Monthly Archives: October 2011

An Excess of Moral Equivalency

Commemorative Plaques at Dante Park, Gladstone/Booth

Dear gentle reader: this post may offend some of you with tender sensibilities, so do not read on if you are sensitive about Italians, Catholics, Afghanis, Muslims, Fascists, Tamils, Tamil Tigers, the War Measures Act, moral equivalency, PC, are Liberal, or liberal, or easily offended in any way. You were warned. And then I ask of the reader some latitude, since I am unsure myself what I think of the situation described below:

 

First, to get us warmed up, some satire:

ThePublic Citizen, October 21, 2070: Mo Kadr stood beside his father’s name today at the unveiling of the Muslim-Canadian Commemorative Plaque. “My father Omar”, said Mo, “was only interested in the well-being of his people and his religious rights. Along with his father, Ahmed, he fought for justice. He was misunderstood and our family suffered great injustice as a result.”  To make up for that misunderstanding, albeit 60 years late, Liberal MPs were present at the unveiling of a commemorative wall that listed several dozen  who struggled for their people, who were arrested or imprisoned for “terrorism” back in the early part of the century. Right after their names are an edited list of Canadians who died in Afghanistan in an unjust war. A woman soldier, a journalist, and a male soldier from Newfoundland were selected to symbolize the other Canadians who lost their lives in the struggle for Afghanistan self-determination. Omar, unfortunately, had died just a few weeks before he could see his name publicly rehabilitated; he died at his palatial seaside mansion in Hawaii which he had bought with his $100 million “reconciliation” money belatedly paid by the Federal government… Etc Etc.

 

Now, back to the present.

Last week, there was an unveiling of a memorial wall to honour interned Italian-Canadians in the 1940’s. I thought the whole thing was the epitome of moral equivalency gone berserk. I found it discomforting then, and still find it discomforting, but I find it difficult to explain just why. Bear with me while I wander through this minefield.

You can read the original Ottawa Citizen article here (I’ll wait until you come back): http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Enemy+aliens+unveil+memorial/5595480/story.html

 

So what bugs me? Let me count the ways:

-          The confusion between someone being interred during a war situation, but not actually charged with  treason, and being totally innocent of any activity harmful to Canadians. Who was rounded up from the Italian community? Was it an odd assortment of tile layers and laborers, or was it the cheerleaders for the rise and export of Italian fascism? Is it too much to ask for a reporter who is curious?

-          The deliberate equivilenting of civilian internees with soldiers who died fighting for Canada. Sorry folks, the internees did not make a sacrifice anywhere near that of the soldiers.  Soldiers who died deserve our respect and remembrance, as do all the Italian-Canadian soldiers who put their lives in danger for Canada (and whose names are curiously omitted from this plaque).

I find it odd to see in the original story a vague gloss of legitimate activities – “helping to build a church”—being put over any hard questions about the previous activities of the internees. After all, the Feds didn’t inter every Italian*.  Was the local leadership thoroughly and marvellously apolitical? Or was it expressing  strong fascist sympathies?  

 Is anyone else disturbed by the  cutesy overlay in the Citizen article of a little girl trying to save the statue [of a megalomaniac fascist dictator, but hey, who's noticing?] from rampaging Mounties? Sorry folks, either she knew she had to hide the evidence, or was trying to save her family’s fascist hero for seizure, but it is hard to put an acceptable gloss of innocence on this. Is it too harsh to read into that Citizen story … a child corrupted by paternal enthusiasm for a fascist dictator?

I don’t think we do society any favour by varnishing over some of the reality in the Italian colony in 1940’s Ottawa. Lets see, the Italian community in Ottawa was being lead by clergy directly imported from fascist Italy, some members watching fascist movies at the local theatre, cheering on Mussolini’s efforts to “civilize”  Ethiopia, spending evenings listening on the home record player to Mussolini  praising Herr Hitler,   …  what’s to question about this??

Definitely we need a commemorative plaque that assures us Italian Canadians participated “fully” in the war effort.

Don’t for a minute think that I believe all Italians in Ottawa were fascist sympathizers ready to sabotage the Canadian democracy or war effort. The vast majority of people simply don’t get involved in politics. Just as I don’t think that Muslims in Ottawa are all sympathetic to the radical intolerant versions of Islam. But a few are. Ergo, surveillance of imams sent from “foreign lands”, infiltration of social and political action groups, and the occasional breaking up of terrorist-related activities, not all the participants of which get charged with serious crimes.

In my view, the continual entanglement of Canadian populations with the war efforts of their former or ancestral homelands is a distressing artifact of an ongoing colonial mentality amongst immigrants who put too much value on where they came from rather than where they are. Whether that group is Canadians of British ancestry rushing to join the Mother Country’s war effort, Tamils funding the Tigers (whether voluntarily or through war taxes levied through threats of intimidation), French Canadians taking their anti-war lead from France’s hopping in bed with the occupying Germans, or Canadians cheering on messianic heroes of the oppressed (eg Osama Bin Laden, Mussolini, the Emperor, or whomever).

Go back to the second pic and re-read the plaque. Methinks it doth protest too hard.

Internees are not the equivalent of our war dead. 

The commemorative plaque at Piazza Dante does not edify or expand our knowledge; it corrupts it with a deluded veneer of moral equivalency run amok. I’d much rather see a frank acknowledgement that the community was divided, but after adversity grew stronger.

(above) The earlier war monument in the same Piazza. You can take this inclusiveness of “all soldiers” as being a nice, liberal expression. Or as oblique concealment that some Italians died fighting against Canadians.

Over a pasta and beans dinner (and too much red wine) we once had a long reminiscing retelling by a (now-deceased) Italian neighbor of his war experiences. I was younger then, and confused why I couldn’t get clear just where and when his exploits took place. Finally I asked him which army he was in. It took another Italian neighbour to spell out that some things had to be glossed over. But I don’t think that should be set in granite.

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*(that was saved for the Japanese Canadians).

 

Bike shelter at Bayview Station

OC TRANSPO has installed the new bike shelter at Bayview Station.

It does not have a glass wall on the “back” side of it, but nor is the back side readily accessible for cyclists while there is loose dirt/mud. Presumably, if no glass back wall is installed, and the grass grows, some cyclists can use the rack from the back side but at the cost of losing out on the roof.

Is it safe to suggest this is another one-sided front-in only bike shelter? In which case, it holds six bikes. After we spend millions on the new Bayview LRT and indoor-transfer-by-escalator to the O-Train platform, the city plans to increase bike parking capacity to eight bikes.

One of the best things about installing these shelters now, several years before the LRT opens, is that it may help establish the correct number of bike spaces that needs to be provided. Of course, patronage will be different after the conversion to LRT, and after a several year hiatus when the transitway is closed, in order to be converted to LRT, during which time the shelter will be unused. And of course, anyone counting bikes has to wander away from the station, as for stations such as LeBreton, few people park their bikes at the station but a number do several blocks away, on the residential streets, where presumably seeing eyes make parking safer.

I think the best bet for OC Transpo is to reinstall some of the freestanding, unroofed metal bike racks near the shelters, for “overflow” parking. In this way, they get a readily visible measure of how far short of demand they are falling. If there are no adjacent bike racks or posts, they won’t have a visible measure of their shortfall as people may park further away, or not bring their bikes at all.

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PS did anyone notice that this bike shelter increases the total Bayview Station shelter space  by about 50%?

City awards prize, whilst frowning on the design

The above house near the Parkdale market got an award of merit for urban design in the City’s recent competition. Frankly, I was surprised, and bit annoyed too.

The upper deck, which doesn’t relate to the street so much as soar above it, does have a neat angled sun roof. The exterior materials are well handled, and the design is  neat. But only neat in an architectural way. I don’t think it is good urban design.

First, the entire front yard of these two houses is gravel. Is it really a xeriscape garden? Fess up, it’s two car parking spaces taking up 100% of the frontage. Front yard parking is justifiably frowned upon by the City and its residents for a variety of reasons: it looks bad. It cheapens the look of a street. It removes useful on-street public parking in favour of private parking. It eliminates green space. Can this front yard ever support a tree? Cars have to cross the sidewalk, which has become just a lengthy dip for the w-i-d-e driveway. And those sono-tubed columns of concrete below the steel posts grate on my eyes.

It is, however, convenient for the householder; and increases the selling price of the house.

The City’s prize went to a pair of semi-detached infill houses. Rather than side by side, as tradition has wont, this house follows the new trend of putting one house forward on the lot, and the other behind it, facing the yard. Provided the back unit has a front door facing the street, presto, it’s a side-by-side. Many times this works out really well.

I took these pic on a weekday. All the City’s pic for the awards ceremony also showed the houses this way. Car-free. Nary a shot with two cars parked there. I suspect that this house, or any similar, would look rather different with a bright yellow Hummer and a gray Astrovan twinset.

The City just went through a lengthy public consultation and drafted new infill rules. These are chock full of measures designed to discourage or ban the front-of-house-disguised-as-a-garage look. And its full of measures to keep front yards green.  Reducing front yard parking for new infills was a key factor in the process. And to encourage living space at street level rather than one floor up. And yet … this whole house front at the sidewalk level, or the pedestrian view from the sidewalk on either side of the street, is of an open carport, or a side-wall-free garage.

I realize the new rules are yet to come into effect. And this house was legit when built. And no doubt there were compromises to get it built at all.

Am I the only person who thinks it a tad … odd … for the City to grant an award of urban merit to an infill that runs contrary to the spirit of their contemporary thinking?

And no, it is not a cantilevered house. It’s a carport. And it is not urban-friendly enough for a prize. We can and must do better.

NYC new standard bench

This is a new bench for New York City. Designed by Ignacio Ciocchini, it is of powder-coated steel. It is designed to dissipate heat and shed snow.

I was surprised by the very small side arm rests. By dividing it up into individual  seats, it prevents both sleepers and cuddlers (unless two people can fit onto one 26″ seat). In contrast, recent benches selected in Ottawa are divided into a 2:1 ratio with a single off-centre armrest, so that people can choose to sit touching if they wish.

While Ottawa is struggling to find a suitable set of designs for its standardized street furniture, mainstreet rejuvenations continue to select unique benches. Bronson Avenue and Rideau Street are in progress now; sometime in the next 8 months new benches will be installed in parts of Chinatown (red, of course, with an appropriate Chinese theme).

If you aren’t a regular reader of SpacingOttawa, go to that site to see an article I wrote earlier this week on combined benches+planters, which are also portable: http://spacingottawa.ca/2011/10/24/parkmobiles-a-perfect-fit-for-winter-cities/

The Thinest of the Thin Houses

Very narrow houses are perfectly livable, if well designed. There are about 25 across the street from me on 12′ lots, which means they are  a bit more than 11′  wide inside. I think CCOC has a bunch a few blocks over, off Rochester. Nonetheless, very thin houses make City regulators expand with worry.

A new group of thin houses is under construction at Gladstone and Cambridge. They replace the famous “yellow house” with its Charlie Brown zig-zag brown stripe.

I have been anxiously awaiting their construction because they are thin – on 12′ lots. But the end unit, along Gladstone, is even thinner, being a Flat Iron design. The framing is up, and the thinnest of thin houses looks like this:

Notice the extraordinary narrowness at the western end, by the red brick house. Other features worth noting are the huge amount of glazing on the second floor; and the big opening on the ground floor is a “drive through” porte cochère to the rear courtyard with garages for the other units.

When finished, it might look something like this:

The ground floor space is commercial/retail space, augmented by a finished basement floor with washroom, kitchen, and office space that has a window facing Cambridge. The basement space appears to extend right under the drive through:

The entrance to the residential unit on floors 2 and 3 is accessed from a front door beside the driveway and stairs up. Here is the 2nd level floor plan:

And the pièce de résistance, the top floor, which unfortunately for those who like to be seen whilst brushing their teeth, apparently has the street side window beside the sink removed if we go by the ”as built” rather than the sketchup and plan:

All that glazing on both sides of the flat iron bathroom reminds me of the old song Silhouettes on the Shade.

The project is called Bella Towns, and hopefully will give a needed shot in the arm to a deteriorated few blocks of Gladstone. The nice residential houses in the area are under continual attack. Neighbours and the community association have to keep a close eye on automobile lots that seek to consume housing, the latest parking lot issue being church-sponsored. Whether a neighbourhood on the brink goes up or down very much depends on the character of the most recent changes/developments.

For every Bella Towns or Uno townhouse development, or Chi condo, there are forces seeking to gut the residential neighbourhood. Vigilance against the bad; encouragement for the good.

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yellow house pic and plans from their web site

How “secure” (or disruptive…) will the OLRT be?

 

Barcelona, Spain.

 

Look ma, no fences!

 

 

We are in the process of replacing the transitway with LRT. In the Scott Street cut, this won’t matter much. But at either end of the cut, it matters a lot.

The City is preaching two totally opposed messages on how the track will interact with the community. 

On LeBreton Flats, they claim that anyone getting near the tracks will be imminent mortal danger so great that six foot high chain link fences will be constructed on both sides of the tracks. For pedestrian safety, of course. So there will be no crossing of the tracks through the Flats. 

City staff are  insisting that the current pedestrian crossing of the transitway at the Preston Extension will be closed before construction starts. The PAC is advising that it be left open, on a temporary basis, until the permanent grade separation is constructed in the future to connect Preston to the ORP at the Vimy Drive intersection (the intersection there is already in place, complete with lengthy stacking lanes).

PAC members, along with the ward councilor, Holmes, argue that it will be safer to cross the OLRT tracks than to currently cross the transitway. The City isn’t buying that argument.

Yet … yet just a few blocks away, another City-sponsored PAC and consultation process is underway for the westward extension of the OLRT beyond Tunney’s Pasture out to Lincoln Fields (watch for this to be built simultaneously or very shortly after the first phase LRT). Where that will run through the Ottawa River parkway lands, it will be set in grass, and with only a thin chain, mounted on posts, rather like a “bank line up”, to gently alert peds that they are approaching the tracks. Yup, that’s the City’s story for there and the Byron linear park.

OLRT along the parkway

And along Richmond, the tracks will be set in grass, just a foot or so back from the edge of Richmond Road, and open to the dog walking zone so beloved by Mckellerites. This layout will certainly be familiar to the Spanish consortium bidding to build our LRT.

No fences. Certainly not a 6′ chain link on both sides running unbroken from station to station.

I think it is time for the City to decide which it is going to be: Fenced or Open. They lose credibility by telling people two different stories. And I think it is important to community acceptance of the LRT that we know in advance some basics, like how much of a barrier it will be.

Similarly, they need to pledge to maintain a few standards. For example, through the Flats they propose a rather industrial-looking railway track roadbed set in gravel. Like the OTrain. For Mckeller Park, they wave images of a beautiful grass boulevard. Which is it? Will the nicer treatment be reserved for affluent areas only? (Thank heavens it is not going through Rockliffe Park).

And no, I dont buy the idea that landscaping can be upgraded later. Not in this city. If we don’t get it done right at the beginning, it will never be enough of a priority to “prettify” it later. Heck, this city doesn’t even have a budget for new sidewalks!

Downtown Oslo unfenced tracks.Aren't cyclists on the seg.path to the left in mortal danger?

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grass right of way transitions to paved piazza in front of Oslo city hall

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I am reminded of earlier NCC and City rail efforts.

In the early 1960′s the Feds spent millions of dollars to relocate a number of railway lines out of the City. The reasons? Lines were a barrier, a blight, they were industrial.

The main east-west rail line was replaced by the Queensway. The Scott street line was replaced (eventually) by the transitway. The north-south line parallel to Champagne was dropped into a deep cut. The passenger lines to Union Station became Colonel By Drive and the Alexandra Bridge (god, I wish the CBC announcers could say that right) became a road bridge.

Alas, technology changed, and the diesel engine removed from rail most of the “blighting” influence. But the replacements for the rail lines, predominantly roads, simply replaced one barrier with another noiser one. Pedestrians were not necessarily better off. Nor were neighborhoods.

It is important that we deal with the conversion of the transitway to LRT with some understanding of the consequences for adjacent communities and for ped/cyclist movement UP FRONT.

And don’t get me started on the consequences for Carling Avenue when LRT is built down the centre there. The general public has no idea how disruptive that will be, picturing some bucolic toy train running down the existing median. It wont be like that at all.

A reader dies …

I regret to inform readers of this blog that one of their number has died rather violently.

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Hopefully, the cause of death was not from reading this blog or acting on its advice.

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This reader several times contacted me asking me to borrow my bank account numbers, just for a few days, in order to shift large sums of wealth to Canada. With a suitable share for me (last offer was $4 million dollars for my share).

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Alas, being independently wealthy and of modest needs, I had to decline.

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Bye bye colonel: