Where once a "Splendid New Structure"

I remember cycling up Dalhousie Street a few years back and thinking "didn't there used be a beer store along here once upon a time?" Apparently there was. The above clipping, which I came across while looking for something completely different (which is how things usually happen) dates to May 7 1980. I do find the silk stockings an odd detail — surely they wore nylons?

Here we see that very Brewers' Retail in an aerial photo from 1991, sited on the SE corner of Dalhousie and Cathcart. An old house hugs the back of the building — I'm guessing that the loading dock was attached to the south end of things. The store was replaced by two strings of row-houses some time between '91 and '99. 

I wondered if a newspaper search would help me figure out an opening date and I was not disappointed. Both Ottawa dailies afforded the January 1955 event a lavish (identical) full-page spread, complete with a map. Below are two details from that page, as published on January 13, referring to an opening on Monday the 10th (note the date on the calendar on the "self write-up counter."

The feature's 4½ columns of effusive copy  included a loving description of the building's design — I try not to giggle as I read it.

The new Brewers' Retail is of pleasing one-storey design. Exterior brick-work, light grey in color, forms an effective architectural contrast with the canopy, finished in apple-green trim, and the sign [is] carried out in bright red script letters.

Store windows are aluminum and plate-glass sections, supported by a black granite base, while Indiana limestone has been used as building trim. The centrally located entrance and exit doors of the new Brewers Retail are automatically operated on the new "Magic Carpet" principle.

In the store interior, the use of modern construction materials has resulted in extremely effective eye-appeal. Upper walls are done in a striking biscuit shade at either end, with the central wall in dark green. Woodwork is white Virginia oak in a natural finish. The contrasting, terrazzo floor, rectangular in design, has been worked out in two shades of green while the pipe columns have been done in warm tones of gray with window drapes in the new biscuit color. Adding a unique touch to the attractive store interior are two recessed, indirect lighted wall murals, depicting typical Canadian outdoor scenes.

Green terrazzo, check. Recessed illumination landscape mural, check. "Magic Carpet" pressure pad automatic doors, check. Those were the mid-50s I love and remember.

"A striking biscuit shade" — God help us all.