234 O'Connor - Another One Bites The Dust?

Centretown has a number of heritage properties that I enjoy sketching. Many are often scheduled for demolition through neglect (i.e. like the recent 293 Lisgar (Mauds Mortar) demolition D07-05-15-0006).

The most recent heritage home on the demolition block is at 234 O'Connor St in Centretown, Ottawa and the application will be heard at Ottawa City Hall (in the Champlain Room at 9:30) Thursday October 13, 2016.

The owner has made application to demolish the existing house and to create a temporary park (featuring a mix of hard and soft landscaping).

234 O'Connor St., Ottawa: notice of demolition application

The building at 234 O ’Connor Street is a two and one half storey, wood frame brick clad structure with a rubble stone foundation that was constructed between 1888 - 1915 and is an example of a simple vernacular Queen Anne dwelling. (Read Cultural Impact Statement here)

The property has been vacant for approximately 15 years after a fire that caused damage to the upper floors. The windows and doors have been removed and the openings have been covered with plywood. All interior finishes and fixtures have been removed, with the exception of the plaster ceilings on the ground floor of the original building

The City of Ottawa planning staff want the committee to deny the owner's application for demolition.

I decided to visit the site over the Thanksgiving weekend and take a few photos to sketch.

My ink sketch based on photo in Heritage report

234 O'Connor St., Ottawa (north side)

A couple of quick sketches from my sketchbook.

234 O'Connor St., Ottawa (rear)

My watercolour sketch of 234 O'Connor St.

From the Heritage Report:

"O’Connor St. between Cooper and Somerset was developed in the 1880’s as a residential neighbourhood consisting of two and three storey brick residences typically fronting on the east west streets ( Cooper and Somerset) with mid - block residences fronting on O’Connor. The development pattern remained static up until the early part of the 20 th century when low - rise apartment buildings were developed, and Dominion - Cha l mers United Church were constructed in the 194 0s . Ten years later, a second wave of apartment buildings were constructed in the area. one of which is located across the street from the site. Beginning in the late 1950s through to the mid 1960s, a number of residential properties were demolished withi n the block and across the st r eet , lots consolidated under one owner and developed as parking lots. By 1976 , the corner of O’Conner and Somerset within the block had been cleared and has served as a parking lot; the bui l ding to the south of the site was d emolished in 1997."

 234 O'Connor

• based on fire insurance maps, 234 O'Connor was constructed between 1888 and 1915.
• the exterior brick was painted to protect the relatively soft brick and has peeled off due to the building being vacant and unheated. 
• the verandah has been removed from the front of the building.
• there is a structural crack in the brick veneer extending up  the left corner of the rear (west) wall of the building due to settlement / movement in the stone foundation.
• In 1909, William Swetman (caretaker of the YMCA) lived there with Earl Swetman who was a student.

Source: My Heritage: The Ottawa City Directory, 1909

• City of Ottawa Meeting files http://ottwatch.ca/meetings/file/397553
• Ottawa Watch Development Applications
• Ottawa Citizen: Derelict Buildings of Ottawa (see photo screen capture below)

Ottawa's Heritage Buildings No.1: The Burpee House

There are 312 individual buildings or properties in Ottawa that are designated "heritage" under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act. This is one of the more recent ones located at 22 Rideau Terrace in the New Edinburgh neighbourhood of Ottawa.

Art journal page

The Burpee House
Art journal sketch: watercolour and graphite
(Low resolution scan)

Originally the home of civil servant Lawrence Johnstone Burpee, first secretary of the International Joint Commission from 1912-1946, ardent supporter of a national library for Canada and an accomplished scholar, historian and author.

More recently the house was the residence (for 17 years) of Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and was threatened with demolition in 2010. A developement group want to tear it down and replace it with a triplex. Understandably, this upset Burpee's granddaughter Sheila Burpee-Duncan.

In 2010 the Ottawa City Council approved the Burpee home as a designated heritage building.

National Library of Canada

Burpee's 12 page plea for a National Library

"Burpee is best known for his lifelong promotion and support of the creation of a national library in Canada. Burpee spent ten years of his life campaigning ardently for a national library. Burpee became president of the Ontario Library Association in 1910 and in February 1911, he published an article entitled, “A Plea for a National Library” which had originally been delivered as a speech to the Ontario Library Association. The article noted that with the lack of a national library, “Canada enjoys the dubious distinction of ranking with Siam and Abyssinia in at least one respect….” Dolores Donnelly, a faculty member in the Faculty of Library Science at the University of Toronto and the author of a historical analysis of the National Library of Canada, notes that this quote was revived and reused for many years in the campaign for a national library.

Burpee believed that the Library of Parliament was not sufficient to serve the entire country. In “A Plea for a National Library” Burpee argued that, “the Library of Parliament is legislative library, pure and simple; it was created to serve the needs of parliament, not of the public.” He also argued that a national library must be a repository of the work of a nation and could be combined with the national archives. He advocated that the federal government ought to consider a model like the American Library of Congress which combined the legislative library, national archives and national library in one institution. The Library of Congress also provided lending services for some of its materials unlike the strict reference function of the British Museum or the Bibliotheque nationale in Paris. The Librarian of Congress, Dr. Herbert Putnam endorsed Burpee’s concepts in 1911. In 1916, after fire gutted the Centre Block of the Parliament Buildings with the exception of the Library of Parliament, Burpee took the opportunity to write to Prime Minister Borden to urge that in re-designing the building, space should be allocated for a new national library. Ultimately, in 1947, a year after Burpee’s death, the federal government commissioned a study that would eventually lead to the establishment and construction of the National Library of Canada on Wellington Street in 1953. Donnelly notes in her history of the National Library that even 40 years later, the general principles of Burpee’s ideas for a national library were incorporated into the final library system. These remain today."

The National Library of Canada on Wellington Street owes its existance to Lawrence Johnstone Burpee....as a genealogist and the family historian, I am forever grateful!

Library and Archives Canada

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_and_Archives_Canada