I really love looking at old photos of Ottawa, and was especially excited to find this great shot when I was looking for pictures of Somerset House. Our current courthouse is located on at 161 Elgin Street, so most of us are probably quite familiar with the Elgin / Laurier intersection. But behold!
This picture, from around 1948, shows Elgin Street looking north, back when it was considered to be a ceremonial boulevard leading up to the war memorial. The area that looks like a big black circle towards the bottom of the picture? That’s Laurier and Elgin, and *that’s* a traffic circle! The northwest corner is the Lord Elgin hotel, and the southwest is the First Baptist Church, both of which still stand today. The other side of the street is a different story altogether – those buildings in the northeast corner of the intersection were torn down to make way for Confederation Park, and of course we’re now sitting in the courthouse in the southeast corner.