Digitized images from the recent past (and by that, I mean within the last 50 years) are frustratingly scarce. Looking for photos of the temporary malls on
Sparks Street for an earlier post, I had to content myself with the usual fall-back, grainy Ottawa Citizen shots from the
Google News Archive. On-line repositories at the
Library and Archives Canada represent a smattering of their collections, which produced some interesting black and white pictures.
And then, a friend recently recommended the small but fascinating
Flickr photo pool of 50s, 60s, and 70s Ottawa - which included several views of the temporary Sparks Street Mall in the summer of 1961. So I've woven the two strands together for a revisit.
They matched up with an anonymous news photographer's record of another event in the same setting - a photo shoot of a demonstration on Sparks Street during the Bomarc Missile Crisis of 1963.
This is what the O'Connor to Metcalfe block of Sparks looked like just before the streetcar tracks were taken up in May 1959 and the street repaved. It was this fresh asphalt canvas that prompted the street's merchants into creating the first temporary mall.
This is looking west from the middle block, under the stage. The colour photo set of the mall appears to be jpegs taken from colour slides, unfortunately taken at dusk. I've never had much luck with these conversions, but maybe I am going to the wrong place.
To briefly recap the missile crisis: In 1963, the Diefenbaker government which had resisted nuclear warheads on Canadian soil (although these weapons had been part of their rationale for the Avro Arrow cancellation) split on the issue, forcing an election which brought the Liberals to power under Lester Pearson. They took the missiles, and Ban the Bomb protests like this one on Sparks Street ensued.
The design of the first mall had been pulled together in just a few months with low cost elements like pavement painting and moveable furniture.
Snaking around the flower beds (just some curbs containing dirt) the anti-Bomarc demo circled the mall, and proceeded onto Parliament Hill.
The joy of these pictures is not really in the street furniture or the buildings - it's the people. I like the stance of this couple looking into the stylishly dressed Murphy Gambles' windows, and can imagine the conversation that is passing between them.
Although it is not digitized, the
Andrews-Newton Collection at the City of Ottawa has a wealth of 1950s imagery, like these picture of Murphy Gambles with all of its original marquee (I can't resist documenting these subtle alterations through time). The archives has only been able to catalogue of few thousand of its nearly quarter million images, and there is a small on-line exhibition.
It was a time when people still dressed up to go downtown. I have fond memories of this place. In the early 1960s I had a grandmother who took my sister and me to the department store's genteel fifth-floor tea room, which was full of ladies lunching in wrist-length white gloves. The five-globe cast iron light standards on Sparks Street were scrapped in 1962, and replaced with concrete lamp post and cobra head fixtures.
The mall's pre-cast concrete planters were handsome and sturdy, and outdoor cafe restaurant were an exotic and enjoyable novelty for Ottawa. The 'la Macanza' on the placard was the base in Quebec were the nuclear missiles were deployed.
This is the location of the CBC Ottawa Centre (the aborted
Selzer Building), with some of the temporary mall's fixed molded fiberglas seats.
The long Italianate Commercial row that stretched from the Bank of Nova Scotia to the corner of O'Connor Street was demolished in 1968 for the 'La Promenade' building at 151 Sparks Street - the first new office to be designed to co-ordinate with the new permanent Sparks Street Mall. It had two floors or retail space, reached by an exterior flight of stairs that landed on the middle of the mall. The stairs were removed in the 1980s, and I am still looking for a photograph of them.
Until they were prohibited by city by-law, Sparks Street had a proliferation of overhanging signs. And while the streetcars ran in both directions, it appears that Sparks was one-way for car traffic.
Does anyone else remember these chunky knit sweater coats? They always had moose, deer, totem pole or lodge motifs.
This blue waste receptacle looks like it would function much better than any model in use today.
The geometric patterns of the pavement markings varied from block to block. They must have been removed each October, when the street was returned to regular lanes for vehicular traffic.
There was a time when there were kids on the mall to warrant a play area. This seems amazingly progressive, but this was the height of the Baby Boom.
The mall was a great place for people watching and the 1963 demonstration was met with a bemused and skeptical crowd of noon hour onlookers.
Digitized images from the recent past (and by that, I mean within the last 50 years) are frustratingly scarce. Looking for photos of the temporary malls on Sparks Street for an earlier post, I had to content myself with the usual fall-back, grainy Ottawa Citizen shots from the Google News Archive. On-line repositories at the Library and Archives Canada represent a smattering of their collections, which produced some interesting black and white pictures.
And then, a friend recently recommended the small but fascinating Flickr photo pool of 50s, 60s, and 70s Ottawa - which included several views of the temporary Sparks Street Mall in the summer of 1961. So I've woven the two strands together for a revisit.
They matched up with an anonymous news photographer's record of another event in the same setting - a photo shoot of a demonstration on Sparks Street during the Bomarc Missile Crisis of 1963.
This is what the O'Connor to Metcalfe block of Sparks looked like just before the streetcar tracks were taken up in May 1959 and the street repaved. It was this fresh asphalt canvas that prompted the street's merchants into creating the first temporary mall.
This is looking west from the middle block, under the stage. The colour photo set of the mall appears to be jpegs taken from colour slides, unfortunately taken at dusk. I've never had much luck with these conversions, but maybe I am going to the wrong place.
To briefly recap the missile crisis: In 1963, the Diefenbaker government which had resisted nuclear warheads on Canadian soil (although these weapons had been part of their rationale for the Avro Arrow cancellation) split on the issue, forcing an election which brought the Liberals to power under Lester Pearson. They took the missiles, and Ban the Bomb protests like this one on Sparks Street ensued.
The design of the first mall had been pulled together in just a few months with low cost elements like pavement painting and moveable furniture.
Snaking around the flower beds (just some curbs containing dirt) the anti-Bomarc demo circled the mall, and proceeded onto Parliament Hill.
The joy of these pictures is not really in the street furniture or the buildings - it's the people. I like the stance of this couple looking into the stylishly dressed Murphy Gambles' windows, and can imagine the conversation that is passing between them.
Although it is not digitized, the Andrews-Newton Collection at the City of Ottawa has a wealth of 1950s imagery, like these picture of Murphy Gambles with all of its original marquee (I can't resist documenting these subtle alterations through time). The archives has only been able to catalogue of few thousand of its nearly quarter million images, and there is a small on-line exhibition.
It was a time when people still dressed up to go downtown. I have fond memories of this place. In the early 1960s I had a grandmother who took my sister and me to the department store's genteel fifth-floor tea room, which was full of ladies lunching in wrist-length white gloves. The five-globe cast iron light standards on Sparks Street were scrapped in 1962, and replaced with concrete lamp post and cobra head fixtures.
The mall's pre-cast concrete planters were handsome and sturdy, and outdoor cafe restaurant were an exotic and enjoyable novelty for Ottawa. The 'la Macanza' on the placard was the base in Quebec were the nuclear missiles were deployed.
This is the location of the CBC Ottawa Centre (the aborted Selzer Building), with some of the temporary mall's fixed molded fiberglas seats.
The long Italianate Commercial row that stretched from the Bank of Nova Scotia to the corner of O'Connor Street was demolished in 1968 for the 'La Promenade' building at 151 Sparks Street - the first new office to be designed to co-ordinate with the new permanent Sparks Street Mall. It had two floors or retail space, reached by an exterior flight of stairs that landed on the middle of the mall. The stairs were removed in the 1980s, and I am still looking for a photograph of them.
Until they were prohibited by city by-law, Sparks Street had a proliferation of overhanging signs. And while the streetcars ran in both directions, it appears that Sparks was one-way for car traffic.
Does anyone else remember these chunky knit sweater coats? They always had moose, deer, totem pole or lodge motifs.
This blue waste receptacle looks like it would function much better than any model in use today.
The geometric patterns of the pavement markings varied from block to block. They must have been removed each October, when the street was returned to regular lanes for vehicular traffic.
There was a time when there were kids on the mall to warrant a play area. This seems amazingly progressive, but this was the height of the Baby Boom.
The mall was a great place for people watching and the 1963 demonstration was met with a bemused and skeptical crowd of noon hour onlookers. 
Why are overhead signs banned?
ReplyDeleteReally don't get it.
Interesting, the Bank of Montreal's lettering above the door was in English only. It was more recently English above French lettering (though only a few letters remain).
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link to the City of Ottawa archives images!
Those chunky knit sweaters are curling sweaters. A friend has a few of them
ReplyDeleteEasily your best work. I always like to see more street-level scenery. Also, it was fun to compare the appearances of the protesters then to what they generally look like now.
ReplyDeleteI wish they would open Sparks Street to vehicle traffic in the winter. It was a much more vibrant street in the 60s.
ReplyDeleteI wish they'd bring back overhead signs!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for these steps back into the past. I was 5 years old when our family moved here in 1966 - I have many childhood memories of the late 60's but very little knowledge of what went before. I was a nerdy little kid, interested in engineering and architecture (in a childish way), and fascinated with construction and roads.
ReplyDeleteWhenever my very-Toronto grandmother would visit, we were inevitably dragged down to see the Changing of the Guard and usually wound up on Sparks St. for lunch. By then, the permanent mall was in place - it's all I've ever known, so I really appreciate getting to see what was there just a few short years before.
Many of your posts give me the same feeling - it seems like up to the mid-sixties, everything is dingy and old (black and white photos don't help) and following that, a great renewal has taken place. Centennial effect, perhaps?
Once again, my sincere thanks for all of the URBSite posts. An amazing visual history, as well as interesting and educational facts about many of the structures around us.
Thank you,
David Ball
Now living in Chelsea QC
Thanks for the tip of the hat, good sir.
ReplyDeleteOn the Promenade stair front, I vainly thought that I might succeed where giants had failed, but only came up with this:
http://ottawaephemera.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/a-delightful-way-to-spend-the-day/
It is the stairs; just not good pictures of 'em.
DS
I remember that Kentucky Fried Chicken!
ReplyDelete