In recent weeks, we've witnessed a debate over whether or not one of the central streets of the downtown core should be renamed. As a result of that debate, we've also gotten a civic history lesson or two on the founding of Ottawa. In truth, the names of Wellington and By should be forever linked in the minds of Ottawans for one reason: the city as we know it today could not exist without either of them. [caption id="" align="alignright" width="194" caption="Source: Wikipedia Commons"][/caption]...

Editor's note: Many commentators have noted that the decision by Mayor O'Brien to run again in this fall's municipal elections means that he can campaign by claiming two significant achievements: spearheading the decision to build an East-West LRT that includes a downtown tunnel, and backing the proposal to redevelop Lansdowne Park. So far, the two major projects have been presented as "stand alone"; here Spacing Ottawa contributor Dwight Williams suggests a way to link them. In the months since the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) brought forth their proposal for redeveloping Lansdowne Park, ...

Anecdote, urban legend, sometimes even myth: we don't usually associate such descriptors with the street map of our city, but there is a story behind each and every street name we encounter in our daily navigations. And with over seven thousand of them now in use, there is a rich store of narrative to be revealed by exploring the history behind Ottawa's street names. They are a unique insight into what the builders of our city held most dear, and a lens through which we can see how our civic culture has ...

I was visiting Baseline Transitway Station recently and had that sudden feeling of dislocation you get when what you see in front of you is very different than what your eyes have been trained to expect. In a flash a new fact was driven home: the place is no longer what it was when I first visited in the fall of 1985. Nor is it anything like what it is expected to be in a year's time. Right now, it's a great deal of open space. From April to November, that may yet be a good thing. But in the dead - or perhaps not so dead in these days of fears of climate derangement? - of an Ottawa winter, such a space may seem more desolate than it truly is.

[caption id="attachment_1373" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="The former home of Empire Theatres' Orleans theatre between St. Joseph and Centrum, now closed for business"][/caption] Some east-enders may have noticed changes at the Orleans Town Centre this past week. The six-screen multiplex that's been standing there for nearly twenty years is now shut down. Originally planned as the proposed third floor of the expansion plans for the Place d'Orléans Mall of the latter half of the 1980's, instead it somehow got built as the second floor of a separate building across the street and about a block away down Centrum Boulevard. It was initially owned by Cineplex Odeon and then passed on to Empire Theatres some years ago.