© 2023, Christian Cassidy
Top: "Odeon park" in 2022, (Google Street View)
Bottom: Traffic realignment plan (City of Winnipeg)
It was in the news recently that the city plans to realign traffic on Smith Street near Notre Dame to provide additional public space beside the Walker / Burton Cummings Theatre.
Currently, there is a little triangular traffic island in the middle of the intersection, referred to as Odeon Park in one news story, and the redevelopment will incorporate it into the sidewalk space on the west side of the street.
How did this little island come to be? It turns out that it was part of a traffic rerouting scheme that was first discussed at city hall in the 1890s but took forty years to build.
Bottom: McPhillips' 1910 Map of Winnipeg (Manitoba Historical Maps)
Grace Methodist Church (later known as Grace United Church) was constructed at the intersection of Notre Dame Avenue and Ellice Avenue in 1883. It created a triangular lot bounded by Ellice, Notre Dame and Smith, and meant that streets such as King and Arthur ended abruptly at Notre Dame.
The section of McPhillips' 1910 map above shows the Grace Church lot shaded in green and I added a yellow star at the intersection of King Street and Notre Dame. In the postcard image, I marked the awkwardly angled Grace Church with a red star.
It is unclear why the church was allowed to build a structure that interrupted the downtown street grid pattern that connected the Portage Avenue portion of downtown with the city hall / public market area and it soon became a headache for merchants and city officials.
To make the extension, the city required about 500 square feet of land at the rear of the Grace Church property. This would allow it to put a fork in the road where Smith Street met Notre Dame Avenue and give travellers the option to follow Notre Dame and go west out of the downtown or follow King and head north towards city hall and market.
The plan would not interfere with the church building but would require the demolition of a couple of older houses, one used by the church caretaker, and a wood-construction Sunday school building.
The need for the extension had been bandied about for years and one of the earliest newspaper mentions can be found in the reporting of the May 1891 board of works meeting.
The city made overtures to the church's board of trustees about needing some of its land. A delegation from the church, which included the likes of James Ashdown, and R. T. Riley, appeared at the meeting to say that they wanted nothing to do with it. Ashdown said a "great injustice would be done to the church" if the land was taken and questioned those who had petitioned the city about opening King Street and whether it would even ease traffic congestion.
The matter was dropped.
June 9, 1893, Winnipeg Free Press
After another petition arrived at city hall asking for the extension, the matter was put on the agenda of the January 1893 board of works meeting and was added to that
year's list of local improvements to be funded. The city again approached the church with its plans but at its June meeting the church's board of trustees voted
down the request "opposing at all interfering with the
property".
The city had the power to
expropriate the land but wasn't about to mess with the powerful Grace
Church. Many of the city's top citizens were members and it was
considered the "mother church" of Methodism in Western Canada. It was
also where Wesley College started out before it moved to Portage
Avenue and eventually became the University of Winnipeg.
The 1893 rebuff put the matter on hold, though every few years a new petition would arrive at city hall asking for the extension. Most often, the item was tabled for future discussion and never spoken about again.
At the May 1915 board of works meeting, architect John D. Atcheson,
who did work for the Town Planning Association, presented a detailed
plan of how to create the fork in Smith Street using as little of the
church property as possible. This and a number of other improvements
near the intersection, such as widening the intersection where Smith,
Notre Dame, and Princess met, were tabled.
There was a glimmer of hope for proponents of the extension in 1920 when Grace Church offered to sell the city the entire property for $200,000, (it was assessed by the city at twice that value). It was determined that the price, nearly $3 million in today's money, was simply too expensive.
January 27, 1934, Winnipeg Free Press
Over time, the city would gain the upper hand in the negotiations as it turns out that the church was heavily in debt.
Around the same time it offered the church for sale to the city in 1920, the church's board of trustees was also trying to sell it to other parties with the hopes of paying off its huge mortgage and building a new, smaller church. Various sale attempts fell through.
Rev. C. McIrvine did a western Canadian tour in 1921 to remind the now well-established Methodist church congregations in the region that it was Grace Church, the mother church, that helped them get started and it was now time to pay back. He raised $250,000 towards the church's debt which helped pay the bills for a time but in 1926 - 27 the church stopped paying taxes to the city.
The land at the rear of the church had fallen into "tax sale" status in 1932, meaning that the city could seize it or that it would forfeit to the city if the outstanding bill wasn't paid within a year. Instead of allowing it to fall into their hands for nothing, the city negotiated with the church for the land and took the market value off their outstanding tax bill.
The church had little choice but to let the city have the land.
November 2, 1935, Winnipeg Tribune (L. Gibbons)
By this time, all that was left on the back property was a little wooden house across from the entrance to the Walker Theatre. It came with the property when the church bought it and was the sexton's (church caretaker's) residence.
Lillian Gibbons, in her "Stories Houses Tell" column, wrote about the house not long before it was torn down. She noted how out of place it looked with all of the modern stone and brick buildings that had risen around it. It was the residence of Mr. and Mrs. James Duffill, the church caretakers at the time.
New traffic island (marked by red star) circa 1936
Manitoba Archives, McAdam Peter Collection (buflyer on Flickr)
So much time, debate and newspaper space had been devoted to the King Street extension over the decades that its approval was anticlimactic.
At its August 24, 1936 meeting, city council voted in favour of spending $3,300 to complete the extension that would "leave a small island at the corner of Notre Dame
and Smith." There was no debate on the motion and the work was added to a laundry list of other street improvement projects that were carried out sometime later that year.
Coincidentally, that same year the city also ended up owning the Walker Theatre after Corliss Walker, also in deep debt and tax arrears, walked away from his once treasured venue.
June 27, 1970, Winnipeg Tribune
Once completed, there was discussion as to what to put on the island. A statue of Robbie Burns had recently been donated to the city by the local chapter of the Robbie Burns Society. Some at the city felt this would be the perfect place for it if the society agreed. In the end, the group found a location on the Legislature grounds instead.
In 1970, the park became the temporary home to a Sherman tank that had been donated to the Fort Garry Horse Artillery by the
consulate of the Netherlands as a token of thanks for their role in
liberating the country.
When the unit was disbanded in 1970, they donated it to the city.
Gravel was laid on the island and the tank was placed there so that it could be seen by the troops on their final march. When the march was done, the city didn't know what else to do with it and the tank sat for a few weeks.
Councillor Joe Zuken was angry at the site noting that a machine of war was inappropriate for a park
space. It turns out he wasn't the only one who felt that. A Free Press
story noted
that the tank had been spray painted with "peace signs and
obscenities" and at one point someone stuck a "bang" flag out the end of the gun turret. Metro councillor Jack Willis agreed that the tank
had to go but quipped that the space wasn't really a park: "its a big
wastepaper basket."
The tank, it seems, eventually ended up at the McGregor Armoury on McGregor Street.
After the tank fiasco, the next time the island made news appears to have been in 1992 when the city redeveloped the "park with no name" as part of an image route enhancement street improvement project. It spent around $100,000 to make it "an oasis of trees and park benches".
November 12, 1954, Winnipeg Tribune
As for the remainder of the church property, in November 1946 the Winnipeg Presbytery of the United Church of Canada
approved the sale of Grace Church. It was a contentious
matter for the congregation as it had recently raised another $300,000 and
cleared most of its debts. The building, though, was in poor condition and would require a great deal more money from it shrinking congregation to renovate it.
The church hoped for a quick sale as the federal government was
looking for a large site in the downtown for a new general post office block and felt its site would be a prime candidate. The feds passed on the land and the building was eventually sold to the Canadian and General Development Corporation of New York for $250,000.
The new owners announced in 1954 that it wanted to construct a 10-storey, $4 million "merchandise mart" on the site. Merchandise marts had been set up in several large U.S. cities, but this would be Canada's first. It was a place where manufacturers and wholesalers could set up their wares for display, demonstration and sale to retailers and other commercial clients, which saved them having to travel to many different cities on buying missions.
For whatever reason, the deal fell through and the building was soon up for sale again.
January 27, 1956, Winnipeg Free Press
The church was sold to David Salter Co. Ltd., a local real estate firm
on December 1, 1955. Slater said he intended to demolish the long-vacant church building and turn the site into a surface parking lot until he could find a better use for it.
Demolition took place in January and February 1956. In late January, a large section of wall collapsed onto Notre Dame Avenue. No workers or passers-by were injured. It took a full week to clear away the rubble and get traffic started again.
Slater never did find a better use for the land beyond a surface parking lot. At the time, there was a short-term "parking crisis" in the downtowns of most North American cities as people began moving to the suburbs en masse and driving their cars back into the city centre for work.
It is unclear how many times the lot has changed hands since Slater first bought it but nearly 70 years later it remains a surface parking lot.
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