Fallen Fire Fighters Monument, LeBreton Flats, NCC

Rearranging dirt

 

The NCC has started construction on the Firefighters Monument on LeBreton Flats. They scraped off the topsoil first.

They stacked the topsoil in a pile, either the better to truck it away, or to store it for reuse later around the monument. But what will they be doing with all the dirt underneath? I would hope they could use it to fill in the bomb crater front yard of the 200 Lett Street condos. At the recent all-candidates debate, it was right to describe the development as flawed. But equally obviously, lots of people DO want to live in buildings surrounded by debris. Shades of Beirut, oops Baghdad, oops Tripoli. No, it’s downtown Ottawa, a demonstration project!

Nuclear winter in front of urban condos.

 

firefighters memorial
I do notice that the memorial plans do not include a row of trees along Wellington (visible in top picture). These were planted just one year ago, in a deep trench of topsoil.

8 thoughts on “Rearranging dirt”

  1. The question posed at the all candidates debate actually had little to do with the design/ construction of the buildings on the site. The questioner was complaining about exactly what you mention here – the waste land/ mine tailings/ bombed out look of the area. He/she wanted to know why it’s been left in this state of disregard for so long and how the candidates would have it cleaned up!

  2. Still looks a bit like Pripyat in the Ukraine. Unreal how slowly this whole project has moved. They should have just made a modern version of the village that existed here before.

  3. Took a walk through the Flats west of Booth last summer to marvel at the post-apocalypse landscape and do some urban archeology. I find nature’s takeover of man’s creations (like Pripyat) to be fascinating. There is still a few front steps and house foundations in the middle of the flats, and one place where the streetcar tracks heading towards Hintonburg are still visible. At least that part of the flats is increasingly green and dense (meaning plant life). The area around the buildings is a complete eyesore. Double the bad luck – super-slow construction schedule, and no eye for interim landscaping. Claridge and the NCC need to play some serious catch-up.

  4. While the ‘craters’ could use some visual improvement and landscaping, it doesn’t make sense to fill it with soil, only to have to dig it out again and truck it away when excavation starts for the buildings on those sites.

  5. the bomb craters in front of the new condos, and kitty-corner the war museum, are planned to be an embassy or office towers up to 11 floors tall. There are no plans for either to be built in the next decade. So rather than leave it a mess, it is worth filling in the holes and grassing it over, same as was done on the east side of booth opposite the war museum, you know, where the noisefest bike check is put.

    1. I believe that the field you are referencing has not yet been decontaminated, and that is why it has not yet been excavated.

  6. So my question is whether any community groups, individuals or members of parliament have approached the NCC regarding this issue. I have family that lives in the first phase and everytime I visit I cringe at the site of the wasteland adjacent to it. This is supposed to be a landmark development, and with the war museum, bluesfest and now firefighters monument drawing people from across the world to the area…one would think that a little grass and a few trees would be the least that should be done until developmental plans for the site are solidified. Work crews are across the street…right now…landscaping. Why not send a few to the other side of the street as well?

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