Glebe Report

Residents from Dow’s Lake, the Glebe and the Glebe Annex are unhappy with the massive scale of a 26-storey, 328- unit building proposal at 774 Bronson Avenue on the southwest corner of Carling.

This month, the City of Ottawa intends to approve a new Official Plan (OP). It’s not small potatoes. This new 30-year plan is massively consequential. It will affect how the city grows and develops for decades. For the Glebe, it will guide how our neighbourhood changes as more intensification happens.

La Chingadera Mexican Market, a new Mexican grocery store at 740 Bank Street, only opened in August, but its owner has been serving the Glebe for several years. Emilio Escobedo, owner of La Chingadera, is also the owner of Margarita and Mona’s Taqueria restaurants.

“Mom, we’re going to do something fun, something different. We are going to go paddle boarding. Now! Today! Get your bathing suit on. I’m booking us paddleboards.” Paddle boarding? What? That could be dangerous. It is dangerous.

The “15-minute neighbourhood” has become a buzzword for contemporary city planners and some politicians. In Ottawa, the 15-minute neighbourhood concept has been a top-down, technocratic exercise imposed on inner-city neighbourhoods.

Why does it matter if drivers speed? If you get hit by a car doing 30 km/h while walking or cycling, you only have a five-per-cent chance of dying. At 40 km/h, the chance of dying rises 50 per cent; at 60 km/h, it’s 95 per cent.

There are a lot of changes at City Hall this fall. And last month, an LRT train derailed through Tremblay Station and into Capital Ward. Investigations and revelations continue.

After our break from meeting over the summer, the Glebe Community Association had a full agenda for our monthly board meeting in September. Please join us on the fourth Tuesday of each month at our board meetings. Our next meeting will be October 26.

Planning and implementing seasonal courses during the pandemic have been like riding a roller coaster. Our incredible team was motivated to come up with ways to keep our community connected. We became experts in pottery, gardening, art, sports, theatre, cooking – you name it, we taught it. Under the constant threat of another shutdown, we offered a multitude of mini sessions for in-person programs.

How much pleasure can a tree provide to its owners and the community? In our case, a lot. Part of the attraction of the house we moved into in the Glebe in 1980 was the magnificent Linden tree in the front yard.

There is so much more to sparrows once we start looking carefully. Our most commonly seen sparrow is the House Sparrow, which is larger than most other sparrows. They belong to the group known as Old World sparrows, originating in Europe and found throughout Asia and Africa. They were introduced to North America in Brooklyn, New York, in 1851 and have adapted very successfully to urban life everywhere.

After too many months of isolation from friends and family, of shut-downs and lockdowns and trying to figure out Zoom, Ottawa seniors are more than ready to be back socializing at their seniors’ centre across from Lansdowne Park. “They’re ecstatic – some are almost moved to tears to be back and see people again,” said Kirsten O’Brien.

For 24 and 18 years respectively, the Glebe Report has sponsored two awards for local students showing ability and interest in writing and journalism: the Anne Donaldson Memorial Scholarship for Community Journalism, awarded to a Carleton journalism student, and the Susan Jermyn Award for Creative Writing, given to a Glebe Collegiate student.

Have you ever noticed a dozen or so garden boxes beside Centretown United Church on Bank Street? You have probably passed them many times without knowing about the Community Garden Project. For several years, volunteers from the church and neighbourhood have been growing vegetables and supplying Centre 507, a city-operated day program located on the second floor of the church, with fresh produce for their soups, sandwiches and salads.

Music fans can now attend Doors Open for Music at Southminster concerts live at noon on Wednesdays at Southminster United Church, 15 Aylmer Avenue. No preregistration is required, but you are asked to arrive no earlier than 11:40 a.m. and bring your proof of vaccination. Or you can watch the concert live on YouTube. Here is the fall lineup.

Some of the books read so far this year by Sunnyside library’s Sylvie Chartrand. “I mostly like mystery novels; hopefully you can find something that appeals to you.” The books are available at the Ottawa Public Library.

Stillwater is one of those unassuming at-first-glance movies that once seen cannot be easily forgotten. It has this raw quality that reaches straight for the heartstrings. It is mostly a classical drama telling yet another harrowing story of love and redemption, starring Matt Damon, who needs no introduction, and Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine and My Sister’s Keeper).

I absolutely love a good horror film. Movies are a perfect place to explore fear and dread. The visuals, audio and tone used to explore primal emotions and sensations are a fantastic escape from our actual fears – we experience the danger, without the consequences of the danger.

Freedom of the press is the reason that most of the news we consume is made available to us. Throughout history, journalists have strived to write, share 
and expose the world’s biggest stories and many have even risked their lives
in the process. Their efforts have been depicted in films for years and the art of journalism has also been shown in a fictitious form. These films are broad and engaging.

The humble potato is, well, humble, which may be why we forget how great the little guy is. The spud is so simple and yet so versatile. Here is a recipe for Tim’s Top Taters, basically a fried potato with hot sauce served with ranch dressing. It’s so simple and pleasing.

Every busy kitchen has a favourite classic collection of recipes on a shelf. For Cornelia Wagner, that dependable cookbook is The Five Roses Complete Guide to Good Cooking she acquired in 1975 as a young bride. The first edition of the Five Roses was published in 1913 by Lake of the Woods Milling Company, the maker of Five Roses flour in Keewatin, west of Kenora. Here is a recipe for Oat Delights from an early edition of the Five Roses cookbook.

Joel Harden, MPP for Ottawa Centre: “I support COVID-19 vaccine mandates, and I support COVID-19 vaccine certificates. Ontario must introduce these measures, and that will mean consequences for those who refuse to get vaccinated. Protests are likely to continue, and we must keep everyone safe.”

Mayor Jim Watson: “Kids are back in school, people are slowly returning to the office, the mornings are feeling a little bit cooler and we are already looking ahead to Budget 2022! While we continue to fight a global pandemic, there are still many financial unknowns, meaning 2022 will be another lean year for the City of Ottawa.”

What were the burning topics of the day as found in the pages of the Glebe Report in October 1991?

While helping clients remove excess things that they no longer want or need, Martha Tobin of Room2Breathe realized that there were many wonderful and worthy items that could have a second life with others who could use them. Through this realization, the Donations That Do Good program was born.

William Tyndale, a writer who antedates Shakespeare by several years was also a remarkable wordsmith whose renowned translation of the New Testament (1526) was the first full printed edition in English and a major linguistic source for what has become known as the King James Bible (1611). He originated phrases like “salt of the earth,” “sign of the times,”“eat, drink and be merry” and many more.

This fall, the RA Curling Club is offering three instructional programs for anyone interested in learning to curl. New and almost-new curlers can have fun while learning the fundamentals of the game.

To outsiders, there’s something sexy about Aussie slang – those colourful, often impenetrable expressions that pepper casual speech.

With work from home becoming the new reality for many of us, it’s key that we keep updated on the best ways to combat muscle fatigue and stiffness. Here are some helpful tips and tricks.