King Edward memories

By Michel Rossignol

Thousands of vehicles travel on King Edward Avenue every day, but I remember a few occasions when there was little or no traffic on that street.

On Wednesday, October 16, 1957, I was in my third-grade class at Guigues School on Murray Street between Dalhousie and Cumberland. Around 9:30, the teacher told us that like all the other pupils in the school, we had to leave the building and walk on Murray Street to King Edward. When my classmates and I crossed Cumberland Street, I remember seeing the pupils of Our Lady School leaving the building. They were just as happy as we were to get out of the classroom. We all marched to King Edward and formed a line all along the sidewalk on the western side of the avenue. The girls of Duhamel and Routhier schools on Guigues Street were on the sidewalk north of St. Patrick. I think the students of the schools east of King Edward like Brebeuf and York Street Public School also joined the line near Rideau Street. 

The reason for this massive deployment of baby boomers was the visit to Ottawa of Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, were in a car that, after leaving Rideau Hall, crossed the Minto Bridges and passed on King Edward where we were waiting (the route was announced in Le Droit of October 12). 

In those days, King Edward was a quiet residential street with little traffic because the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge was not yet constructed. I remember that it was a nice fall day and that the Queen was in a convertible. The Queen was on her way to Lansdowne Park to participate in a ceremony with hundreds of schoolchildren. As for my classmates and I, we returned to our lovely classrooms after the Queen’s car went by.

In the 1950s, King Edward was a quiet street in the evenings. For example, I remember a day in 1958 or 1959 when my uncle Maurice travelled by car from his home in Québec City to Ottawa to visit his mother (and my paternal grandmother) who lived on Guigues Street between Cumberland and King Edward. There was a big family reunion that evening. While talking to my cousin Bobby, who had just obtained his driver’s licence, my uncle asked Bobby to move his car closer to the house and to give me a ride. 

In those days, Guigues Street was a one way towards the east and my uncle had parked his 1958 Lincoln at the corner of Guigues and King Edward. A ride in such a big luxurious car was a special event for me and I clearly remember that evening. When Bobby turned onto King Edward, we were the only car travelling on the avenue. We went from Guigues to Rideau Street, exactly the same route taken by the Queen’s car a few months earlier, but there was nobody on the sidewalk. We returned to Guigues by passing on an even more quiet Cumberland Street and found a parking spot much closer to my grandmother’s house. Mission accomplished.

When the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge opened to traffic in 1966, King Edward became much less quiet, but traffic was blocked on a few occasions. For example, on July 1st, 1970, a neighbour told me that there was a big fire on King Edward. Like many other residents of Lowertown, I walked to the corner of George and King Edward. We watched the spectacular fire that destroyed the original building of the Ottawa Little Theatre. Needless to say, traffic in the Rideau and King Edward intersection and on King Edward was completely blocked. Things were much cooler on Saturday, January 28, 1967, when snowshoe races were held on King Edward Avenue. Traffic was blocked from Rideau to St. Patrick. 

The fact remains that on most days, there is lots of traffic on King Edward. However, it is important to remember how much King Edward has changed over the last seventy years and the impact of this on Lowertown.