Glebe Report

Glebop Jazz and Friends (trumpeter John Haysom, pianist Bert Waslander, vocalist Helen Glover, bassist Alrick Huebener, and saxophonist Rick Moxley) brought live jazz to the great Glebe outdoors in August, in memory of Howard Tweddle, one of the founders of the Glebop Jazz Trio, who died of COVID-19.

The city will present its recommendations in September for the Bank Street Height & Character Study. This work is intended to provide a vision and guide future development along Bank Street in the Glebe. The city had invited feedback on preliminary ideas.

Two Glebe Collegiate Institute grads are continuing their track and field careers with the Dalhousie Tigers. Mackenzie Kitchen will be competing in the high jump, and her classmate Kate Collings will be competing as a sprinter and hurdler.

The north end of the Glebe is very busy. It is bordered by the Queensway, which is intersected by the hustle and bustle of Bank Street. But amid the noise and chaos, you will discover a beautiful vision in the form of a very large mural.

As students trickle back in a staggered return to school, hopes that the reopening will be smooth and safe are countered by fears it won’t be.

You’ll soon be seeing five freshly decorated newspaper boxes on Bank Street in the Glebe and in Old Ottawa South, the result of collaboration between the Glebe Report and OSCAR. They invited young local artists and students to submit designs to “dress them up” and turn them into public art. The three winners were Kate Solar and sisters Claire and Mairi Brascoupé.

Slowly but surely, older homes and businesses in the Glebe Annex are being torn down to make way for new, often multi-unit dwellings. The latest building about to disappear is what many refer to as the Dallaire home at 7 MacLean Street, between Bell and Cambridge Streets South. The home was built in 1900.

We are a family that loves music. Fortunately for us, practicing our violins and piano kept us busy through a long winter and spring of COVID-19 isolation. Yet after months of music lessons on Zoom and no end-of-year recitals to look forward to, we were tired of playing our instruments indoors. It was time to share our passion for music with our neighbours!

The question I am asked most frequently is: “How is GNAG doing?” The answer: It’s getting better. After introducing online classes in late March and running seven weeks of summer day camps, we are now ready to offer childcare and a variety of in-person classes for all ages and interests.

This is my last column as the Glebe Community Association president. I am delighted to be handing the gavel over to former GCA secretary, Laura Smith. Laura has been my right hand for every GCA meeting over the last two years, and I have every confidence in her ability to lead the GCA through its next phase.

Scott Robinson couldn’t wait to open up his first-ever pizza joint in the Glebe this past March. He was days away from firing up the new wood-fired ovens, slicing up fresh veggies and rolling out the dough for his signature pies like the Hot & Spicy and the Great White North, when the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

Whether your passion for reading includes mystery, romance, humour, travel or biographies, the growing numbers of little libraries popping up on Glebe lawns offer titles for all ages and most interests. On a recent walkabout in the neighbourhood, I counted 10 little libraries.

If you have a garden, chances are you have seen purslane growing in unwanted places. Common purslane (Portulaca oleracea) is a fast-growing succulent annual plant that spreads low to the ground in a circle from a central spot. Marisa Romano brings you recipes for Red Beet and Purslane Salad, and Purslane and Tomato Fritata.

In the archaeological view, corn originated nine thousand years ago. People who inhabited the present-day land of Oaxaca in Mexico divined an evolutionary path down which the much smaller eared plant, its wild ancestor teosinthe, travelled until it became corn. In addition to the story of corn, Carolyn Best presents recipes for Coconut and Fresh Corn Soup, and Mexican Tortilla Lasagna.

With recent events in such places as Minneapolis, Toronto and New Brunswick, along with on-going issues of racial profiling, militarization of police and human resource issues here in Ottawa, it seems clear that we need to change our approach to policing. This includes acknowledging that we ask our police officers to respond to many types of situations that they themselves may not be comfortable with or not fully trained to manage.

Clubs come and go but to celebrate a 110 th anniversary, you have to have a winning combination. The secret? The Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW) – Ottawa is a dynamic organization that enhances personal growth.

The services and programs delivered today at and from Abbotsford House are much different from March 13, the day we closed our doors and began our pandemic response. Though our doors remain closed, the staff are busy serving clients and members daily.

Let us stop to thank more unsung, very local heroes and heroines who volunteer to provide food to those in need in the downtown area. The volunteers and staff at our local food bank in the basement of Centretown United Church on the corner of Argyle and Bank rearranged the entire operation to maintain social distancing.

The Independent Long-term Care (LTC) COVID-19 Commission has now been established, and its terms of reference have been posted. What can we hope for?

This month, Paul Green reviews the 2019 French comedic farce How to Be a Good Wife (originally La Bonne épouse), and Lois Siegel talks about the 2020 film Made in Italy about a troubled father-and-son relationship.

In As I Walked About, a collection of Phil Jenkins’ city columns that ran from 2003 to 2017 in the Ottawa Citizen, Jenkins walks, as he says, “in two tenses,” present and past. He observes the eccentricities of the architecture and the people he meets. Review by Ralph Smith.

It certainly was an unusual summer. It really doesn’t feel like September, but here we are! Perhaps the biggest issue these days is the return to school for elementary and high school students.

I went back to Gage Park the summer I turned 60. It had been more than 40 years since I had last seen it, and something about hitting that terrifying next decade had created a gnawing nostalgia. The road ahead was shortening, and the route travelled to get to this place and time was starting to drop off at the edges. I wanted another glimpse of that summer before it turned to gossamer and floated away on the winds of imperfect memory.