The Rideau Neighborhood
The Rideau neighborhood in Ottawa is probably the busiest, the most dodgy (by Canadian standards!), the most polluted and the most central neighborhood in Ottawa.
Located downtown nearby the Byward Market, Parliament Hill and the University of Ottawa, it’s basically a three-levels indoor shopping mall stuck between Mackenzie King’s Bridge and Rideau Street. It’s above all a hub: when you go downtown, you go to Rideau. Since the city is basically based on an East — West line, pretty much all buses transit there, either on the bridge, either on Rideau street.
The Department of National Defense, a huge 1960s building, is located right beside. It’s very common to see employees, dressed in military camouflage clothes or navy blue to hang around, going for lunch or on their way home.
Rideau is also home to a lot of panhandlers and homeless people: the Mission and the Salvation Army are located nearby. By night, it’s not so safe with a bit of drug dealing and prostitution (although it’s a bit cold for the latter, it seems).
The shopping center is a major hub, especially during the winter since it’s indoor and has a footbridge to The Bay, a big department store located across.
 From MacKenzie’s King Bridge |
 The Rideau Canada From The Bridge |
 National Defense Building |
 Crossing The Street… |
 Caution: Traffic |
 Huge Buses Queue |
 Towards Rideau Street |
 Rideau Street |
 Work In Progress |
 School Bus On Rideau |
Related posts:
- Warm Weather Makes Headlines
- Rideau Hall
- 1, Sussex Drive
- Skating On The Rideau Canal
- The Peace Tower
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Wow, if I took a picture of a questionable neighborhood in Paris, you’d see all the trash and nastiness, but this actually looks really nice. I guess you have to be there to feel the ‘danger’.
Rideau isn’t that bad. You obviously haven’t been heading out to parts of Vanier and Mechanicsville.
.-= richard´s last blog ..Manifesto of Aphorisms =-.
I used to go to high school right downtown, and catch the bus on the bridge behind the Rideau Centre next to the Department of National Defence building. I remember that during Desert Storm (the war in Kuwait) they decided to put a few concrete barriers around the front entrance, because until that point it would have been possible to drive a vehicle straight into the lobby. We high school students used to use the DND building as a bridge from the Laurier St. bridge to the other other side — there was public access, you could just walk through the building from one side to the other. That was our regular route, throughout grade nine and ten. I remember being VERY annoyed with Saddam Hussein when the DND eventually closed everyone’s access to the building. Ok ok, I could see the graffiti with “Blood is thicker than oil!” and get it, but geez! They weren’t the ones who had to climb down and then up those damn spiral stairs to get across the canal and then back up again to get to the bus stop. With a French horn.
I think my interest in politics may have stemmed from that moment.…
So funny! I had no idea you could go through before. So I’ll blame Saddam the next time I have to go down and up the stairs