222 Strathcone Avenue, the Glebe, Ottawa

 The date-stone above the door reads "1909, Tobin Limited." Tobin Tents and Awnings relocated here from their Third Avenue offices and factory. A promotional postcard from that time features a fancifully overblown depiction of the building, with extra windows and exaggerated height.

Goad 1912 shows the building clad in "concrete brick" as we see it to this day — the then-vacant lot on the SE corner of Bank may have indeed boasted a small, formally laid-out parkette as shown in the painting.

The Goad plan illustrates the curious half-block depth of the lots between Strathcona and Patterson, with the back yards of the Patterson houses facing directly onto Strathcona.

Here's an ad from the Ottawa Citizen, placed in July 1909...

586-588-590 Bank Street, the Glebe, Ottawa

Built 1909-1912, 3 storeys with 3 storefronts, apartments above and a 2-storey rear extension.

 

555 Somerset West, Centretown, Ottawa

This delightful Victwardian hotchpotch would make a great Hallowe'en advent calendar — an assignation here, a bathtub electrocution there ... this may not be San Francisco, but it always reminds me of Armistead Maupin's, "Tales of the City" if only for its spirit of place.

City Directories date the house to some time between 1901 and 1909. In the latter year, the address was that of Henry Smith, contractor. #555 replaced a previous corner-lot house that had faced onto Bay Street. We see that original on the 1888 Goad Plan, variously numbered 324 or 344, built c. 1887.