Sparks should return to its past

While I have registered for Saturday’s town hall on Sparks Street, I’d like to get my four cents in. (One penny for every decade I have performed there.)

As a longtime busker on Sparks, beginning in the late ’70s, I have seen how the original vision as well as the ill-fated revisions to Sparks Street have functioned.

The original design was liked by everyone. There were food, flower and fruit vendors. There was a Zellers, a Woolworths, a hardware store, cleaners and a nut house. There were trees, fountains, sculptures and shade. People liked the park-like atmosphere, especially public servants taking a break for lunch.

It needed repair, but it did not need renovation.

The subsequent designs all failed in various predictable ways, but had in common the idea that each was a step further away from the merits of its original incarnation. And as a result Sparks has been a constantly dirty and noisy construction zone for almost three decades.

We are almost done with that between Metcalfe and O’Connor and peace is on the horizon — and there are those who want to bring in the jackhammers yet again?

Sparks has never embraced or animated its rich cultural and business history in any way at all. This was particularly disappointing in Canada 150.

So my recipe for Sparks is to re-examine the merits that made it popular in the first place. Animate its history big-time. Go back to the parklike oasis model.

Remember when the debate was on for the Daley building site? How many people were asking for a park? Thousands!

Sparks needs to get back to where it once belonged. Thomas Brawn, flutist, busker, Ottawa