It seems to me that the 1969 fire mainly affected a more recent extension to the west plus some neighbouring stores facing Rideau. Ogilvy's operated out of more than one building downtown. Their furniture department was diagonally across from the main store at Besserer and Nicholas.
I don't recall cage elevators but there were elevator operators both there and at Murphy Gambles on Sparks Street and they were trained to provide customer service as they announced all the different departments on every floor. I used to be fascinated watching the operators run the mechanisms on the manual elevators and trying to line up the elevator with outside floor. Watch your step. Wow, how times have changed.
It is a pity that they could not preserve the whole facade along Nicholas Street, not just the portion relating to the earliest part of the building. That is what living Ottawans remember.
I am going to take back my comment to some degree about cage elevators. I do remember that you could see the floors going by from inside the elevator, so the inside doors were cage-like that the operator would pull across to let passengers off and on.
Last edited by lrt's friend; Dec 18, 2012 at 6:09 AM.
|
Threaded Mode