Byward Market, Ottawa
Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen
A window-washer is squeegeeing the windows at The House of Cheese in the Byward Market. He typically washes the windows of about 160 businesses each week, he says. These days, though, because of COVID-19, he’s down to 40. “It’s bad,” he says.
The House of Cheese is one of only a handful or two of Byward Market stores still open, and most of their business is over the phone, consummated by home delivery or curbside pickup. A few doors down, Saslove’s Meat Market, a staple in the market since 1954, is likewise open, although not to walk-in traffic. Down the street, La Bottega’s window display of brightly wrapped Easter chocolates can only tease passersby; the shop is shuttered until further notice.
Normally the heart of this city, the Byward Market is where people go to shop, eat, drink and socialize. Tourists and residents alike seek out the OTTAWA sign on York Street, where they pose for selfies. From stalls set up along the streets, vendors sell fresh produce, flowers, clothing, jewelry and the unofficial — or is it official? — pastry of Ottawa, the Beavertail. Musicians, jugglers and chalk artists, meanwhile, ply their skills for alms from benevolent strollers.
That circus is now gone, as is the nighttime one, that evening parade of lovers, braggarts, fighters and clowns. Today, the buzzing hive of activity that has characterized the market for nearly 200 years has been reduced to an almost inaudible thrum. Scant few shoppers are about, while some Lowertown residents pass through on their way to the LRT station or buses on Rideau Street. A few delivery vans and tradespeople are around — an ATM repairman, seeing me photograph the OTTAWA sign, runs over and strikes a pose.
And the homeless, always the homeless, incapable of or disinterested in “physical distancing,” as if they don’t already get enough of that, sit on cold sidewalks, or wander.
It is almost the opposite of a cacophonous Bruegel painting. The owner of the Byward Café sums it up neatly as he arrives at his closed restaurant to gather up the mail, calling out to the woman at the nearby maple syrup stall, “It’s a ghost town!”
She nods in agreement as she sets up her display of homemade maple fudge, hoping things soon improve.