292 Elgin Street

How Creepy was my Clown?

 On Thursday, Febuary 8 1940. Loblaw's ran a full-page ad in the Ottawa Journal, announcing that their new Elgin Street location would open at 2:00 PM the following afternoon. This would bring the number of Loblaw's stores in the Capital area to seven, including the locations at 139 Rideau Street, 1273 Wellington, and the four stores on Bank (206, 317, 724 and 1115.) Compare the drawing in the ad to the storefront as it appears in the above photo today...

 Not spot on, but close enough. The windows have been replaced and the glazing truncated on the north end of the storefront to accommodate an entrance to the basement. The four sidewalk-level vents are now hidden by black tile, and unless it grew an extra pair along the way, the artist skimped on the number of sandstone accents in the late-deco-ish motif above the doorway.

 The ad copy and an accompanying article tell us that the store was purpose-built on land purchased by Loblaw's. It had a floor area of some 5,000 square feet and employed fifteen, all locals, all with previous experience at other Loblaw's stores. Dedicated to product freshness, hygiene and convenience, the store would pay special attention to its selection of meat and produce, in a setting "decorated in a cheerful shade of pastel brown[!] with silver trims that add an extra gleam of attractiveness to the white fixtures. The indirect lighting affords a soft and well diffused illumination that is as restful as it is adequate." Steam heating was also a thing.

 The Elgin Street Loblaws lost its lease in early 1972. #292 became home to a succession of restaurants including the Royal Palace (so a friend tells me), the Stage Door (I'm pretty sure) and the palm-court styled Penguin (where I worked, albeit briefly.) The basement, "292-B" became a venue in its own right. Of the Roxy (heyday the early 1980s), Tom Stewart writes...

"[Club operator] Paul Symes had the courage and foresight to book hardcore bands Black Flag and Saccharine Trust into the Roxy – a basement room at 292-B Elgin Street with a low ceiling and (thankfully) even lower lighting. For many in the national capital’s music scene, things would never be the same. Sure we’d seen punk bands before, but this was the real thing – California hardcore at it’s most ferocious. Henry Rollins sang half the set holding a hapless local in a headlock, his maniacal gaze daring the audience to approach the stage and risk the same fate."

 Other acts of note included Mark E. Smith and the Fall, the Lounge Lizards, Mission of Burma, the Violent Femmes and the Virgin Prunes — Of the last mentioned, I'll admit to walking out ten minutes into their show. The Stray Cats were playing in Hull the same night — less artsy whining and a lot more fun ;-)

 292-B is now the Bytown Tavern, the home of Yuk-Yuk's comedy club, just downstairs from Hooley's Pub... currently sporting a seasonal "creepy clown" doorway treatment. Nice teeth!

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 It comes to my belated attention that the story of 292 Elgin Street was well researched and delightfully written up earlier this year by Ottawa's respected young historian, Chris Ryan. I'm relieved to see that nothing I've written here is contradicted by his findings.

121 MacDonald, the "Slanty Shanty"

 I took this photo of 121 MacDonald at the corner of Frank, in April of 2006. By summer of the following year it had been replaced by a lower, broader home in the modern style.

 This house appears in Might Directories at least as far back as 1901, when it was listed (though not numbered) as the home of one John Eldridge. Immediately to its south lay an extensive lumber yard.

 The two-and-a-half storey wooden structure was set atop a stone foundation which, over the decades, sank unevenly into soil. Underlying Leda Clay, a relic of the Champlain seabed, was the likely culprit. The house would have been unlivable by the time it was demolished.

 Here's a view of the new 121 MacDonald...

The Kelso Apartments

 The City Directories make it pretty clear that the Kelso — 51-53 MacLaren at MacDonald in the Golden Triangle — was built in or just before 1913. The 1912 Might Directory lists those two addresses as belonging to an occupied semi-detached. In 1913 they were "vacant." The next year they were explicitly associated with the "Kelso Apts" and boasting six renters. That number would soon swell to fourteen, including a caretaker (the apartments are listed as 1-7, 7a, 8-12, and 14.) The Kelso boasts a small but tasteful side-entrance numbered 17 MacDonald Street.

 Here is a detail from Goad (May 1912, sheet 51) showing the original double at 51-53 just before it was demolished. I've highlighted it in red (east is on top.)

 Notice the odd skew on the north (left) side of the lot. This was occasioned by the wedged shape of block 281 and is preserved in the angle of the Kelso's rear wall, which evidently sits right on the property line.

 For such an imposing building, the Kelso's first rental ads were brief and low-key. Here is an Ottawa Journal placement for December 1, 1913...

 

 Worth noting: the address has been simplified to #53, and apartments vary in size by three rooms. "Phone Janitor" seems an unpromising touch, but with a big, empty building to watch over, said custodian may not have had much to do with his days but answer calls. Rents and phone numbers are typical of the time.

"You again!"

 The Kelso signaled a move away from the gracile, asymmetric whimsies of the late 1800s and toward the more modernly massed walk-ups that would evolve between 1910 and 1950. Still it clings to its Victorian red brickwork and its stone foundation, the last gasps of Empire.

 I can find little in the way of spectacular goings-on at the Kelso over the decades, only the account of a furnace blast on November 7, 1946. Perhaps it was the first really chilly night of the year? Someone (that janitor!) over-stoked the coal furnace, and shortly after 10:00 PM a build-up of coal gas exploded, blowing the top off the furnace and knocking down various pipes and conduits. There was no fire and no-one was hurt.

 Oh... speaking of evolving apartment buildings, if you look back up at my photo, you can see "Ten the Driveway" (1969) at the east end of Cooper Street, looming in the background — the typical high-rise fare for Ottawa in the late 1960s and into the '70s, when tall was all!

77 MacLaren Street

 Flat-roofed but with a bold, gambreled front dormer, 77 MacLaren appears to date from between 1884 and '88. The house saw mention in the Ottawa Journal as early as 1898. In 1899, the owner advertised for a "general" servant (no washing or ironing.) The 1901 City Directory lists the address as home to Alex G. McCormick (a grain merchant.)

 Dr. John Cadenhead Glashan
(b. Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 1844), mathematician, writer, teacher and eventually school inspector, had moved into #77 by May of 1931 but died a year later of appendicitis/peritonitis at the age of 88. Glashan Public School on Arlington Avenue bears his name. His widow, the much-loved Anne, celebrated her 98th birthday in the house on December 8 1937. Sadly I can't find a proper obituary for her.

 During WWII the address devolved into a rooming/flop house known as "Charles Manor" and later, "MacLaren Lodge." Things really went downhill after the war. In April of 1954, the house was raided as a brothel. Arrests included two prostitutes and two "found-ins."

 By 1960, 77 MacLaren had been tidied up and converted to office use (the Community Planning Association of Canada) — it presently hosts a small skulk of psychologists.