{"id":2511,"date":"2007-11-23T15:17:23","date_gmt":"2007-11-23T19:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=2511"},"modified":"2013-01-21T14:52:08","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T19:52:08","slug":"ottawa-is-1978","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa is 1978"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

I took the train to Ottawa a few weeks ago, a city I’ve only visited on two other occasions (once to write a story about the G20 Summit in November of 2001, when the city was in a just-post-9\/11 security freak-out). Ottawa was tranquil on this recent visit, and I spent most of it wandering around on foot, getting to know a city I feel like I know but don’t, apart from its role as our capital. After an obligatory trip to Parliament Hill to see the Eternal Flame and the statue of Lester B. Pearson<\/a>, I went for long multi-hour walks through its various neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n

What struck me most is that behind the big and impressive chunks of the Federal Government, Ottawa is a sort of standard Ontario city — a little rundown in spots, but nice — and reminded me a lot of Windsor. Instead of an army of skilled and (often) highly paid industrial workers, Ottawa is full of bureaucrats (so there isn’t the heavy industry) — and though largely immune to the kind of economic slump Windsor is experiencing right now, Ottawa felt a lot like my hometown does. Perhaps where Windsor is at the mercy of the automobile industry, Ottawa — the city — suffers from negative forces it too doesn’t fully control, like the National Capital Commission. Check the NCC Watch<\/a> site that documents some of the blows this federal body has delivered to Ottawa’s urban landscape over the years, including the removal of its grand downtown railway station<\/a>, just steps from The Hill, for a downtown expressway. The new (1966) train station is a beautiful<\/a> modernist<\/a> gem<\/a> built by John Parkin, but is located far from the city centre. One of the finest urban moments in many cities is getting off a train and walking out into the middle of it. Ottawa used to have that.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I ran into a lot of signage — public and private — that had a certain 1978 quality about it. I liked it, but possibly out of nostalgic feelings for a childhood spent surrounded by these sorts of fonts and images.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Along the “Bank Street Promenade” are monster advertising slabs that look a lot like the universally condemned monster garbage cans Toronto tested, but without the rubbish bin. They were scattered along the sidewalk for a kilometer or two, some blocking the sidewalk, others askew, as if the truck that brought them just slowed down and pooped them out haphazardly. The bike racks were functional enough but were made rather ugly and intrusive with the advertising (no offense to the the good city of Kingston). The cross streets were marked in stone laid into the sidewalk — a nice touch.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A nice Canadian moment, played out in front of the Supreme Court building. Public access to the grounds around capital buildings like this is refreshing. It’s sad that this might change at some point, but even in the age of terror, we can still get physically close to our government.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not so at the American Embassy where security concerns have required spiked fences, bollards and an ugly concrete barricade that takes up an entire lane of Sussex Avenue.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The tree pits have some breathing room though, and keep the soil from being compacted.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

If Toronto is ever to get pedestrian only zones, planners should always keep the Sparks Street Mall at their elbow in order to avoid this kind of urban sterilization. It was conspicuously deserted on sunny Saturday and Sunday afternoons. I appreciated more of those 1978ish elements, but many were neglected. Poor Sparks Street<\/a>, let’s never do this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I took the train to Ottawa a few weeks ago, a city I’ve only visited on two other occasions (once to write a story about the G20 Summit in November of 2001, when the city was in a just-post-9\/11 security freak-out). Ottawa was tranquil on this recent visit, and I spent most of it wanderingContinue reading “Ottawa is 1978”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4004,"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":[22,24,50,2,32,20],"tags":[7407,651,7408,7413,1635,7412,7406,21,346,53,41,7409,7410,4354,7411,19,853],"class_list":["post-2511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-history","category-infrastructure","category-politics","category-streetscape","category-urban-design","tag-american-embassy","tag-federal-government","tag-g20","tag-john-parkin","tag-kingston","tag-monster-advertising-slabs","tag-national-capital-commission","tag-other-cities","tag-ottawa","tag-parliament-hill","tag-psychogeography","tag-sparks-street-mall","tag-statue-of-lester-b-pearson","tag-supreme-court","tag-supreme-court-building","tag-toronto","tag-windsor"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOttawa is 1978 - Spacing Toronto<\/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\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ottawa is 1978 - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I took the train to Ottawa a few weeks ago, a city I’ve only visited on two other occasions (once to write a story about the G20 Summit in November of 2001, when the city was in a just-post-9\/11 security freak-out). Ottawa was tranquil on this recent visit, and I spent most of it wanderingContinue reading "Ottawa is 1978"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-11-23T19:17:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-01-21T19:52:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2403\/2056864293_254ab6ef87.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Shawn Micallef\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shawn Micallef\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/\",\"name\":\"Ottawa is 1978 - Spacing Toronto\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2403\/2056864293_254ab6ef87.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2007-11-23T19:17:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-01-21T19:52:08+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/8d98edb04b3feea4f2216e6da54ba5d5\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2403\/2056864293_254ab6ef87.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2403\/2056864293_254ab6ef87.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Ottawa is 1978\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/\",\"name\":\"Spacing Toronto\",\"description\":\"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered | Toronto Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/8d98edb04b3feea4f2216e6da54ba5d5\",\"name\":\"Shawn Micallef\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/964f908ab2d251eb62a28900a2f8bd76?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/964f908ab2d251eb62a28900a2f8bd76?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Shawn Micallef\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/shawnmicallef\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/author\/shawn-micallef\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Ottawa is 1978 - Spacing Toronto","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Ottawa is 1978 - Spacing Toronto","og_description":"I took the train to Ottawa a few weeks ago, a city I’ve only visited on two other occasions (once to write a story about the G20 Summit in November of 2001, when the city was in a just-post-9\/11 security freak-out). Ottawa was tranquil on this recent visit, and I spent most of it wanderingContinue reading \"Ottawa is 1978\"","og_url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/","og_site_name":"Spacing Toronto","article_published_time":"2007-11-23T19:17:23+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-01-21T19:52:08+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2403\/2056864293_254ab6ef87.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Shawn Micallef","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Spacing","twitter_site":"@Spacing","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Shawn Micallef","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/","name":"Ottawa is 1978 - Spacing Toronto","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2403\/2056864293_254ab6ef87.jpg","datePublished":"2007-11-23T19:17:23+00:00","dateModified":"2013-01-21T19:52:08+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/8d98edb04b3feea4f2216e6da54ba5d5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2403\/2056864293_254ab6ef87.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2403\/2056864293_254ab6ef87.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/23\/ottawa-is-1978\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Ottawa is 1978"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/","name":"Spacing Toronto","description":"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered | Toronto Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/8d98edb04b3feea4f2216e6da54ba5d5","name":"Shawn Micallef","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/964f908ab2d251eb62a28900a2f8bd76?s=96&d=blank&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/964f908ab2d251eb62a28900a2f8bd76?s=96&d=blank&r=g","caption":"Shawn Micallef"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/twitter.com\/shawnmicallef"],"url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/author\/shawn-micallef\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2511"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39121,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2511\/revisions\/39121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}