Canada Science & Technology Museum | Completed

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Ah, the game continues and this could be 'Check and Mate': By removing the front lawn, the existing site will be made totally unsuitable. There will be no expansion options for that location and the Museum will be 'hidden' in the back. Thus, the Museum will have to be moved before the 150th celebration.

Also, the choice of a huge artifact storage facility for the site is a good one. Having other Museums house artifacts there is an even better one - especially since it is to include all the technical support for those collections. Once the Museum is moved, the original building can be removed and that space also used for a new (second) warehouse, consolidating most of the area's needed artifact storage and handling facilities into one place. It is unfortunate that the rail link isn't there any more, though. It was a short-sighted move to remove is since it should have been known that the Museum would have to move some day.

As one of the 'compatible' uses of the new front lawn's building, perhaps schools could set up Museum/Curator education facilities there. Maybe archive facilities could also be included.

I hope that there is sufficient 'work' space included in the warehouse to allow full new displays to be created before being moved to the various Museums. This could help reduce the 'fit-up' time required at the Museums, maximizing the useful time of the public galleries.

I am looking at Google maps sattelite image and the rail line still reaches as far as the Museum.

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I am looking at Google maps sattelite image and the rail line still reaches as far as the Museum.

From the City's 2008 aerial photos:



This shows that the old rail corridor has been sold off in chunks. (The black lines are property boundaries.) I think the objects I point to near the bottom right are stored rail cars, so the track might still run that far. This is, however, a 2008 photo so things could have changed since then.

[rakerman]

they definitely should try to get a location near the downtown where most of the museums and galleries already cluster

[Dado]

If the tracks were lifted, then it was entirely the fault of the Museum itself.

Colin Churcher's last note on the subject is from 2002:
"2002, July - rails are removed from the South Freight Shed Lead between the Alta Vista Freight Terminal and the switch leading to the Canada Science and Technology Museum. It was part of the Canada Atlantic Railway main line opened in 1882. By this time, the North freight Shed Lead has been removed from the Alcan siding, between Walkley Road and Leeds Avenue, to the Alta Vista Freight Terminal. This was part of the former Ottawa and New York Railway (later New York Central) main line which was opened in 1898."
http://www.railways.incanada.net/can...ttawa.htm#2000

There's nothing further on his page about further rail lifting along the South Freight Shed Lead and, as above, the rail that was left went as far as the Museum, presumably for the Museum's benefit.

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

From the City's 2008 aerial photos:



This shows that the old rail corridor has been sold off in chunks. (The black lines are property boundaries.) I think the objects I point to near the bottom right are stored rail cars, so the track might still run that far. This is, however, a 2008 photo so things could have changed since then.

There's something not quite right about these property boundaries... look at the parcel in which you've written "gone forever": it has no road access by itself, so it would have to have been acquired by an adjacent landowner, and that also would have required that the larger parcel be subdivided. The other possibility is that the parcels were always this way; railways are not always unbroken tracts of land and this particular one was once two side-by-side railway corridors as well.

The only real answer is to go out there and take a look (and Google Streetview doesn't help).

[waterloowarrior]

Are you sure Richard, when I look at EMAPS it looks like the tracks are still there located on the outside of the white dots (fence for the snow dump?)

[almostfamous]

check out BING maps...in birds eye view... you can see all the work they have been doing. looks like the rails are gone for good.

[waterloowarrior]

MPs envision Science and Technology Museum beside aviation museum, NRC
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Fo...376/story.html

BY TOM SPEARS, THE OTTAWA CITIZENDECEMBER 3, 2009 11:02 PM


OTTAWA — Two Ottawa MPs, a Liberal and a Conservative, say they’re ready to support a new building and site for the Canada Science and Technology Museum.

Both Royal Galipeau and Mauril Bélanger want it next to the Canada Aviation Museum and National Research Council, making a science and technology “campus.”

But Galipeau, the Tory for Ottawa-Orléans, says that in a post-stimulus, post-recession era of overspent budgets, the museum should not expect a quick move.

The Mulroney government used NRC land for the CSIS building at Blair and Ogilvie Roads, he said. It would be appropriate to give back land to the NRC by taking some from the former CFB Rockcliffe.

“In that campus, as far as I’m concerned, should also be the Museum of Science and Technology,” Galipeau said.

The museum has been looking for a new site for years. It’s in a former bakery now, and can’t show off 98 per cent of its collection.

On Wednesday, museum CEO Denise Amyot said the current building looks like a dollar store. She plans to let a private developer have its front lawn on St. Laurent Boulevard in exchange for constructing a new museum storage building.

“I’d love to be the advocate for that cause” (of moving to a new site), Galipeau said Thursday. “I would not want it to be politicized, and for that purpose I would probably like to form a consensus with parliamentarians of all parties.

“The idea of a national science campus, involving a museum of science and technology, is full of sense.”

The inter-party work likely begins, he said, with Mauril Bélanger. He said he might approach local NDP and Bloc Québécois MPs, as well.

Galipeau said stimulus money couldn’t have been used for the museum because it wasn’t ready for construction. “So I didn’t go to bat at that particular time.”

Now, he argues, governments have to get their spending back under control. “So is it going to happen while I’m an MP or after I’m an MP? I don’t know.”

Bélanger, the Liberal MP from Ottawa-Vanier, said he has already suggested to Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the new museum should open in 2017, Canada’s 150th anniversary. (On Wednesday, Amyot also called for a new building by 2017.) To open by 2017, Bélanger said, “you got to start thinking about it now.”

“Countries, when they celebrate their centennial or 150th, accompany that with an envelope of money … What size of envelope, that remains to be seen. But if indeed there was political will to use such projects to celebrate Canada’s 150th, I certainly would support that.

“The concept that Mr. Galipeau and I have talked about, and I think we see pretty well eye to eye, is that there’s an opportunity with the Rockcliffe air base being declared surplus, to create what I call la cité scientifique, the science campus.”

The site would be in his riding, on the border of Ottawa-Orléans.

He’s less happy about letting the current site’s “front yard” be turned over to private development as a partnership to provide storage for the present museum, “especially if down the road you’re going to be moving anyhow.”

Galipeau said he hasn’t raised the matter in caucus. “I guess they’ll find out my views by reading your newspaper.”

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

[RTWAP]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

I do like the idea of clustering most or all of the national museums in one area from Jacques Cartier Park down to Tunney's Pasture - making a mini-Smithsonian of sorts and the ability to visit multiple museums in one day possible...

Me too, although having a few clustered locations is fine too. I don't think city transit is likely to be a viable option unless they can really get the locations closely clustered. Maybe an hourly shuttle-bus service between museums would work.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by almostfamous

check out BING maps...in birds eye view... you can see all the work they have been doing. looks like the rails are gone for good.

They're still there in the BING bird's eye view; you can clearly see that the track defines the edge of the snow pile that occupies much of the rest of the right of way. A short length of the track is covered with snow that is being moved around to melt it.

Based on other projects around the city (and the huge amount of snow still around), these pictures are from the spring of 2008, not 2009.

So we still don't know.

[Ottawan]

The right location for the Science and Tech Museum is in downtown Ottawa or Gatineau, on Confederation Boulevard, not out near the Aviation Museum. Otherwise, it may as well just build a better, more impressive building where it is.

[rakerman]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

MPs envision Science and Technology Museum beside aviation museum, NRC
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Fo...376/story.html

“The concept that Mr. Galipeau and I have talked about, and I think we see pretty well eye to eye, is that there’s an opportunity with the Rockcliffe air base being declared surplus, to create what I call la cité scientifique, the science campus.”

The site would be in his riding, on the border of Ottawa-Orléans.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Translated from politician speak: "The concept that Mr. Galipeau and I have talked about is getting a pile of money for a giant building on the border of our ridings, because cutting ribbons in front of giant buildings looks good in the flyers we send to our constituents."

Last time I checked there was some science about cities that said we should stop sticking things out in the suburbs because otherwise, you know, our climate would destabilise. Even IF we have trams ("LRT") to Blair and you put it right next to Blair Station you wouldn't get that many tourists trekking out from downtown. You put it in the yet-to-exist green community of Rockcliffe and people are what, going to take the #12? Or are we going to imagine rapid transit will serve Rockcliffe too? Or do you expect people to take the #190 from Blair? How about you put museums near the hotels and transit services that visitors will actually use downtown?

Plus which, "science campus"? The only time you see people on the NRC "campus" is when they walk from their cars in the "free" parking lots to their buildings. This whole "campus" idea is some 1960s fantasy that if you stick a bunch of buildings containing people who do vaguely-related things together in the woods far away from downtown, it will somehow magically turn into a university. It doesn't work.

[rakerman]

Originally Posted by Ottawan

The right location for the Science and Tech Museum is in downtown Ottawa or Gatineau, on Confederation Boulevard, not out near the Aviation Museum. Otherwise, it may as well just build a better, more impressive building where it is.

I agree.

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

Are you sure Richard, when I look at EMAPS it looks like the tracks are still there located on the outside of the white dots (fence for the snow dump?)

I stand corrected. There does appear to be a spur into the Museum remaining. I had walked across the bridge over Innes and through the trucking lot (where there are definitely no tracks), but I guess I wasn't as far south as I thought. The 'white dots' are probably concrete blocks since those are used in other spots around there.

[lrt's friend]

Took a look today. There are two sets of tracks. One goes through a gate. I could not tell if it continued beyond there but presumably it does. The second set headed over to a building to the east of the museum. There were rail cars on the tracks including a vintage one belonging to the Bytown Railway Society.

[acottawa]

A new science museum would be nice, but the project has been "just around the corner" for decades (I think the NAC sits on a site expropriated for the purpose of a new science museum). Unless some billionaire steps up offering major funding, I doubt it is going to happen anytime soon. It lacks the prestige of an art gallery or history museum and the national support of a war museum. Since almost every major city in Canada has a science museum, it primarily caters to locals and schoolchildren. And for some reason, the cost estimates are (ironically) astronomical.

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Frankly, I find it appalling that the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto is better than what's supposed to be a National Institution.

[RTWAP]

They should just call it Canada Exploratorium Canada, and put it somewhere central. And do everything they can to copy the San Francisco Exploratorium. They focus on great exhibits, and on outreach for science teachers and a significant web presence.

[rakerman]

Hull/Gatineau speculation continues

"The plan to redevelop downtown Hull during the next 15 to 20 years includes a cultural district on Montcalm Street with a municipal art gallery and central public library, new shops and possibly a Museum of Science and Technology on Laurier Street."

Ottawa Citizen - Dreaming big in Gatineau - January 30, 2010

[reidjr]

Am i understanding this right they could start in 2010 or 2011.

[Kitchissippi]

for the boardwalk on Jacques-Cartier, not on any of the stuff in the downtown waterfront