Abandoned Ottawa-Gatineau
 

I wonder if there is an appetite here for a thread on abandoned properties in the urban core? There aren’t that many in this area compared to other cities, but you still find them here and there. Now, I am not talking about buildings that are “in transition” awaiting a new life, but vacant places where nothing appears to be in the cards.

Here are some I have spotted recently:

Sandy Hill

- The old Cajun Attic restaurant on Rideau near Charlotte and Wurtemburg


Lower Town

- A few largish four or five storey buildings on the north side of Murray, going east from Cumberland towards King Edward, not too far from the Shepherds of Good Hope. Some of the windows actually have no boards and you can just see a Bronx-like open shell

Bronson and Queensway area

- I think there is a small grocery store that has been abandoned for some time on the east side of Bronson just north of the Queensway between Catherine and Gladstone. I may be wrong but I think it may have once been called the Olympia or Olympic Food Market

Vieux-Hull / île de Hull

- There is a largish boarded up house on St-Rédempteur going north about one street in from the boulevard des Allumettières

- There is also a three or four storey building that is completely abandoned that you can see on your right from Eddy going north. I think it’s on Papineau, Garneau or Charlevoix.

Right on the south side of Allumettières there is a boarded up house (kitty corner to the Ultramar). I think it was a crack house that was raided. St-Rédempteur has quite a few of them.

That Portuguese grocery store on Frontenac, west of Eddy, has been boarded up for a while now too..

How about this place on boul. Fournier? It's been vacant as long as I've lived here :

How about the row of abandoned houses along King Edward, just south of St. Patrick on the east side? They used to be shelters for the homeless, but now sitting there, supposedly unoccupied. But I am sure the bums still crash there.

If the town can overhaul that area and build something decent, it will change the area, although due to the "homeless feel" in the area, it will be a challenge.

There are a few houses on Bay/Nepean that are abandoned as well (owned by Richcraft - that 16 storey proposal)

Behind the Bayscorner store..



edit: found a couple more (all pics by me)

Yeah, I go by the Fournier area twice a day on the bus. It’s a tough place for businesses: not enough local population to sustain them, and no more than a drive-through no man’s land for thousands of commuters. Except for the gas station/dépanneur combo, probably all of the commercial/retail in this zone should be redeveloped as residential.

Yeah, that's it. I think we're talking about the same house.

At around the 700-ish block of St-Joseph for years, there are at least two or three abandoned commercial buildings including a former Dairy Queen and a former pharmacy as well as another building betside the Dairy Queen that had seen on and off business but mostly empty. This corner of St-Joseph has being really an eye sore except for the Tucanos and Greek Palace restaurants, though they had lost Au-Coq 9replaced by George's), moved between the Station and the McDonald's.

^ the couche-tard at Riel and St-Joseph (across the street from Tim Hortons) is also boarded up. I think they vacated that place last summer.

Something needs to be built at that corner in front of McDonald's.. and by something I mean 'not a car dealership'.

What a great idea, Acajack. Hopefully I'll be able to go take some pictures. There is a really scuzzy strip mall between St. Laurent and Russell Road, just south of Innes, where there is only one last corner store still operating for the projects to the immediate south (and it smells like a third world corner store, all due respect - I've been to a few so-called "third world" countries). This very same strip mall has the distinction of having the rotting carcass of The Den, a strip joint now known as the NuDen and located just up the street in a much bigger and nicer building...

I remember the Cajun Attic, I drank there several times inj my 20's. Sad story. The place was well run but one day the owner decided to retire, sold it to one of his staff and the guy didn't know what he was doing and ran it into the ground.

This is the place that you reach from St-Laurent via a short access road between the St-Hubert and the Petro-Canada station? If this is the case, when I was a teenager in the 80s there was a huge alcohol-free discotheque there called Astralight for underaged teens from 14 to 18 years old. Astralight in its prime would put any current 19+ (or 18+ in Quebec) nightclub in the capital area to shame.

I used to go there as well when I lived in Sandy Hill for a brief period. The Cajun food was actually pretty good. The Big Mamou... mmmmmmmmm.

I started reading your locational description of the corner store in the strip mall and couldn't place it...however, when you mentioned it in the old Den building, I knew exactly where you meant...that place is definately fugly....huge parking lot etc. I do believe that there have been proposals for the land but they haven't come to anything.

Good idea for a thread.

Man, that's hilarious, I remember Astralight! Not that I went often, it was out of the way and I liked Hull better. I saw my first (and only) rap concert at Astralight. It was phat!! :rolleyes:

i think this may be of some interest to this website:

www.uer.ca

Here are some shots of the old Den and the decrepit strip mall rotting away on st-Laurent:

http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t...8-09-01050.jpg

http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t...8-09-01051.jpg

http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t...8-09-01054.jpg

And the smelly corner store, the lone retail survivor of this decaying greyfield:

http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t...8-09-01059.jpg

Fleamax? Sounds like a brand of dog collar.

You are going to think I am obsessed but judging from the shape of the building and the look of the entrance, Fleamax was the Astralight night club.

That club was before my time in Ottawa, but the place does have a cheesy night club look about it.

The big question is why does Mille have pictures of such a craptastic looking place?

I'm writing a book on old strip joints. :D

The one in Kanata has gone through a couple of incarnations and the one on Merivale that is still going won't win any Urban Design Awards.

At least that's what he tells his wife. It's literary research, honey! :jester: