Last weekend I heard that the city had issued the demolition permit. I meant to go over there first thing Monday morning but got busy with our porch building project and didn't go by that corner until 1 pm. Too late...it was gone. It is such a weird feeling to look at a site where a building stood (in this case for 85 years) and suddenly it is empty. Even when you expect it to happen, it still takes your breath away. In the end, I'm glad I was not there to witness the actual destruction. That would have been too sad.
One note of consolation however: last night I was talking to a neighbour and learned that he had bought the front door of the house. Another neighbour went in and was able to take a lot of the trim that he will use to fix up his own place. So, all was not lost. Hopefully someone took the three stained glass windows.
I thought our ward of Kitchissippi had it bad with infill housing but I must admit it is worse downtown in my sister in law's Sandy Hill neighbourhood. There, developers are erecting huge box-like structures and filling them with 15 to 20 bedrooms and a few bathrooms. Being close to Ottawa U makes this kind of obscene profit ($12000.00 a month from students' rent) too tempting for greedy developers to pass up.
The long time residents in the area are horrified by what the city is allowing in their community. It makes my neighbourhood's concerns seem like nothing.
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