the right of the "AV" in Avenue. His widow was listed at that address in the 1923 City Directory. The house now serves as the Embassy of Afghanistan. The business was passed down to an employee and continues to operate from it present location on Elgin Street.

The Ottawa Journal, March 1907

London Arms is falling down, with some help

151 Metcalfe at Gloucester, winter 2017-'18 — Morguard's "Performance Court", background right

I don't know much about about architectural photography but I do know that there's a point beyond which rectifying your verticals makes a building look more like Joan Crawford than Joan Crawford and I'd rather not go there, so I just lined up the near corner of my subject and let everything else fall into place. BTW I must say I'm very happy with the results I'm getting from the little TG-4 I bought late last summer when I was still blind — great RAW from such a small sensor. I thought 16 millipiggles crammed onto a half-inch chip would be asking for trouble but that's me, a worry-wart to the end. As always, click the pic to embiggen.

The four-storey, forty-eight unit* London Arms Apartments at 151 Metcalfe Street first availed themselves for rent on October 1, 1938. Originally christened the "Midtown Apartments" then quickly renamed (more cachet, less mediocrity?), the building featured an "automatic elevator" — which means no-one had to hire an operator. This is interesting because it helps firm up the demarcation between a walk-up and something taller as somewhere between the third and fourth floor. Ottawa housing historian Chris Ryan put together an excellent article about the London Arms back in the summer of 2014 and I strongly urge you to read it here.

Of course, I'm not here to duplicate Mr. Ryan's work, but simply to say "Oh look, they've boarded up the London Arms, WTF?" According to Google Street View this was done at least as far back as last summer but I only noticed a few weeks ago. At any rate, it spells the end of an era.

A screen-grab from Google shows 151 Metcalfe surrounded by taller and newer (mostly office) buildings. Twin side light-wells give the building an H-shaped profile — you can see the top of the elevator on the front half. Oh go shoot a rock video already.

*     *     *

The first permanent building of note on the site was the Racquet Court which opened circa 1880 and, name notwithstanding, served for decades as a dance academy. I know I would have shot a rock video there. It was demolished after a series of fires. Grant House and the First Baptist Church (do check out the masonry) are the only 19th Century buildings left on the block.

The owner of the then "Midtown" published a full-page advertorial some three weeks before opening his building to rentals. From the Saturday, September 10 1938 issue of The Ottawa Journal...

To those who desire modern comfort and convenience combined with delightful surroundings and easy access to churches, stores, theatres and railway transportation "The Midtown Apartments" on Metcalfe street, at Gloucester, offers an opportunity well worth investigating [...]

The article, largely if not entirely the work of developer J. Harold Shenkman continues, extolling the charm of the building's "spaciousness, light and warmth" and a rooftop garden that "blends harmoniously with the foliage of nearby trees" before the latter succumbed to Dutch elm disease and the Place Bell building. Honorable mention goes to a "hospitably" wide main doorway / entrance hall featuring Terazzo-with-a-capital-T floors and indirect lighting. It goes without saying that the "suites of 2, 3, and 4 rooms" were as modern as tomorrow in every way possible, but the copy spares no pain or expense to say just that, loud and proud. One of the charmingly dated (this was before TV of course) features was the "long and short wave aerial connections for radio". Also, scientifically designed kitchens (to reduce walking to a minimum, viz Cheaper by the Dozen). Oh, and built-in bookshelves, again pre-TV — well it was either read, knit, or actually look at each other.

#151 is presently owned by Morguard, who erected the rear-adjacent "Performance Court" tower at #150 Elgin (which partly engulfs the old Grant House, home to the Beckta Restaurant at the time of writing). While a City of Ottawa notice on the front of the London Arms acknowledges the owner's application to demolish, heaps of what looks like old floorboards in the light-wells and behind the building suggest that Morguard has already taken the building beyond the point of no return. Documents relating to assessment and demolition may be viewed here.

Perhaps tellingly, someone, it may have been two summers ago, started to clean the exterior brickwork, then was told not to bother. Hence the large, vitiligous splotch visible in my photo.

* 4x floor-numbered apartments (n00-n11) = 4 x 12 = 48. Robert Smythe give 49 — there is/was also an "apartment #1" per City Directories, perhaps set aside for a superintendent. Take your pick.

post script...

 ... for the amusement of my friend and research associate Kay-El. This ad appeared (with several others) alongside The Journal's September 10 article. Harry Hayley specialized in concrete cinder block as an alternative to poured-on-site concrete. He operated from a plant at the corner of "Hurdman's" Road and Lees Avenue, now the city yard at 29 Hurdman — you know, right next to where the old abattoir used to be.

Hayley is locally known for his basement-less "Hayley houses" or "Chestnut Street flat-tops" that were built immediately after WWII in Old Ottawa East. It will be fun to see how durable his blocks really are when the London Arms comes tumbling down. I look forward to the demolition if only to see how the blocks were integrated into the construction.

Give me your jumbled masses...

"The boxes, damn it!" 

Grandma, The American Dream, Edward Albee 1961

Please don't get me wrong. I love this stuff as much as the next guy, maybe more — but yes, boxes for boxes' sake. Let's stop pretending there's any serious reason why a house should look this way.

I realize that this snow and slush can make anything look like the prelude to a warm bath and a razor blade, but 291 and 293 Lyon North are actually quite dashing in summer.  According to Google Street View, #293 (on your right) went up some time before April 2014 while 291 was likely completed over the summer of 2016.

Each house replaced a perfunctory brick-on-wood two-storey abode, both original to the site and both built (from what I can glean) very close to 1900. You can see them here — Goad (1902) listed 293 as a one-and-half because of its Mansard roof-line.

I say "houses" but these are multi-unit rental buildings. As described online, #291 consists of ten (yes, ten) units while the number in 293 is not presently specified.

stickers seen

the Lyon Street Mini-Church

Let's assume that this little oddity wasn't always an esthetician's studio. Indeed, the present occupant of 250a Lyon somewhat confirms this — Meta Esthétique's website tells us they have been in business (here?) since 1979. The building looks older than that and was, I'm daring to guess, purpose-built as church — but when, and by whom?

As to the when, we know better than to guess. Church architecture is so fraught with stylistic revival that some of Ottawa's oldest-looking churches are as young as I am. 250a's bizarre scale and concrete construction (trust me, those aren't stone blocks) are quirks that could have been deployed at any time in the last century — or this one for that matter. Let's start our hunt for beginnings with the lot itself. Here's an image adapted from Goad...

after Goad, sheet 42, 1912 reprint

"265" is the reference number for the block — we're looking looking at the eastern end thereof. I've added street names and indicated the eventual position of the church at 250a Lyon. We can see how that position was previously filled by three single-storey wooden storerooms (shown in yellow) leading off the back-ends of a row of conjoined brick houses (in red). The houses still stand but their wooden nether bits were soon to be knocked down. Notice that for whatever reason, the house furthest to the right was numbered 250 Lyon despite facing onto Nepean.

The Might Directory's Lyon Street listings for 1913 say nothing about 250a, jumping obliviously (and forgivably) from 250 to 252. Such is also the case for 1914, 1915 and 1916. This, I fear, is one of those instances of Might dropping the ball for at least two years in a row, as a newspaper search will demonstrate.

Scrolling through the Ottawa Journal archives reveals the little church's colourful history, taking us back to the spring of 1914. From an article dated Monday, April 13 of that year...

Lutheran Church is Dedicated on Easter Sunday
Special Services Held at St. Peter's on Lyon Street

Easter services at St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran church, Lyon Street, will long be remembered by the members, adherents and visitors who attended yesterday. Banked high with flowers, the pretty little church, which has been recently erected as a place of worship, was a fitting commemoration of the resurrection of Our Lord. Easter had also been chosen for the dedication of the new church and all services were attended by congregations that filled the building. [...]

The article describes the origins of the institution in 1910, telling of a first meeting at the King's Daughters Guild Hall (119 O'Connor, a house since demolished), then of its formal organization as St. Peter's in October of the same year, and of a subsequent move to 292 Lisgar Street (another house since demolished). The article continues (and here's where our mini-church enters the picture)...

On December 25 [1910] it was decided unanimously to extend a call to Reverend J.J. Clemens, of Guelph, which call was accepted and Mr. Clemens was installed as permanent pastor on May 14, 1911. The property on Lisgar street was sold shortly after the coming of the pastor and property purchased at the corner of Lyon and Nepean streets where the new church has been erected.
There are besides the church building also three back dwelling houses upon this property. One of these furnishes a home for the pastor, the revenue from the other two houses is used to pay taxes and interest on the loans upon the property. [emphasis mine...]

We have already seen these three houses on the Goad map above, and we remind ourselves that  Might ignored the church from 1914 through 1916 inclusive (despite Easter Services having been held there in the spring of '14. Nevertheless, Might does list the Reverend Clemens as living in #250, the pastor's house on the very corner of Lyon and Nepean*, as early as 1914. I can only guess that Might (or his clerks) saw the occupancies on Lyon being numbered from 250 to 252 and, for two years running ('15 and '16) failed to realize that an address had been inserted between them.

Thus we have a "pretty little church", St. Peter's Lutheran, shoehorned into a narrow back-lot at 250a Lyon no later than the spring of 1914. In that same year we know that the church's pastor, the Reverend J.J. Clemens, lived next door at #250. Assuming that early references describe the same church standing today, 250a Lyon will be at least 104 years old this spring.

*     *     *

This is an ad of the sort run by the Church through the 1940s and into the '50s. The address is typically given as "at" or "near" the corner of Lyon and Nepean — no street number is cited. Here's part of an Ottawa Journal article from December 3, 1966...

"Faces of Ottawa — Rev. Arthur Conrad"

Much of the article is, of course, devoted to the Reverend Conrad himself, but author Ketchum does mention the year of the move from Lyon...

[...Conrad] recalls with pride and gratitude the dedication of the church and parish hall in 1954. The then governor general, Vincent Massey, and two Maritimers from Lunenberg took part in the service. [Conrad was born in Bridgewater, NS.] They were Senator John J. Kinley who had generously donated the choir pews and Robert Winters, at that time minister of public works.
It was a happy day for the pastor and congregation in 1964 when the entire first mortgage was liquidated and burned at a special service, ten years before maturity. [emphasis mine...]

The present St. Peter's is an Ottawa landmark. It appears in this stained-glass "teaching window", perched on its limestone bluff overlooking Lebreton Flats. The image refers to Matthew 16:18 — "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it."

Jesus' double-entendre lay, of course, in the fact that the name Peter means "rock".

*     *     *

St. Peter's move to Cathedral Hill leaves us with roughly twenty-five years of 250a Lyon's history unaccounted for — from 1954 until Meta Esthétique's purported arrival in 1979. Fortunately, we can rely on The Journal for coverage until 1980. I've tried to interpolate a handful of mentions with information from the City Directories held at the Ottawa Public Library.

From the mid-fifties to the early seventies (per the Directories), 250a was home to an organization variously known as the "Immanuel Assembly Services Church", "Immanuel Ecclesia Undenominational Church", and the "Evangelistic Centre".

During this time, the Lyon Street address stayed largely out of the news. An exception dates from September 1959 — (next to a photo of Bing Crosby and his new baby girl) "Founder of Sect to visit Ottawa on Weekend — Rev. A.U. Michelson, founder and minister of the First Hebrew Christian Church of Los Angeles will preach on Sunday in Ottawa [ ...] He will speak in the Capitol Theatre at 2:30 p.m. on 'Crisis in Palestine in the Light of Prophecy: Will Russia Invade Palestine?' Sunday morning he will preach at the 11 o'clock service in Emmanuel[sic] Ecclesia Church at 250A Lyon street."

Again during this tenure, a spate of ads, perhaps disturbing by today's standards, appeared in December of 1969.

I'm sorry but I can't read that without picturing little children gulping down "spiced" cocoa and playing in basement sandboxes full of sand-trout — or was that the Golden Path? Either way, it sounds hinky to me.

By the mid-seventies, as befitted the times, 250a Lyon was hosting a less conventional brand of devotion. In 1974 it was home to the "Science Center" (rummage and bake sale), then the "Psi Center" (anyone for Zener poker?)and, by 1975,  the Institute of Applied Metaphysics ("I AM") which seems to have adopted the stripped-down, quasi-scientific aesthetic of the various self-realization/assertiveness cults emerging at the time (Scientology, The Process, EST).

Ottawa Journal, 1975 — that logo is so BoC

I AM's brief but colourful stay seems to have lasted until the summer of 1976. In March of that year, The Journal reported on an odd event.

All-Night Rock for Body and Soul

Back and forth, back and forth they went, 25 rockers, tired and weary from their all-night sprint but determined to finish the 24-hour rocking chair marathon sponsored by the Institute of Applied Metaphysics.The rockers were taking part in a national marathon to help raise money for their three residential schools in Canada [again, ???!!!...]

The institute is a federally-chartered organization founded in 1963, which offers courses in the development of creative resources to harmonize the mind and body. In Ottawa there are more than 200 active members [...]

The last I AM / Lyon Street mention I can find shows the Institute with cosmic egg on its face. Again from The Journal, Monday, June 14 1976.

A World Without End

The world did not end at 9 p.m. Sunday, as predicted by the Institute of Applied Metaphysics, usually reliable sources have informed The Journal. These sources added it was business as usual on this planet after the zero hour passed uneventfully.
No extra-terrestrial being had landed to tell earthlings how to live in peace and harmony, as forecast by an institute member. [...]

Nobody answered either the bell or the phone at the institute's office (a converted church) at 250-A Lyon Street. Maybe the members who had made the dire prediction at a film showing Thursday night had decided to face the grim happening elsewhere. [...]

The City Directory for 1977-'78 lists #250a as "vacant". By the fall of 1978, the little church had been renovated and (dare I say) "re-framed" as an art gallery. "The Church — An Art Space" was opened — at no small expense I'm sure – by Mitzi Bidner, a Montreal-based artist and consultant. Perhaps Ms. Bidner's tastes were too avant-garde for stodgy little Ottawa — her brief but well-intentioned outing was last-mentioned in September 1979, hence the irony of the following advertisment.

Christensen Real Estate, The Journal, March 15 1980

*     *     *

The address is listed "no return" in the 1980 Directory and not mentioned at all in the '81-'82 volume. 1984 lists "St. John Associates, audio visual communications" and '86 gives us "Shonn's Beauty Shop". This would contradict the idea that Meta Esthétique has been there since 1979. Perhaps I took the wording of their website too literally — maybe they started somewhere else then moved into the church. Did Shonn's become Meta? I'll have to drop in and ask the next time I'm on Lyon.

By the way, I'm assuming that the church presently at 250 Lyon is the same one built in 1914. There'll be egg on my face if it isn't.


*250 Lyon had been, immediately prior, the home of Mrs. Mary Ahearn, apparently the widow of artist Maurice (died April 1910), a relative (possibly brother) to Thomas Ahearn. More research is called for here. I can find no examples of Maurice's work online.