BANK STREET... Then and Now

Bank Street south of Somerset Street is finally finished and re-opened for business. It's one of the most interesting stretches of downtown Bank, with a collection of historic Main Street style buildings, some varying infill and a few gaps that have opened since I first researched the street's history for the Ontario Ministry of Culture back in 1979. Here's a thirty-year update on Bank Street.

In 1979 Bank Street's signs were the City of Ottawa's standard 'Rosco' type, with reflective white blades held in iron straps and topped by an acorn finial.

At the turn of the nineteenth century the Gilmour Hotel at Bank and Gilmour (built in 1895-96 and designed by Edgar Horwood, Architect) was the most prominent landmark in this section of Bank Street. To the left running west along Gilmour are some of the fine residential houses touted in the ad below.

From an advertisement in the Ottawa City Directory: 'This new First-Class Hotel, opened first of May, 1896, is situated on Bank Street, one of the main business streets and in the finest residential part of the city. The location makes it a quiet and home-like house for families and tourists. The rooms are large and airy, lighted by gas and electricity and heated by steam. Passenger elevator. 'THE GILMOUR' is furnished and fitted up in the most modern style. Electric cars pass the Hotel to all parts of the city. Rate $2.00 per day.'

The Gilmour suffered a disastrous fire in 1905, with some loss of life. The tragedy was compounded when the ruins of the hotel's walls blew over onto Bank Street three weeks later, crushing a passing streetcar and killing the motorman.

After the fire, The Gilmour was rebuilt in 1906-07 as The Alexandra Hotel which was open until the late 1970s. During a community debate over whether it should be spared demolition, the empty hotel was destroyed by yet another fire rendering the preservation controversy moot.

The lot at Bank and Gilmour was purchased by the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation, a non-profit housing organization that provides affordable rental accommodation. The new apartment building with retail at grade (by Wolf Mohaupt, Architect) has decorative banding, a cornice and a parapet wall to give a nod the the surrounding buildings.

Nearby the shops at 372 to 380 Bank Street contain some of the best-preserved cast metal and plate glass storefronts on Bank. This is the C.C.B. Electric Works, which has since moved to Gladstone Avenue.
Today it is the Capital Laundry, and its upper section has been covered by a painted mdf signboard. It June 1910 it was the National Manufacturing Co, selling fancy fuel-burning appliances like New Empress Steel Range and the Standard Sovereign Cast Range.

All of the storefronts in this row retain most of their original features.

This is a view of stoves on offer at the National Manufacturing Co. showroom on Bank Street.Next door was the National Cash Register Company. Here's a salesman demonstrating one of their latest models to a prospective buyer in a pork pie hat (from 1912).

Allen's Flowers has been on three of the four corners of Bank and MacLaren. In 1950 the florist moved into the 'The Fraser Block' - it is still in business today, several blocks to the north.

The same corner today. Like its pre-War predecessor the one-way sign is attached to a light standard, spun aluminum replacing the multi-globe cast iron standards that used to line Bank.

At the corner of Bank and Somerset - Queen's Hall, Crosby Carruthers and Co. Dry Goods, and St. George's Hall. These upper storey public halls were a feature of Bank Street. They were located on top floors for structural reasons and rented out for banquets, lodge meetings, public lectures, and other entertainments.

St. George's Hall was demolished in 1960 and replaced with an R & A Beamish store, but most Centretowners will remember this as 'Big Bud's' a discount store with a distinctly salty character.
In 1935 the Somerset House (another Horwood building) was converted into the Ritz Hotel, and given a streamlined art-moderne ground floor. Renovations in the 1980's uncovered some of the original cast iron columns. Can you spot the Rosco street sign?

The Rialto between Waverley and Frank Streets opened in 1915 as 'Thos. Clarey's Moving Picture Theatre'. It was a second-run house popular for its 35 cent triple-feature Saturday matinees. At the left is 408 Bank Street a large house with a mansardic roof that was destroyed by fire in 2003. This building was the Centretown branch of Birkett's Hardware, and its manager William Rankin lived upstairs. Within a decade Rankin opened a hardware store of his own on the other side of Florence. Rankin's Hardware sign hangs at the extreme right of the frame.

The Rialto, affectionately called 'The Rat-Hole', was cleaned up and briefly operated as The Phoenix - an art film rep house theatre. Today it is a vacant lot

There is still a vestige of Rankin's painted on the back of the store facing the alley.

377-85 Bank Street at Lewis (built 1914) was also built by developer Thos. Clarey. It opened as Charles Roger's Capital Recreation and Billiards which included bowling alleys and a shooting gallery. The ground floors were leased to two paint stores that went up in a spectacular blaze in the early 1980s. Both Bonds and Randalls are still on Bank - one in Old Ottawa South, the other in The Glebe.

The site was eventually redeveloped for the national headquarters of CUPW (the Canadian Union of Postal Workers) - Liff and Tolot, Architects.

Miccio's Fruit Store was doing business in the corner units of the former building, shown here in January 1914.
An interior shot of Miccio's, bedecked with garlands of grapevine leaves.

The Imperial Theatre (1914, W. Herbert George Architect) was a mini-movie palace. At the right another Gilmour Hotel, a beer parlour with a Tudor theme.

The movie was severed horizontally into two spaces. Upstairs is Barrymore's, and the ground floor (the former lobby and orchestra sections of the theatre) awaits a new use. The Imperial's name lives on in a bistro with movie memorabilia.

Colonial Furniture has left the street for the suburbs, but it had spread through half a block of various Bank Street buildings including the O'Connor & Storey's Turning & Lathing Mill (at the right) and the 1920s showroom of Elgin Motors which sold Packards and Studebakers.
Staples has moved in, taking advantage of their non-conforming rights to re-use the overhanging store sign. Otherwise the facade is unchanged.

Here's where the Gladstone streetcar turned. The Bank of Nova Scotia on the southwest corner of Bank and Gladstone closed in 1953. It had been built as a branch of the Bank of Ottawa in 1907, designed by James Mather. In 1919 the Bank of Ottawa was bought out and re-named. This is Bank Street looking south from Gladstone. A grey arrow in the distance points to the tower of McLeod-Stewarton United Church at Argyle Avenue. The large tower at the left belongs to McLeod Methodist Church, demolished when it merged with the church one block to the south.

The same view today. The old bank was razed for a parking lot, which is now an Esso self-serve, carwash and On the Run Mart with Tim's on tap. The red arrow marks the church's (now Centretown United) tower.