Although I've been familiar with this fairly anodyne building for over five decades, it took some time to become aware of the fact that this 1950s red brick box was known as the Brennan Building, and not only that - this was the second Brennan Building to be located at Bank and James Street. It replaced Brennan No. 1 after a disastrous mid-century blaze that involved one of Canada's most iconic businesses. The story's rudimentary strands were recently fleshed out by one of the excellent Ottawa Street by Street's tweets which has provoked more digging into the Brennans' eventful past. The up ..read more

Architect John Pritchard MacLaren was part of a wealthy family active in lumbering, paper-making, hydro-generation and real estate. MacLaren Street is named after them. He produced a steady stream of capably handled but not ground-breaking buildings in a variety of styles. In a career of forty years he designed numerous churches, several banks, some interesting houses, two library branches, a movie theatre, a private school for girls, auto garages, showrooms, and a warehouse. Born in 1865 to Alexander MacLaren and Ann Pritchard in Wakefield, Quebec (think of that town's historic MacLaren ..read more

Recently, in providing a professional evaluation of 110 Gloucester Street (The Wendell Apartments) a local heritage consultant hired by mega-developer Claridge Homes has dissed this stylish little building. It is an early example of its type - an apartment house with the latest technological features proffering fully serviced units to both male and female members of Ottawa’s burgeoning public service. That it also ranks quite high in the canon of one of the city’s most significant pre-WW1 architects, Arthur LeBaron Weeks (1881-1962) should be another point on its scorecard. Surprisingly the ..read more

There are few vestiges of Neville's Creek today - a sudden dip in Robert Street halfway between Waverley and Gilmour, and a leafy little valley south of Lewis Street that meanders towards the Driveway. When full of water and flowing it was in a strategic location, discharging into the Rideau Canal at the very tip of the Golden Triangle. Development along its southern bank has barely changed from the time that it was fully built out as a quiet residential enclave in the early 1900s. The northern shore is another matter. It has served as the location of tiny framed cottages, a beer bottling wor ..read more

It’s just a snippet of a park, only a sliver of land between Frank Street and Gladstone Avenue, but its history is bound up with some important milestones in Ottawa’s municipal past. Several times it has survived close escapes when either City Council wanted to be rid of it, or traffic engineers and urban planners have tried to devour it for other purposes. First, to explain the park's long and narrow dimensions, a shallow half-block that was cut short when the city’s street grid ran into the city’s southern boundary of the time. More significant is the origin of its name. From 1898 to 1925 ..read more

Experience has proven that at least 50% - no, make it somewhere between 60-80% of the new building construction news published in Ottawa's dailies during the 1960s and 70s never got built, or underwent some major transformation before going up. These breezy bulletins usually contained phrases like 'construction is set to begin within the month...' or 'completion of the new building is expected for.. (some unreasonable date)'. Here are three such pledges undertaken in the spring of 1970 - case studies in what could happen to those optimistic announcements. (Ottawa Journal, June  20, 1970 ..read more

E.D. Lowe and T.H. Martin established a small printing and bindery business on Bank Street in 1910, expanding steadily so that it would soon open satellite sales offices in Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg. On May 14, 1913 the Contract Record and Engineering Review reported that Lowe-Martin Co. Limited was engaging the services of Ottawa architects Alan Keefer, Hugh Richards and William Abra to design a five-storey office and printing plant on Nepean Street. Two years later the Ottawa Journal extolled that this firm 'must not only be judged by a their finished work [mostly catalogues] and stead ..read more

This is a short prequel to an earlier posting on the noble Connaught Building, with a smattering of construction progress photos of excavation-digging, foundation-laying, and steel-erecting.  If you believe the LAC captions that accompanied these photos they were taken over six days in the mid-summers of 1913 and 1914, and were probably part of a much larger series that documented the Connaught's entire construction. They were likely bound together in a Department of Public Works album that is lost to time or yet to be discovered in DPW's vast archival holdings. These photos offer a part ..read more

On a blazing hot afternoon in August 1935 four hundred dogged protesters arrived in Ottawa after a 22-day, 290-mile walk from Toronto. They were attempting to finish the earlier cross Canada “On-to-Ottawa” trek that had been smashed up by deadly police violence in Regina.  Their objective was to present Prime Minister Bennett with a 7-point manifesto demanding financial relief for unemployed workers and other benefits. He rejected their request outright and refused any federal assistance for food or shelter. The City of Ottawa was left to deal with this dilemma. The trekkers who alterna ..read more

You wouldn't say that Walter Herbert George (1880-1959) was entirely forgotten, but with only eight identifiable buildings in Ottawa his recorded output is limited. It is apparent that he was responsible for many more projects that have yet to be discovered. W. Herbert George designed several of the luxurious Arts and Crafts, Tudor Revival, Spanish Colonial, and neo-Georgian houses on Clemow and Carling [now Glebe] Avenues and Linden Terrace.  This district east of Bank was part of an upper class subdivision then being jointly developed by the Clemow-Powell families and the Ottawa Improv ..read more