Did your home exist a hundred years ago? How about your street?

Joining the western side of Brewer Park to the Carleton University campus is a well-used footbridge tucked alongside the Rideau River. The construction material is quintessentially Canadian: the railings are made of wooden hockey sticks!

The commemorative plaque, somewhat worn and graffitied, installed on the bridge reads:

Featured in the April 2021 OSCAR.

I was organizing my late parents’ slides and found five aerial photos of what was then called Ottawa South which I believe were taken by my father, Ted Adamson, in 1967. Here are some of the differences I noticed between then and now.

Snowbanks left and right tower above me as I trudge up the sidewalk, from the houses across the street of Harold who goes to private school and Bobby who goes to Catholic school, past the house of Janice who goes to my school, and up the endless hill where a temple awaits. Not St. Margaret Mary Church to my right (where the meaningful temple is actually the toboggan hill behind the church) but the temple where my street, Fairbairn, meets Sunnyside on the left. This magical place houses gleaming fire engines, which already appear to me old fashioned, in the same way some inter-city Colonial Coach buses are old and some are contemporary.

Almost a hundred years ago, Brighton Beach in Ottawa South was touted as one of the best places for bathing in the city. This clipping is from The Ottawa Journal on June 17, 1921, where plans for the opening of the diving tower and accompanying party were revealed.

The fate of two institutions, which formed a core element for generations of families in Old Ottawa South, may be coming together. Not the two institutions themselves, but their remnants.

On Saturday, October 19, 2019 Trinity Anglican Church celebrated 140 years in Old Ottawa South.  The ceremony recounted the church's history and highlights of the parish over the many years with story-telling, music, and reflection on both the past and future.

Longing for a cool place in these dog days of summer? A nearby swimming hole would  be an ideal place to spend some time. In the past, the residents of Ottawa South had a wonderful spot, a beach at the end of Brighton Avenue, now a park with grass and trees, but formerly a haven for aquatic activities on the Rideau River.

In 1981 Charlotte Gobeil got a rare look inside the Monastère du Précieux Sang then located at 774 Echo Drive in Ottawa South. Her visit with a documentary crew to the Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood captures a fascinating glimpse of these cloistered nuns. Ms. Gobeil was welcomed by this contemplative order to witness the women's daily life of devotion.

In some ways, not too much has changed in fifteen years—on the eve of a move away from Old Ottawa South, a  resident recounts what he'll miss most about the neighbourhood in this article from the June 2004 OSCAR.

Ten things I love (and will miss) about Old Ottawa South — By Jim Watson