Wellington Oracle

As this map of our main street shows it’s a long stretch between the intersection at Holland –on the far right– and the next legal place to walk across Wellington heading west, visible as a thin white line at Smirle Street, to the far left of the map. ( For reference the Bridgehead cafe is the red “A” point)

With the steady draw of businesses like Thyme and Again, Bridgehead, and Booster Juice along this length of the main street, it’s no surprise that many pedestrians simply wait for a pause in traffic and jaywalk across rather than going as far as the Smirle crosswalk. (more…)

 

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A reader reports that thanks to her complaint to the by-law office – spurred by our report of June 3 - a case number and by-law officer have been assigned to the problem courtyard behind 340 Parkdale.

Reports are that the owner’s agent has been contacted by the by-law office and understands his obligation to have the clean-up proceed.

Fortunately for his pocketbook an eager volunteer crew showed up this past Saturday to begin the job for him. Organized by James Robinson of the Parkdale Gallery, the crew had perfect conditions to get stuck into what can only be described as a morning of pure grunt-work. To see how far they’ve already come with their efforts, check the flickr slideshow here.

Along with Miss Vicky at offhand.ca we’ve been following the news about public art and the Wellington Street road reconstruction. Local artist Don Monet was part of a team whose concept didn’t make the short list for the quarter million dollar commission, but that hasn’t stopped his ongoing interest in bringing art to the streetscape.

Here he guides us in a walking tour of a the micro-district along Hamilton Avenue and Spencer Street. Up until recently so blighted on the inside, where it meets the street this block has probably the greatest concentration of mural effects in the entire district.

We recently had a chance to catch up with Ottawa car-sharing expert Wilson Wood, which is no easy task these days; he is an extremely busy man with his Vrtucar organization garnering national news reports and Ottawans flocking to any alternative to 1.32 per litre gasoline they can find.

We asked him why the Hintonburg and West Wellington area is such a hotspot for car-sharing and in the process we found out about a new way to extend the ride for people using the Tunney’s transit station.

 

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Two weeks ago it was just a vacant lot beside the Victoria Pharmacy but thanks to the Devonshire daycare and community activist Paulette Dozois — and a team of volunteers — a green revolution has taken seed at the site of the old Caisse Populaire across from St. Francis church on Wellington.

Click below to hear Paulette tell us just how it happened, and see the transformation for yourself with the flickr slideshow – photos courtesy of Catherine Henry.

 

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A recent commentary in the Oracle turned into some wishing out loud about what a neighbourhood eyesore could become with just a little bit of vision applied to the problem.

In a development that should delight artists and gallery-goers across the district, an interview with the Parkdale Gallery’s James Robinson suggests that those wishes just might be coming true, and much sooner than expected. Click below to hear the plans in Mr. Robinson’s own words.

 

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Well here I am recovering 36 hours after receiving the Apology.

Apparently, I appear to be one of few who felt quite unsatisfied with the long awaited and quite eloquent script from Prime Minister Stephen Harper regarding Indian Residential Schools in Canada. It was like one of those moments where one truly needs, and is ready, to sneeze and then is suddenly circumvented.

I guess it is because in any other country, these past actions would be considered genocidal, outright war crimes or just plain mean.

(more…)

Some local commentators have expressed disappointment at the chosen winner for the $250,000.00 “public art” component of the Wellington Street West road reconstruction project.

Some of the disappointment has centred on the winning proposal’s use of heavy and expensive imported Italian marble ( the winning design is for a series of stylized marble fire hydrants), given the increasing societal concern with carbon footprints and the new popularity of “hundred mile” consumption guidelines.

Pictured above, one proposal that didn’t even make the shortlist or “maquette” stage of the jury’s deliberations would have represented an opportunity to reduce the carbon footprint of the street art to virtually nothing by creative re-use of the very materials being stripped away from the street during the reconstruction – the giant wooden telephone poles that have served the street for over 50 years. (more…)

Hintonburg’s Amber Yared has been filing stories at spacing.ca about a topic that might have been custom–picked to send shivers down our spines here at the Oracle; she writes about the problems created by civil servants’ virtually unquenchable thirst for surface parking across the river in Hull.

What she found out about the proliferation of illegal backyard parking lots in her latest installment is so demoralizing it might almost be enough to make us swear off criticizing zoning enforcement here in Ottawa.

But not quite.

The site of the old Honeywell building at the corner of Parkdale and Spencer has been many things to many people in its day – barracks, factory, research facility, soda pop bottler – and it’s now home to a strip of thriving workshops, salons, and galleries. These new shops bring services and no small amount of cultural attraction to what was recently a moribund and derelict streetscape. (more…)