Beechwood Avenue, late 1980s: Foreground: Art Gallery, 86 Beechwood; Background: El Meson, 94 Beechwood (Source: Heritage Canada Foundation, 1988).
Reports last week of Minto’s imminent purchase of the burned-out property on Beechwood’s west end, coupled with a second community forum organized for Monday evening (October 29) by the Beechwood Village Alliance, bring encouraging news for another of Vanier’s commercial main streets. In response, Le Droit’s Jonathan Blouin writes of “hope” for the area while the Ottawa Citizen’s Joanne Chianello suggests “the nightmare” for Beechwood may soon be over. Indeed, coupled with Domicile’s redevelopment of Kavanaugh’s Esso at 222 Beechwood into The Kavanaugh (scheduled for construction in 2013), the street may be ripe for a new beginning. Beyond its physical change, the positioning and imagining of Beechwood as a boundary between communities – dividing north and south – may be falling away.
The vitality of neighbourhood main streets is often cyclical, and Beechwood has undoubtedly had better days. The post-war opening of the Linden Theatre at Crichton and Beechwood, then to become the Towne Cinema, served as a neighbourhood destination. The cinema’s closing in 1989 (as co-owner Bruce White opened today’s Bytowne Cinema on Rideau) brought Mountain Equipment Coop to the street for ten years, before its closure in 2000. Smaller establishments elsewhere on Beechwood have similarly come and gone.
Linden Theatre (1947), Beechwood Avenue (Source: Archives of Ontario, AO2866, via Miguelez 2004)
Beechwood’s past successes have perhaps been all the more remarkable arising from its split identity – and the numerous players that have had responsibility for its well-being. Until amalgamation in 2001, the street divided the City of Ottawa (the north side) from the City of Vanier (the south side), with a small portion also marking the edge of the Village of Rockcliffe Park. As a result, Vanier’s efforts at renewal through the 1985 creation of a Business Improvement Area (BIA), for example, included only properties on the south side. Still today, one finds decorative lampposts only along Beechwood’s southern sidewalk -- installed by the BIA in the late 1980s. A set of commercial development guidelines, published by the City of Vanier in 1991, similarly only refers to strategies for the south side – with properties on the north grayed out (the Report highlighted various commercial establishments that had arrived in the 1980s, including an art gallery at 86 Beechwood, shown above, just to the west of El Meson).
Mapping Beechwood's commercial properties (Source: City of Vanier, 1991)
The challenges imposed by this “Beechwood as boundary” narrative were long-standing. The cities of Ottawa and Vanier struggled to negotiate cost-sharing agreements for sewers and road construction in the 1960s. Even much earlier, the intended allocation of local tax dollars to local services (within a local jurisdiction) was challenging. Already in 1923, difficulties arose when parishioners of St Charles Church, located on the Eastview (Vanier) side of Beechwood, were sending their children to a Separate School in nearby Ottawa, a situation that drove the Ontario legislature to establish a local school board – independent from both the Eastview and Ottawa school systems – to ensure tax revenue was directed appropriately (Shea 1965).
Both municipal amalgamation in 2001 and this year’s expansion of the Vanier BIA (to include properties on both sides of Beechwood, see earlier post) have helped to dismantle these jurisdictional challenges. Already in the 2006 Beechwood Community Design Plan, one reads that “Beechwood Avenue, in its entirety, is a mainstreet that serves as the local shopping area and the central meeting place for a diverse group of surrounding neighbourhoods, [and] it makes sense from a marketing and business perspective that the street be seen as a single unit with a design that is consistent and reflects this diversity of uses” (CDP 2006).
Even so, the street may still mark a boundary – between neighbourhoods (New Edinburgh, Lindenlea, Rockcliffe Park and Vanier) and municipal wards. So, this period of renewal on Beechwood may also offer an opportunity to dismantle boundaries that may have become engrained in the imaginations of many residents – boundaries that may have divided communities to the north and south. To the north of Beechwood, one celebrates the legacy of Thomas MacKay, the father of New Edinburgh, who subdivided the land and created a community in the late 1800s. To the south, one thinks of the old village of Clarkstown and the legacy of Father Francois Xavier-Barrette, priest at St Charles from 1912 to 1961, and an individual credited with the promotion of the neighbourhood’s French character. Alongside stories on Beechwood’s north side of the Linden Theatre and high-end auto sales (seen in this 1955 ad), the south side, particularly towards the river, may have been known more for iron and metal yards, scrap metal storage and the Dominion Bridge Company along the former railway tracks.
These local neighbourhood stories are real, and the telling and celebration of each is not only important, but offers a sense of place to communities and their residents today. At the same time, it is important to consider the significance of Beechwood as a main street (along with interests in its renewal), within each of these neighbourhood’s stories. In today’s discussion of Beechwood, it is perhaps intriguing that the street is frequently positioned as a hub within the New Edinburgh community (see recent enRoute article). The desire for shops and services that meet residents’ needs and interests must equally come from communities both north and south. And while Heritage Conservation Districts to the north may either border on Beechwood or lay around the corner, the street’s proximity to Barrette (with its many properties currently included on the City’s Heritage Reference List) – and the heritage value of various properties actually on Beechwood’s south side (e.g., St. Charles Church and El Meson) – equally compels attention.
Heritage Buildings on and near Beechwood (Source: Beechwood Community Design Plan, 2006)
Perhaps new stories, and new imaginations, of Beechwood are being written. Renewal will serve the entire community and the neighbourhoods within – New Edinburgh, Vanier, Lindenlea and Rockcliffe Park. The banner that hung on the wooden wall surrounding the fire site in late August, reading “Our Community Needs You to Build Something – Now” says it best. Each of our communities needs to work together – for our shared community’s future. See you at the meeting Monday night.
(Mike Bulthuis)
Sources:
Miguelez, Alain (2004) A Theatre Near You: 150 years of going to the show in Ottawa-Gatineau (Ottawa: Penumbra Press)
Ottawa Citizen (1989) “Vanier: Two streets to get decorative lighting” August 25. Page C3.
Ottawa Citizen (1985) “Vanier designates business improvement area” October 16. Page C2.
Shea, Philip (1965) History of Eastview (Ottawa) Unpublished. Compiled at Carleton 1965, under the direction of Historian, N.C.C. September 10, 1964.
Vanier, City of (1991)“Discussion Paper on Commercial Development in the City of Vanier” Prepared by the Department of Planning and Development, April.
