Eye-catching sculptures will soon be installed along West Side mainstreets as part of the major construction projects that have transformed neighbourhoods with new infrastructure and beautiful streetscapes. Continue reading Walk and talk sculpture on the West Side
Bike racks and bikes prove to be disposable at apartment renovation site. Continue reading Bikes — and racks — hit the Dumpster
After relentlessly mocking the City for its proposals to widen Bronson, and to make the sidewalks narrower, and for its myopic focus on commuter-traffic-and-damn-all-the-rest, word percolates out of City Hall today that the scheduled Bronson stakeholder meeting for the fall has been postponed to allow the engineers time to examine a road diet for Bronson. Continue reading Bronson Engineers Going on a Diet !
The city’s advice to pedestrians is awful, it verges on harassment. Read the rant to find out why. Continue reading Pedestrian Harassment
Signs proliferate in Ottawa: how to wash your hands, how to drink from a fountain … Continue reading Signs, signs, everywhere you go
The perseid meteor shower comes every year. This year, it will peak on Thursday night. Start watching after 10pm. Peak viewing will be midnight to 1am (ie midnight thursday evening to 1am friday morning) as the moon will be absent. If you can make out lots of stars in the sky, it is dark enough. Even though I live downtown, I can lie out on my back deck and find it is dark enough. I hang some blankets on the clothesline to block street light shining from the next block. Last year, we saw about 10 meteors quite clearly in about … Continue reading Perseid Meteor Shower Thursday nite
The new condos on LeBreton Flats are showing more signs of life. About 120 units are occupied, 175 more will become available on Feb 1, 2011. There is now balcony furniture, babies, and pedestrian activity. Years of construction are ahead. Continue reading Building a community ?
WestSideAction has moved from .blogspot to .wordpress. Please subscribe using the RSS button as future posts will be from the .wordpress site only. Continue reading WSA is moving …
Prince of Wales rail bridge from Ottawa to Gatineau Tuesday from 5.30 to 8.30 at City Hall (main floor) there will be a public display of the options for interprovincial transit between Ottawa and Gatineau. Options include which mode of transit to use: Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) or LRT. Route options include connections via the Alexandra Bridge (or under it, in a tunnel under the river, and remember the tunnel under downtown Ottawa is already very deep down so this doesn’t require a steep slope, and the Rideau station has been designed with this connection in mind); a west connection on the Prince … Continue reading Interprovincial transit opportunity to choose your mode
As seen on the second floor roof over a bay window, with special feline access via the second floor window, disco ball, toys, and the passing parade of humans stuck on the sidewalk down below. Continue reading Centretown Cat House
On Saturday morning at 10am a group of Dalhousie residents will gather at the Dalhousie community centre (corner of Empress and Somerset) for an hour (or two) of neighborhood grooming. We provide the gloves, bags, and friends. In small groups, we tidy up a few blocks or nuisence spots. This year the focus will be on the two pedestrian staircases that go up/down Nanny Goat Hill. The Primrose staircase runs east-west; the Empress Ave staircase runs north/south; the bottom of the Empress stair comes out near the Good Companions centre. One of the nicest aspects of gathering up the miscellaneous … Continue reading One hour to a cleaner neighborhood
On Sunday is the upcoming Tulipathon Walk sponsored by Multifaith Housing Initiative to raise money and also awareness of the need for affordable housing for low-income people in Ottawa. It’s this Sunday, May 2nd, from 2 to 4 pm, with registration beforehand at Commissioner’s Park (Dow’s Lake and Preston). It’s a 6 km. walk from there through the park to Fifth Ave. and back again – with tulips in view along the way. Continue reading Tiptoe through the tulips
I note from the morning paper that some government bodies here in Ottawa are excited at the notion of building a 65′ high replica of the Stanley Cup. That’s about six to seven stories high. A site is yet to be found. Obviously, such a cup won’t fit comfortably on a small downtown plaza, like the teapot with the revolving tree in front of Minto Place. I suggest it should go in a more visible spot. Since the cup is named after Lord Stanley, and Lord Stanley’s full title was Lord Stanley of Preston (yup, true, I read it in … Continue reading Dalhousie wins the Stanley Cup
Frosty … we barely knew ya! And yet there he is, looking cheerful with his mitts and top hat and broom, getting a few minutes of sun … before … oh god ! I can hear the grinding of the big truck in the next block … Frosty! Hide! Continue reading Frosty the Snowman going, going, gone
A few weeks ago I posted this pix from our favorite westboro loblaws. The bin was half full/half empty … did buyers figure out the math? This week I saw this bin, and Charlie the Tuna was really on sale for a better price. The bin was full. Go figure. I also noticed the double pack of shreddies was way more expensive than the sale pack of individual boxes of square shreddies at the aisle end. Buy smaller boxes, more packaging, save more. So I returned my big box to the correct shelf on the aisle and took some small ones … Continue reading The price is right
Wanted poster on a pharmacy window in our west side neighborhood. That’s our Yasir in the centre picture, yes sir. Grammar is apparently not on the curriculum at drug mart skool. Still, I cannot be the only one wondering at how quickly the Ontario government trotted out those ‘fighting for the little guy’ responses to “big pharma”. The distrust of the ordinary citizen for big government, big business, big media, big religion, or other vested interests … is huge for a good reason. Like American citizens who wondered how cutting billions from medicare could make the health care system better. Or how American health care … Continue reading War-torn Somerset Street
Substantial-sized infill semi-detached homes under construction in Dalhousie south, near Carling. The foundation has a substantial ledge, which suggests the exterior may be brick. There is a detached garage in the rear, with access of the rear lane. In a well done move, the back of the garage, which faces the back of the house, has been finished with quality detail so it looks like a small house in the back yard rather than a garage. The arrival of larger single homes in the neighborhood (rather than triplex or quadplex infills) bodes well for neighborhood stability as it is more … Continue reading infill in Dalhousie South
This little patch of lawn on Balsam caught my eye. It is greener than its neighbours, and obviously recently raked as it is so clean compared to the foreground bit of turf. A closer inspection revealed its secret. It is synthetic. Fake. Manufactured. I wonder how many times I have gone past it and not noticed; it did not look recently laid. It stood out now because it doesn’t change with the seasons. It is an effective bit of private streetscaping along the public boulevard. Continue reading Green green grass of Dalhousie
The City and consultants held a well-attended (approx 125 persons) open house for the Somerset reconstruction project last week. The zone of reconstruction was from Bayswater (in the west)(which is where reconstruction left off last summer) up and over the viaduct over the Otrain, to Preston street. The above section of street was scheduled for this year, 2010. Then next year, the reconstruction process would move up Somerset, from Preston to Booth. These two long blocks will be finished in a new Chinatown look in 2011. However, the Chinatown Arch (artists impression shown) is being constructed a few blocks further east … Continue reading Somerset reconstruction zone expanded
This infill is once again in the very modern boxy style common today. It is constructed from pre-made wafer panels that include the exterior sheathing, insulation, and interior sheathing . Is is on the north side of Eccles, between Booth and LeBreton. I am getting to like this style more and more. I much prefer it over the blah-design of so many infills made of plastic siding and low-slope asphalt shingle roofs. Design and quality matters. Does anyone know why Eccles Street is so often pronounced Eck-Less? Ever since I moved here 30 some years ago, it has puzzled me … Continue reading Infill on Eccles
As seen at the Westboro Loblaws “real canadian super store”. Someone flunked math. The bin underneath was half empty — or half full. Was this because shoppers were not taking the product … or because they were? Continue reading Really special
The Hawaiian licence plates all have a rainbow on them. On my first day in Hawaii, I was impressed by their tolerance or the astonishing proliferation of gay drivers. Turns out the rainbow — the unsexual one — is the state symbol because there are multiple rainbows in the sky every afternoon after it showers on the mountaintops and we are on the beach in the sun. On the main drag, this store had large posters for valentines day. Boy-boy. Girl-boy. Girl-girl. America the tolerant. Continue reading Aloha Rainbow
Like most other places, Hawaiian condos and other buildings have bike racks. Uniquely, they also have surf board racks, where you can insert your board, close the gate, and lock it, so you don’t have to drag your board up the elevator to your 40th floor pad. Continue reading Aloha racks
