This is a bit of a reminiscence of memories of my hometown Ottawa that have somehow seeped up from the brain, in no particular order, for no particular reason.
The number 61 Elmvale Acres bus. It was the 61 Bayshore until it got the other end of city, when it became the 61 Elmvale. It took almost two hours for the bus to do the whole loop through the downtown core, east to Elmvale Shopping Centre, back around Urbandale Acres, through Elmvale again, to downtown, then out to the wilds of the West End: Westgate Shopping Centre, Carlingwood and eventually a loop of Bayshore Drive, before there was a Bayshore Shopping Centre. You could see almost the whole city for 50 cents.
Tiny Tom Donuts in the Pure Food building at the Ex. Every year mystery people would bring a convoluted machine that would poop out tiny donuts by the hundreds at the Central Canada Exhibition. They would be hot, greasy and lightly sprinkled with white sugar and if you paid extra, cinnamon and sugar. There were also Shopsy Hot Dogs, Pizza, and Back Bacon on a Bun. Why it was called the Pure Food building, I’ll never know, as the only thing that was ‘Pure" in there was the grease.
Hobbyland. Downtown for a thousand years. As all the small buildings downtown were bought up, then razed to make way for huge office buildings, Hobbyland survived. If you needed Testor’s Candy Apple Red and some new brushes for your Eldon slot car, Hobbyland had it in stock.
The Capitol Theatre was a monster classic cinema and theatre originally built in 1920 with Thomas W. Lamb as the architect. The Capitol was an old-fashioned movie palace that sat 2530 patrons in luxury. The stage hosted everyone from Nelson Eddy to Jimi Hendrix over its’ fifty-year life.
As a school safety patroller, I got to watch double-bill movies at The Capitol on Saturday mornings. Up past the dome, there was a slot car track with a huge 8-lane custom track, where you could race against other folks. You could only get to the slot cars by walking up what seemed like forty-four flights of stairs from an obscure entrance off the side street. I used to have a half a brick, rescued from the Capitol when it was demolished in 1970.
There were other cinemas/theatres in Ottawa. The Regent, The Elgin, The Elmdale and The Rialto come to mind. The Rialto, also known as the RatHole was a very old cinema that became a grindhouse in later years. Triple-bill Laff Riots with Jerry Lewis, The Stooges and Laurel and Hardy, alternated with soft-core porn, "Emmanuelle, Queen of Sados" and violent exploitation horror films like "Die Die My Darling Die" and "Ilsa, She-wolf of the SS". The floors at the Rialto were always sticky.
Donald Duck Bread was baked by Morrison-Lamonthe bakery and was delivered to the house by the Bread Man, who trolled the suburbs in a green truck. Donald Duck Bread was especially fascinating as it was baked as a round loaf, almost exactly the right diameter to fit a slice of bologna.
Borden’s Dairy served the South end of the city with their milk trucks, while the West end was the purview of Clark’s Dairy and their weird purple trucks. If you wanted bread or milk you put a little cardboard card in the front window and the various sales people would miraculously stop and deliver to the back door of the house.
The 85 Bank and Grove bus. For the longest time the 85 Bank and Grove was an ancient gas-powered short wheelbase bus. Unlike the 61 Elmvale Acres, which was a mammoth GM diesel, then an ultra modern GM Fishbowl, the 85 was always a small, smelly wobbly bus. At the corner of Bank Street and Grove Street, the 85 would turn around and head back to the ‘burbs. To get downtown you would have to transfer to a 1A St. Patrick. The turnabout was a vestige of the streetcar turnabout when the streetcar tracks were torn up in 1954.
Shopper’s City West and East. Either Shopper’s City demarcated the end of Civilization as We Knew It. Frieman’s department store always had one half of the Shopper’s City, while Dominion supermarket had the other half. Tower’s Department store was also in the Shopper’s City East, sort of an early super-discount department store that carried the genetic material for a downscale Target.
At one time Steinberg’s Grocery was a big chain in Ottawa. Based in Montreal, it competed with the local IGA and Dominion, but it was also a linguistic and cultural divide. Anglos shopped at IGA or Dominion, while the Francophones almost always shopped at Steinberg’s. Any supermarket with an entire aisle dedicated to pink popcorn and Jos Louis snack cakes was tagged as "French".
The Miss Westgate Restaurant, the Carousel Restaurant, The Green Valley and Peter’s Pantry. A grilled cheese and bacon sandwich? Banquette seating around an imitation merry go round? A restaurant on the edge of the Experimental Farm where the average age of the patrons and staff was 843 years old? Excellent pizza and Zombies that would drop a stone statue on its ass? Check, Check, Check, Check. Done.
The Sandpits. Out near the airport was a huge sandpit where we used to go and slide down the side of the pit. Bring a cardboard box as an ersatz summer toboggan. Now expensive housing.
Brewer Park was a response to the Rideau River being essentially a sewer in the 60’s and 70’s. It was carved out of swamp and sand like a big oblong bowl next to the river. Conceptually the water in Brewer Park was ‘filtered’ so you could swim there in the summer when the usual Rideau River swimming parks were closed from the pollution in the river. Brewer Park merely took the big lumps out and pumped the water into the swimming area.
The Heron Road Bridge Collapse. On August 10, 1966, one span of the Heron Road bridge collapsed while under construction, killing nine and injuring fifty-seven more. We took the car down to the site to see what happened and I still remember it to this day.
Autorama 68…69…70…71..72…73.. was the winter car show. Mostly show cars, hot rods and the occasional legit race car interspersed with the various car dealerships flogging that years’ model. Watching the Valvoline race movies of the previous year races was always a highlight. Invariably someone would light up a race car inside the Civic Centre and scare the snot out of everyone, while enveloping the arena in choking clouds of semi-burned Sunoco 260.
Fuller’s Restaurant. A chain restaurant now long gone, but Fuller’s was always open. The Red Barn was also a chain burger joint that had the "Big Barney". You can still see the buildings on Bank Street, north of Heron Road: They were across the street from each other and still are. Both places had a ‘special sauce’ on their signature burgers, attempting to emulate the guk on a Big Mac. There were too many stories about what was actually in the ‘special sauce’ to actually consume it, so we would order ‘no sauce’, if only to keep from being exposed to the supposed contents. Royal Burger in Eastview had a special sauce as well and we avoided it as studiously.
The Ottawa Coal Gas Company and Myer’s Motors. The Ottawa Coal Gas Company was located on what is now Algonquin College, but was known as Grant Vocational School. You could see the coal gasification storage tank for the longest time. As to what toxic sludge lives there, it is covered by Algonquin College and the Transitway. Myer’s Motors used to be on Catherine Street, where the Bus Station now resides. You could always tell when the paint booth was in operation, as the paint fumes were vented directly outdoors.
The Union Station. What is now the Federal Conference Centre used to be the train station. We took the CN train to Montreal for Expo67, from Union Station, as the new station out in Alta Vista wasn’t done yet. Yes, the Queen Elizabeth Parkway used to be train tracks. Where the Westin Hotel is was the Grand Hotel, a working-man’s hotel. Next to it was a Canada Post sorting building where the mail would come in by train, then be sorted for delivery.
"Temporary" Buildings. There used to be hundreds of them across the city, erected back in WWII, to house the machinery of government during wartime. Where the city hall is, used to be a big one. Same at Dow’s Lake, a huge one fronted Carling Avenue for the longest time. The Temporary Buildings were deathtraps when they were put up; cold in winter, hot in summer with asbestos-wrapped pipes. They never improved over their forty-odd years of existence.
Ice Racing on Dow’s Lake. In the depths of winter, as part of the Winter Carnival, someone would plow a road course race track on the ice. Then they would race cars and motorcycles on it. Of the cars, you would see original Mini Coopers and Fiats blasting around corners, with studded tires. Invariably some loon would bring a hulking stock car to compete with the Minis. Blindingly fast in a straight line, but couldn’t turn worth a damn, while the little rally cars ricocheted off the snowbanks. Racing motorcycles with hundreds of sheet metal screws in the tires as ice spikes was an invitation to disaster. We froze to death on the ice, but we loved it.
Brewer’s Retail and the Liquor Store. In the day at the Liquor Store you could not see the display of any bottles of liquor or wine. There was a list of products on offer around the walls; you filled in a paper slip with the product number and handed it to a government functionary. He went through a door to the warehouse and got your bottle, then brought it to the cash register. After you paid, he bagged it up in a plain kraft paper bag and you left.
Brewer’s Retail was a little more relaxed, in that they had display space for one bottle of each product on offer. The cashier would shout your order into a microphone as you paid for it, then moved over to the conveyor belt as your order magically appeared. "Peewee Fifty" meant a six-pack of Labatt’s 50, their premium beer at the time. "Long Red Cap" was a twelve of Carling Red Cap. "Ex" was a 24-case of Molson Export, the implied size was always 24 beers. Only the underage or women bought Peewee or Long sizes.
Pascal’s. It wasn’t a department store, or hardware store, or a furniture store, but under one roof in the west end on Merivale Road, Pascal’s had one of everything known to Man. If you needed 3/8" keyway bar stock, a sofa and restaurant grade salt shakers in a box of 12, then you went to Pascal’s. From lumber to lingerie, Pascal’s had it. You could buy a lathe and a dining room at the same time.
The Rough Riders. At one time Ottawa had a Canadian Football League team with players like Russ Jackson, Whit Tucker and Gerry Organ. The South side of Lansdowne was where we sat. Coffee with Palm Breeze rum was the beverage of choice, rain, snow or shine, for young and old. Only the crazed sat in the end zones. If you couldn’t be at the game, you listened to Ernie Calcutt call it on CFRA with Dave Schreiber. If you didn’t listen, or attend, you were a subhuman destined to a life of eternal burning Hell. Or an Hamilton Ti-Cats fan.
That’ll do for the time being. Let’s see what kind of link action we get out of this one. You can always post your own peculiar Things Ottawa too.
RoadDave 