The discovery of human bones under the street near 66 Queen has made me think of the passage of time and of the ways in which a streetscape can change. Queen Street itself has been transformed repeatedly over the course of the last few centuries.
Up until the 1840s, the eastern end of Queen Street was Ottawa’s first graveyard, known as “the old burying ground.” In the 1850s, when the street was first laid out, the graveyard was moved east to Sandy Hill and the first First Baptist Church was constructed on the newly vacated ground. From the 1870s to about 1900, construction of large hotels and other commercial buildings occurred along the length of the street. The congregation of the baptist church moved south to a new building near Laurier and Elgin, and commercial buildings went up where the graveyard and church once stood. By 1938 Queen Street had a stable mix of 4 story commercial buildings, houses (including the Topley Studio at the southeast corner of Queen and Metcalfe ), old stone churches and warehouses. Overall, this was an inviting streetscape, although not as upscale as the Sparks Street business district. Pictured above is a view of Queen Street and Metcalfe looking north, and you can see Queen St. looking west at Metcalfe and Queen St. looking east at O’Connnor by clicking on the links.
Since 1938, everything has changed. Almost all the original commercial structures along Queen Street have been demolished and replaced with tall, grey and bland office towers. But one landmark that has survived all the change is the Trafalgar Building. Not only does it remain a wonderful visual reminder of what key cornerstone buildings can look like, but it is still a well-used place with Quebecor Media as one of the main tenants of theupper floors and various small businesses residing at street level. The place is also protected as a category 1 building within the Sparks Street Heritage Conservation District.
You may be wondering, where is the Trafalgar Building? Located on the northeast part of the intersection of Queen and Bank Streets, it has been a cornerstone commercial building for over a century.
The five story Trafalgar building was constructed in 1905-06 by the property developer John C. Brennan, who would later develop the Island Park neighbourhood. Brennan seems to have liked all things related to London, England, so, like the Trafalgar, he called the streets in Island Park English names like Westminster, Picadilly and Mayfair.
The noted Ottawa architect Edgar L. Horwood designed the Trafalgar. Horwood had been in practice since the 1890s and made a name for himself by designing local public school buildings such as Mutchmor Public School. Horwood is perhaps the main competitor to architect W.E. Noffke in terms of Canadian architectural output: in private practice, he was also responsible for the design of the Ottawa Carnegie Library (1905) and the west wing of Lisgar Collegiate (1907). Later, while employed by the Department of Public Works, he built two buildings on the experimental farm – the Cereal Building (1916) and the Neatby Building (1936) – several post office buildings across the country, and the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria, B.C.
The Trafalgar (seen here ca. 1910) is a fine example of an early 20th century commercial building and is a great example of the Chicago architectural style. This style is characterized by buildings that have a concrete and steel framework, with masonry cladding (usually terra cotta) that allows for large plate-glass window areas. The windows consist of a large fixed center panel flanked by two smaller double-hung sash windows, and the arrangement on the facade typically creates a grid pattern. Usually there is not much in the way of exterior ornamentation on these buildings, but in the case of the Trafalgar, Horwood did allow for some extra flourishes. These can be seen in the out-sized modillion blocks in the window lintels, the stone keystones that radiate like rays of the sun above the windows, the orange buff brick and limestone trim at the corners, the tooth-like dentil work pattern under the roofline, the classical pillars separating the larger windows, and the corner piers on the first story topped with classical egg and dart molding. To see how it looks today, click here.
Early tenants above the ground floor were various government offices. In 1907 the Geodetic Survey of Canada moved in, followed by the newly-created Civil Service Commission in 1908. The Department of External Affairs joined the building in 1909, but moved fiver years later as the head of External Affairs found the barber shop and other commercial businesses on the ground floor an affront to the dignity of the operation. Later, in the 1930s, the House of Commons translation bureau was housed in the building, and a candy store, now Laura Secord, moved into the prominent corner space. The building figured prominently in early advertisements of capital real estate. As one publication put it, “where high prices have been paid for real estate, it has almost been invariably by parties who at once improved the property with valuable rent earning buildings.”
The following three pictures show the Trafalgar over time. First is a shot from above, ca. 1910 (it’s the building with the awnings sticking out).
Here’s an amazing shot of the Trafalgar building in June 1938…
…and here’s what the rest of the intersection looked like in 1938.
