The Glebe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Glebe is a neighbourhood in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is located just south of Ottawa's downtown area, with its northern border being the Queensway highway. To the south and east it is bounded by the Rideau Canal while to the west it ends at Dow's Lake, just beyond Bronson Avenue. As of 2001, the area's population was 11,369.
Popular with senior managers with the federal government, the area is mostly populated by families; the area has many children, and many services for children. It is also almost entirely anglophone. Despite being one of Ottawa's wealthier neighbourhoods, it is also one of the most liberal, and it has traditionally been a stronghold for the New Democratic Party. It is in the federal riding of Ottawa Centre, and the same provincial electoral district.
The Glebe has a strong community association which, in addition to running a large community centre, lobbies the local government on issues such as traffic calming.
The stretch of Bank Street that runs through the Glebe is one of Ottawa's premier shopping areas with many small stores and restaurants offering a wide variety of services.
The Glebe is home to Lansdowne Park which contains Frank Clair Stadium where Ottawa's Canadian Football League (CFL) football team, the currently suspended Ottawa Renegades, and the University of Ottawa Gee Gees play their home games, as well as the Ottawa Civic Centre, the permanent home of the Ottawa 67's and temporary home (1992-1995) for the Ottawa Senators before Scotiabank Place (formerly the Corel Centre, prior to that it was called The Palladium) was completed.
The area that became the park was purchased from local farmers in 1868 by the City of Ottawa Agricultural Society. From the canal two bodies of water jut into the Glebe: Patterson Creek and Brown's Inlet. These areas are surrounded by parks and some of the city's most expensive homes.
The last Saturday in May of each year brings the "Great Glebe Garage Sale" to the neighbourhood; every household that participates puts items out for sale, attracting a large contingent of bargain hunters to the area. Sellers are expected to donate a portion of the proceeds to a designated charity.
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[edit] History
The area is called the Glebe because in the initial 1837 survey of Ottawa the area was allocated to St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church. The word "glebe" means church lands and the area was originally known as "the glebe lands of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church". When the area was opened for development in 1870, real estate agents began to refer to it simply as "The Glebe".
The Glebe was one of Ottawa's first suburbs. In 1900, the Ottawa Electric Street Railway was established, with one of its first routes running south along Bank Street. This allowed workers to live in the Glebe and take the street car to work. Most Glebe houses date from this era, and it became home to many middle class workers.
In the middle part of the century the Glebe changed as the middle class moved to more distant suburbs such as Alta Vista and Nepean and the Glebe became a predominantly working class neighbourhood with the houses subdivided into multiple apartments or turned into rooming houses.
The neighbourhood again began to change in the 1970s as it saw significant gentrification and it became one of Ottawa's elite neighbourhoods. These changes are obvious in the census. From 1971 to 1996 the percentage of the population with university degreees rose from 10 to 60 percent. White collar employment grew from less than half to some 95%. While in 1971 the Glebe residents were 14 percent poorer than the average citizen of Ottawa, in 1996 they were 18 percent richer.
[edit] Churches
- Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church
- Glebe-St. James United Church
- St. Giles Presbyterian Church
- St. Matthew's Anglican Church
[edit] Schools
- First Avenue Public School
- Corpus Christi School
- Mutchmor Public School
- Glebe Collegiate Institute
- Lisgar Collegiate Institute (just north of the Glebe proper)
- Immaculata High School (just east of the Glebe proper)
- Hopewell (just south of the Glebe proper)
- Glashan Public School (just north of the Glebe proper)
[edit] External links
Note: Many cities have old parish-houses called "The Glebe." Ottawa may be the only city to have a significant district with this name, although there is a major road with the same name in Arlington, Virginia in the United States.
