Ottawa’s downtown finally thaws

Without the cold and grey, it can be appreciated

Down here on the Albert Street sidewalk, the vaulting of the temperature to above zero for the first time in two months has energized the pedestrians. The mood of the street is one of release from a cold clutch; even the pools of people waiting at the string of bus stops ahead of me seem to be listening to happy tunes in their ear buds.

The downtown cross-streets — Queen, Albert, Slater, Laurier — are canyons now, their walls rising ever higher as older, shorter buildings of brick and stone have been erased and a new skyline drawn, leaving a narrow scarf of sky overhead and a million windows, the workplaces of the skypeople. They awake in their condos above ground, briefly ride at street level and then rise up to their offices, thus spending most of their week above ground.

The massive black, cut-out walls of the Constitution Square triptych of buildings, with its impressive granite-clad portal displaying the only curve in the entire structure, dominates an entire block. In the small square across the road, the ice in the fountain has melted and some brave birds are wing washing. There are some curious objects in this square found almost nowhere else on the street, random in shape and moving slightly in the breeze. I think they are called trees.

Relief in scale and decoration appears on the southeast corner of Bank Street. Once the headquarters of Ottawa Hydro, the Art-Deco gem there now houses a right-minded coffee shop. Next door, the advertisement painted on the side walls still attracts diners to the Cathay Chop Suey House, a veteran restaurant that I believe I ate in as a boy, almost 60 years ago, but is now closed and replaced by a louder dining establishment.

The stretch down to Metcalfe Street on the south side comprises mostly hotels of various star ratings, among them the former Beacon Arms. A fire in the “Broken” Arms 50 years ago killed three people including the mother of one of the firemen who fought it, and who was the switchboard operator who warned everyone to evacuate. Elvis rested up here before doing two shows at the old Auditorium on April 3, 1957. Downstairs was a music and comedy room where

The mood of the street is one of release from a cold clutch; even the pools of people waiting at the string of bus stops ahead of me seem to be listening to happy tunes in their ear buds.

I remember seeing comedian Mike MacDonald do a homecoming set that left me fighting for breath.

The World Exchange Plaza opens out on the north side like a niche in the canyon walls. One or two coffee drinkers are standing in the sunshine that has deked through the skyline, and in a few short months there will be al fresco music playing here.

The Fuller Building at 75 Albert, close to Elgin on the northside, is actually starting to look vintage. A simple repeating pattern of white and black in the façade almost seems quaint. Built in 1960, it suffered an injurious collapse while under construction, and later a fire broke out on the roof. But it has been quiet for 55 years, and continues to wear the name of one of Ottawa’s architectural and construction dynasties, founded by Thomas Fuller who was the Dominion Chief Architect in the late 19th century and the man who designed the first set of Parliament buildings.

Opposite the Fuller is another sky-eating, glass-walled monolith, albeit in beige and light blue, a new government finance building replacing the old National Gallery and named for James Flaherty, the Conservative minister who died last year. As I pause at Elgin to close my notebook, I notice several small sandwich boards placed on the sidewalk outside the building warning of the dangers of falling ice.