It’s odd to think that a place can be completely obliberated nearly overnight. But in the case of LeBreton Flats, it’s happened twice—first in 1900 when The Great Fire of 1900 hit Ottawa, which leveled a vast swath of Ottawa from Carling Avenue to the other side of the river into Quebec. While disasterous, the Flats were eventually rebuilt, becoming an important industrial area in the first half of the 20th century for Ottawa, as well as a vibrant working class neighborhood. But in 1962, another disaster hit, one from which it would prove nearly impossible to rebuild from: the National Capital Comission. The NCC had been working for years to purchase all the land in the area, and began evicting residents in 1962. By 1965, the neighborhood was demolished in the name of urban renewal.
Two children in the half-abandoned LeBreton Flats in 1963. Image courtesy Wikipedia.
If you’re interested in reading more about what went on, there is a good—though admittedly very biased—account online here.
The fact of the matter is, the neighborhood was nearly obliterated, and few traces of it remain in the windswept plain that took its place. However, it didn’t entirely disappear, as I discovered thanks to an article in the Ottawa Citizen (which, unfortunately, I can’t find again or I would link to it). So a few days ago, I set out to explore the tiny remnents of one of Ottawa’s lost communities.
What’s left of LeBreton is focused primarily on a tiny street called lower Lorne Avenue, which is a City of Ottawa historic district. Along with a few homes on connecting Primrose Avenue, it’s the most complete remains of the old LeBreton, aside from a few modern townhouses which were built before before the area’s heritage value was recognized.
Looking up lower Lorne Avenue from Primrose Avenue.
Today, Lorne is a pleasantly middle-class street, no doubt bolstered by the heritage designation. Still, when you walk along the sidewalk, it’s easy to get a feel for what the old neighborhood must have been like. The houses are solidly built, if unremarkable, and are evocative of the similarly working-class heritage rowhouses found throughout neighborhoods like Lowertown.
Typical residences on Lorne Avenue.
A couple of Lorne’s neighboring streets also survived the demolition, though they are far less intact. Perkins Street, one block over, is rather unique and almost seems like more of a laneway, as many of the houses on Lorne (as well as those along neighboring Empress Avenue) have direct backyard access to parking areas on Perkins. There are also a few remaining older residences along Perkins.
The laneway-esque Perkins Street.
Finally, there’s Empress Avenue. Though one side consists of a (relatively) modern health centre and its parking lot, the western side contains a few more rements of the old LeBreton Flats.
The west side of Empress Avenue.
Finally, at the very end of Empress, I noticed an impressive bit of infill. Unlike the 1970s-style townhouses which had popped up on Lorne and Primrose, some townhouses had been built which seemed very respectful of the street’s history and character and blended into the streetscape quite well. It’s exactly the sort of development I’d like to see more of in Ottawa’s older neighborhoods.
Newer townhouses on Empress, which appear more sensitive to the neighborhood than some developments.
I hope you’ve enjoyed a quick look at what’s left of the old LeBreton Flats, and I hope it gives you some idea of what must have once filled the area. It’s borderline tragic that Ottawa lost such a large historic district, but unfortunately what’s done is done. All we can do is try to hold on to what we have left.
Peeking down at lower Lorne Avenue from atop Nanny Goat Hill.
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Incidentally, if anyone else has any more nominations for Ottawa’s best park, please let me know over on the original post, here.
but dave… museums and condos! huzzah! lol
i absolutely agree with the infill being appropriate for the neighbourhood. as someone who grew up in a brick home built in 1900, i suggest that all homes be made with real brick, and with real construction techniques. time + money = quality.
I live in what remains of the Flats, just at the base of Nanny Goat Hill. You can actually see my house in the picture of the new infill townhomes on Empress, just to the left of them in the picture.
Lebreton Flats is one of the biggest absurdities of city planning in Ottawa. You have huge open fields, doing absolutely nothing right next to downtown Ottawa. In any sane city, that would have been rebuilt shortly after it was razed, or in the 80s development boom, or in the development boom that just ended. But no, Lebreton Flats is *still* windswept brownlands. There are some plans for the escarpment, but nothing concrete.
My biggest worry is that they decide to build more of the squashed-together monstronsities like the one that’s going up on the east side of the flats now. My biggest hope is that someone learns good lessons from buildings such as the ones that are going up in Westboro now, and bad lessons from places like Centrum in Kanata, and designs a livable neighborhood.
You may also want to recommend that your blog readers go out and purchase a book called An Acre in Time written by one of our own local historians Phil Jenkins. It is all about one acre of Lebreton Flats (http://www.philjenkins.ca/acres.htm).
Great exploration, thanks!
I think your overview is overly sympathetic to the demolished areas. I do not wish to take the view that it was right to demolish whole neighborhoods/built up areas in favor of total rebuilding, which was the big government view of urban renewal then (note to today’s amateur city rebuilders and commentators who too often wish for bigger govt action – be careful of what you wish for … ).
The Flats was a mixed use neighborhood. There were grotty warehouses and rail tracks and SLUMS there as well as some nice houses. We dont do ourselves a favor by sugar coating or idealizing the old neighborhood.
It is just plain wrong to assume that Lorne avenue represents what was built and demolished on the Flats. The NCC demolition targetted the polluted lands, the obsolete industrial uses and the structurally impaired housing. Their demolition continued south only as far as the worst structures went … for eg they went half way up Booth and stopped at Primrose but left the houses backing onto these from Lorne because the Lorne houses were structurally sound (and when I moved here 30 plus years ago, certainly not nice nor trendy). Similarly, only some units were demolised on Rochester, Preston, Primrose … leaving a gap-toothed landscape. But it was the bad-condition houses that were demolished and the good ones were left in place.
Phase one of Lebreton flats in 1980 built new housing around some of the survivors and this makes a fortunate transition zone from new townhouses to old community. Note that it was the city/government that built the remarkably ugly townhouses at the Albert st end of Lorne Ave that blight that streetscape.
In short, many of the houses on the Flats were demolished because they were substandard, slums, or structurally compromised. Certainly today, we MIGHT spend vast sums of public money to “save” and reposition such a neighborhood. Look at neighborhoods that were better than the Flats that were left alone – like Hintonburg, Mechanicsville, etc – which evolved to what they are today, with a lot of infill development of mixed quality and scale.
I dont think we should idealize the past and be nostalgic for a quality residential neighborhood that exists more in our imaginations than reality. Eddy McCabe wrote a lot about what it was like to grow up in that neighborhood, and it was anything but wonderful.
Those are all valid points, however I feel the need to note that at one point in time, neighborhoods like the ByWard Market and Hintonburg were pretty bad places to live as well. I think my biggest issue with LeBreton Flats is that the NCC simply stepped in and razed the area, without looking at what other options there were or without any real long-term plan for the site.
I realize that it wasn’t necessarily a great place to live back then, my main regret is that we’ll never know what the neighborhood could have become were it dealt with in a less heavy-handed matter.
Either way, it’s all academic. What happened happened and there’s no way to change that, only hope that the Flats is eventually redeveloped into a prosperous new neighborhood.
I posted a long comment over on Eric’s blog
turn it into a theme park! lol
I never knew the name of that…cliff…I keep thinking to call it…until this posting.
Nanny Goat Hill, huh?
A few Flickr photos to fix up the titles of!