117 MacDonald: The Merrill

 The Merrill is one of those six-plexes — you know, the kind with five apartments. These little post-war walk-ups don't usually have names but this one does, so there. A newspaper search reveals that a Mr. and Mrs. H. Merrill Macartney were living at this address in 1960. Sadly, we know this because in September of that year, their six-year old son Billy died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage while getting dressed for school. Billy attended Elgin Street Public and would have just started either kindergarten or grade one.

  Was The Merrill named after Mr. Macartney? Apparently so. The building was built circa 1955 and first appears in the '56 city directory with four units rented and a fifth listed thus — "3*Macartney H Merrill (Isobel)" where the asterisk denotes ownership. This was before the days of condominiums so we can assume that Merrill Macartney owned the building entire building, not just his unit.

  117 MacDonald sits immediately to the north of the former "slanty-shanty" lot at #121.

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 By summer of the following year it had been replaced by a lower, broader home in the modern style.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.

It's full of holes

digging on Gilmour, June 2016

 I've never seen so many holes, all at the same time, in Ottawa. Not ever. This one is at the east end of Gilmour, in front of #s 27-31, just past Salsibury Place near the Canal. Something to do with utilities I'm guessing. That round, precast thingummy is a good three metres across. Not small, no sirree.

 This slice of the Golden Triangle lies just to the north of what was once called Neville's Point (see Urbsite.) This small settlement sprang up near the mouth of Neville's Creek. Apparently the creek was a slow, seasonal affair but in its time it managed to carve a respectable gully before emptying into the Canal, warranting its own little wooden footbridge (see Lost Ottawa, extreme right end of map.) You can still see a relict depression in the ground where the creek once flowed — it lies in the grassy area between the German Embassy (#1 Waverly) and the Canadian Nurses Association (#50 The Driveway). The depression extends back "upstream" to make a small dip in Robert Street near #26.

  It's fair to guess that exposed the soil in the photo is the sort of stuff Neville's Creek would have been cutting its way through. From here, it looks silty to me, maybe on the sandy side with some clay. According to the "Surficial Geology of Ottawa" map 1506A, Geological Survey of Canada, this spot is covered by Champlain Sea sediments of type "3a" described as...

Clay and silt underlying erosional terraces; upper part of marine deposits removed to variable depths by fluvial erosion so in places clay is uniform blue-grey; unit includes lenses, bars and channel fills of sand and pockets of non-marine silt that was formed during terrace or channel cutting. 

 So yeah, though that rocky-looking layer dipping downward to the right at the far end of the pit has me flummoxed — or is it old, sunken pavement?) I'm also intrigued by the gravelly layer under the sidewalk. What is that — old macadam? Or was the sidewalk poured over a (deep!) gravel bed?

 For a detailed discussion of this part of Centretown, see Urbsite's article on "The Bend in the Deep Cut." Also, Google has archived a fascinating piece from the Ottawa Citizen dating to 1935. It's introduction (rampant capitals not mine) reads...

Story of Seventies Related by Charles Neville. Tells of Deep Gully Which Ran From Elgin to Foot of Waverley. Women Worked in Bare Feet in Brickyards On Canal Bank. Extensive Area Between Elgin and Bank Street Was Veritable[*] Swamp. Recalls Old "Rampike" in Canal.

  Read all about it here!

(*@Kevin "ORLY?")

Paint on Brick

106 Cartier Street

 On the subject of exterior brick-painting, a friend tells me that "properly done, it protects the primer." Which begs the question...

 This green works well enough with the dark roof and white trim. It makes the upthrusting shrubs (cypress?) and vertiginous side-staircase appear to sink into the architecture. The flattened roof-top is probably original, though older photos (geoOttawa 1958-1991) show light-coloured shingles.

 The house is typical of the many two-and-a-half storey, red-brick-on-a-limestone-base, asymmetrical, dawn-of-the-20th homes one finds in Centretown and Sandy Hill. I'm having trouble dating it, what with some ambiguities in the City Directories and revision-date issues on the Goad maps. The 1901 Directory indicates "vacant lots" between a "House" at or near Lewis and #110 at Waverley.  The 1909 edition lists an Archibald K. McLean at #106. 1909 doesn't name spouses or indicate ownership, but it looks as if Mr. McLean could well have been the first occupant and likely owner some time after 1901.

from Goad; Ottawa Vol. 1, sheet 68 "reprint May 1912"

 This Goad map shows #106, mid-block between Lewis and Waverley on the west side of Cartier. The row houses across the street have been replaced by 99 Cartier, a six-storey apartment building ("the Norwood") and the adjacent duplex (105-107) is now a parking lot. Earlier maps suggest that the area occupied by Minto Park was designated as such from the get-go, rather like Anglesea Square in Lowertown.

 So many houses of this size and style have been divided into apartments (#106 boasts three mailboxes on its front porch) that it's hard to picture them as single family, or indeed single person dwellings. But they were.

 Some time between 1909 and 1913, Mr. McLean vacated the house and it was taken over by a Miss Elizabeth Kennedy. In 1914 Elizabeth was somehow replaced by Margaret of-like-surname, who continued to live there through the 20s, 30s and 40s, listed as the owner. She was eventually joined by her sister, Agnes Cornelia Kennedy, who died in September of 1944, leaving her estate to Margaret. Margaret R. Kennedy died in February of 1949, marking the end of a family occupancy that lasted through two World Wars, the intervening Jazz Age and the Great Depression.

 I'm guessing that the steep staircase with its fiberglass canopy is the private approach to a small, third-storey apartment. The Golden Triangle hosts several examples of exterior access to upper-floor apartments. Some look far worse than this.