Home » Snapshots

The Rideau Neighborhood

3 October 2009By Zhu 12 Comments

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

From MacKenzie's King Bridge

The Rideau Canada From The Bridge

The Rideau Canada From The Bridge

National Defense Building

National Defense Building

Crossing The Street...

Crossing The Street...

Caution: Traffic

Caution: Traffic

Huge Buses Queue

Huge Buses Queue

Towards Rideau Street

Towards Rideau Street

Rideau Street

Rideau Street

Work In Progress

Work In Progress

School Bus On Rideau

School Bus On Rideau

Related Posts

  1. The Peace Tower
  2. Ottawa At Dusk
  3. Warm Weather Makes Headlines
  4. A Walk In Ottawa
  5. 1, Sussex Drive
Filed under: Snapshots
Tagged:

12 Comments »

  • richard said:

    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

  • Angela said:

    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’.

  • Sidney said:

    It looks clean and well organized… I would not have suspected drug dealing and prostitution here…
    Sidney´s last blog ..

Trackbacks on that article

Just say it!

Add your comment below, or trackback from your own site. You can also subscribe to these comments via RSS.

I love hearing from you - your comments matter!

You can use these tags:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

This is a Gravatar-enabled weblog. To get your own globally-recognized-avatar, please register at Gravatar.