Cirsium vulgare, Old Ottawa East

Not a building perhaps, but architectural in its own way, this bull thistle growing from side of the Montessori school at 88 Main in Old Ottawa East is easily 7 feet tall. It's been a good June for that sort of thing and it's only half over.

Snapped this triffid-wannabe on my way back from a spin out to "old" Riverview Park in Alta Vista. Some amazing houses out there, especially the '53 vintage models on Knox Crescent. Will try to head back for some decent shots. The double-crescent section directly north of the old public school at 260 Knox is an object lesson on the suburban transition from side-gabled one-and-a-halfs to long-hipped bungalows, with lots of surprises in between. The subdivision was sold off as a collection of "builder's lots" rather than pre-builts so yeah, a box of chocolates for sure!

Last Stand

June 11 2018

The London Arms, Metcalfe at Gloucester, three-quarters demolished... and then some.

June 13 2018

June 14 2018

Notice the porthole windows on the elevator doors, in keeping with the building's original deco motif. The shaft looks bank-vault sturdy — clearly, the wreckers saved the best for last.

Shawarma Garage

154 O'Connor Streeet

Once a three-bay Shell Station, then a "Bacon Factory" and, as of last summer, Shawarma Andalos. This is where i used to put air in my bike tires, eons ago. Before that — a house (right at the corner) and a livery stable (Goad, reprinted 1912).

Fish-scale, for sale

McFarlane & Douglas, Ottawa Journal, October 1903

gorgeous granite

Of the eye-catching granite cladding at Centennial Towers, 200 Kent St., Quentin Gall writes...

"Façade and flooring shows classic Rapakivi texture (large ovoid crystals
of alkali feldspar rimmed by plagioclase feldspar) granite. Some
crystals (phenocrysts) are up to 10 cm in diameter. The black matrix
is rich in the minerals amphibole and pyroxene. This unusual rock
contains rare black inclusions. Flame-treated blocks of the same
stone have been used in the walkways surrounding the building."

Gall doesn't specify where these particular slabs came from, but the name is Finnish — Finland and adjoining Russian Karelia are the traditional "type" source for this stone.

Rapaviki boulder, Karelia (source)

Glow-fish Approved

Part of this year's "Glow Fair" mural at Bank and Lisgar, work-in-progress by the Fabulous Furry Laporte Brothers. Seaweed to the left is waiting for some fill and I feel a jellyfish about to happen over to the right. Gotta love those Bank Street hoardings that stay up year after year after...

506 Cooper Street

An exercise in late-Victorian asymmetry, this two-and-a-half storey brick-veneered house sits on the southeast corner of Cooper and Lyon Streets. Decorative brick courses relieve the expanse of side walls and shallow-arched window enclosures on the ground floor lend an inviting feel to an otherwise imposing structure. The increasing exposure of the stone foundation from back to front reveals how Lyon's elevation drops from the ridge of Somerset Street towards the valley of Laurier and Slater.

Apparently, the house was not yet built in 1875. Woodburn lists all of six households on Cooper Street that year. "Concession st." is now Bronson Avenue.

Once again, I'm finding that the City Directories lagged behind Goad's maps in listing new addresses. For example, Polk & Woodburn 1890-91 list only "Vacant lots" running up to the Lyon intersection, even though Goad 1888 (sheet 55) depicts this house already built.

My next directory, Might 1901, lists John McLaughlin at #506. I figure McLaughlin as the builder/ first occupant — he owned the Ottawa Stair Works at 286 Bank.

Might Directory, Ottawa 1901

Shortly after this ad was published, McLauglin moved his business to 989 Somersets Street West, presently the address of "A Fine Thing" antique dealers. See discussion here.

Ottawa Journal, February 25 1914

Mr. Mclaughlin was still residing at 506 Cooper at the time of his death.

The house seems to in a good state of repair. Google Street View indicates that the front porch was refurbished in 2007, and the present occupants have turned the front yard into an inviting garden.

apartment life

Ottawa, May 2018

You're invited!

This is me being snarky snarkier than usual — really though, aren't editors paid to notice this sort of thing?

from The Ottawa Journal, May 8 1946, page 12

Well that's just swell.  Now everyone and their dog knows that a frail-looking 80-year-old by the name of Damase Laframboise who lives at 69 Sweetland Avenue has a LARGE SAFE in his house.  What more could someone have written on page 24? I can only speculate...

Has Large Safe

(continued from page 12)
Armed thugs who broke into the home of Damase Laframboise last night had no idea that they'd entered the home of a frail old man who keeps a LARGE SAFE in his house at 69 Sweetland avenue in Sandy Hill (see photo page 12). 

Like many older folk, Mr. Laframoise doesn't trust banks and keeps his valuables at home in a LARGE SAFE. His hoard includes family heirlooms in gold and sterling, an album of priceless, one-of-a-kind postage stamps, and, as he proudly pointed out, "many" bundles of high-denomination bank notes.

The would-be thieves likewise failed to realized that the oil painting of a ballerina above Mr. Laframoise's living-room couch is an original by the French artist Edgar Degas worth many thousands of dollars.

Mr. Laframboise's live-in niece, Eva Therien, keeps a black laquered chest (directly under her bedroom window). This is stuffed with unworn women's "foundation" garments into which are sewn Colombian emeralds, Australian fire-opals, Ceylonese rubies as well as diamonds from Africa's Kimberley mine. She claims to have gotten the idea for this from reading about the Romanov princesses in Reader's Digest.

Neither Mr. Laframboise nor Mrs. Therien owns a dog, though, as they laughingly pointed out, a blue budgie, "Robert", lives in their kitchen. They reside at 69 Sweetland (with a LARGE SAFE), in Sandy Hill between Osgoode and Somerset East, on the east side of the street. The address sits on an incline, so don't forget to use your parking brake!

Ragsil Court

421 Lisgar Street, Ottawa, built circa 1913

My earliest Goad map dates to 1875 and shows a tiny wooden house at 421 Lisgar, this at a time when the street marked the southern boundary of Ottawa's urban spread. The house appears on Goad's 1912 "reprint", in which year the Might Directory listed it as "vacant", still so in 1913. Might 1914 gives us "Ragsil Court" — the building we see here — with six units including one for the janitor (at the time, one George Johnson).

The style, going by date, is some flavour of the late Edwardian, and a classical last stand at that. Indeed, the Ragsil would have been party to the final huzzah of the limestone foundation in this city — World War One and poured concrete were waiting in the wings.

I want to believe that the leaded window treatments are original. The windows themselves mark the transition from limestone sills to "sandstone" lintels. The uprights in the balcony railings bow outward, alluding to properly turned balusters while the columns suggest an Egyptian* play on the Corinthian order — papyrus and nodding lotuses instead of acanthus? — almost deco — but hey, I'm just guessing.

The name is odd. "Ragsil" is largely search-proof and the few meaningful returns discuss anagrams. And look, Ragsil is an anagram of Lisgar. In fact, it's Lisgar spelled backwards.


*Suez Canal completed - 1869
 Aida (opera) premieres - 1871
 Cleopatra (movie) opens, starring Theda Bara (an anagram for "Arab death") - 1917