{"id":3103,"date":"2010-07-27T12:48:43","date_gmt":"2010-07-27T16:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingottawa.ca\/?p=3103"},"modified":"2013-01-21T09:13:24","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T14:13:24","slug":"street-names-works-of-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2010\/07\/27\/street-names-works-of-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Street Names: Works of Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4075\/4863861870_1a92913554_b.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The above photo was taken at a street corner in the far eastern reaches of Orl\u00e9ans; an obscure intersection, but of course its pop-culture reference is anything but. Yes, it&#8217;s <em>that<\/em> Mulder &amp; Scully, the duo from <strong>The X-Files<\/strong>. The story of how these two nondescript suburban thoroughfares got their televisual nomenclature has been told elsewhere but their existence does raise the question \u2013 are there <em>other<\/em> Ottawa streets named after fictional characters?<\/p>\n<p>Well, the fact is that the practice of naming Ottawa streets for famous fictional characters has been going on, albeit sporadically, since as far back as 1899.<\/p>\n<p>This was borne out in the pages of <strong>Ottawa Past and Present<\/strong> by one A.H.D. Ross, published back in 1927. In Volume II of that work, there is a list of the streets and parks running ten pages in total. In those ten pages are at least three examples that predate Mulder and Scully.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Take Belmont Avenue in old Ottawa South, for example. The street itself first appears by name in the <strong>Ottawa City Directory <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4082\/4863243199_f0687b9f27_m.jpg\" alt=\"Belmont Avenue, Old Ottawa South; source: author's Flickr collection\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" \/><\/strong>of 1899, which suggests that it was named in the previous year, given the lead time needed to produce those volumes in those days.<\/p>\n<p>The name of Belmont seems not to have been taken from any actual person &#8211; though there are <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Belmont#People\">a number of candidates<\/a> &#8211; but rather from a character in a play written for live theatre. Ross puts it down to &#8220;The Foundlings&#8221; by a writer named Moore. Possibly, this is actually 18th Century British playwright <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Edward_Moore_%28dramatist%29\">Edward Moore<\/a>&#8216;s work, &#8220;The Foundling&#8221;, that Ross referred to. There is in fact a &#8220;Sir Roger Belmont&#8221; among <a href=\"http:\/\/www.archive.org\/stream\/foundlingcomedya00mooruoft#page\/n9\/mode\/2up\">the cast of characters.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Kenilworth Avenue, Ottawa\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4140\/4863861956_e5ff88313e_m.jpg\" alt=\"Kenilworth Avenue, Ottawa - source: author's Flickr Collection\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" \/>And then there&#8217;s Kenilworth Street, just a few blocks north of the old Civic Hospital campus. Mr. Ross alleges that the name was taken from <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kenilworth_%28novel%29\">the title of a novel by Sir Walter Scott<\/a> published in 1821. Alternatively, some might well argue for <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kenilworth_Castle\">the castle<\/a> of the same name as the novel. As near as can be determined from the Ottawa City Directories of the day, that street started its life back in 1921-&#8217;22, part of the westward limits of Ottawa in what was then called Dalhousie Ward.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, we have Pamilla Street just to the east of Kenilworth, off Preston Street. Ross counts this as a variant spelling of the name of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pamela_(novel)\">title character of one of the novels<\/a> of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Samuel_Richardson\">Samuel Richardson<\/a>. Likely, it&#8217;s of the same vintage as Kenilworth given their proximity to each other.<\/p>\n<p>So far as we know, none of the three authors <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/dwight_ew\/4824544142\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Pamilla Street, Little Italy\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4078\/4863861834_ddaea96db9_m.jpg\" alt=\"Pamilla Street, Little Italy; source: author's Flickr Collection\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a>mentioned here \u2013or their fictive characters \u2013 ever set foot in Ottawa. But then, neither did Mulder or Scully.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The above photo was taken at a street corner in the far eastern reaches of Orl\u00e9ans; an obscure intersection, but of course its pop-culture reference is anything but. Yes, it&#8217;s that Mulder &amp; Scully, the duo from The X-Files. The story of how these two nondescript suburban thoroughfares got their televisual nomenclature has been told<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2010\/07\/27\/street-names-works-of-fiction\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Street Names: Works of Fiction&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7055,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5304,335],"tags":[419,1536,2103,2102,417,2101,412,336,393,416,414,418,413,394,2007,420,415,2099,408,422,423,2100,1473],"class_list":["post-3103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-streetscape","tag-billings-bridge","tag-civic-hospital","tag-civic-hospital-campus","tag-d-ross","tag-dalhousie-ward","tag-edward-moore","tag-fictional-characters","tag-historical","tag-history-x","tag-literature","tag-novels","tag-old-ottawa-south","tag-orleans","tag-ottawa","tag-ottawa-city","tag-ottawa-neighbourhoods","tag-plays","tag-samuel-richardson","tag-street-names","tag-television","tag-the-x-files","tag-walter-scott","tag-writer"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Street Names: Works of Fiction - Spacing Ottawa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2010\/07\/27\/street-names-works-of-fiction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Street Names: Works of Fiction - Spacing Ottawa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The above photo was taken at a street corner in the far eastern reaches of Orl\u00e9ans; an obscure intersection, but of course its pop-culture reference is anything but. Yes, it&#8217;s that Mulder &amp; Scully, the duo from The X-Files. 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His lifelong interest in issues and technologies of civic infrastructure was the inspiration for his co-authorship of the Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City in 2000 for the DC Universe Role-Playing Game line, and is the basis for his continuing interest in both real-world current affairs and the imaginative realms of science fiction. 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