Eccles Street has a lot of diversity for its size. Spanning just over half a kilometre between Preston Street and Bell Street, Eccles is lined with many homes, a couple of churches, several office buildings, a south-Asian beauty salon called Bollywood, a vacant building that was formerly a grocery store and a community health centre.
In the heart of Chinatown, just one block south of Somerset Street, it’s a perfect, central location, says Nina De Giovanni, an associate with EMA Architects.
“We just love this big building,” says De Giovanni. “We love being here.”
Her office is located on the second floor of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada building, a historic site where operators used to manually connect phone lines to make phone calls.
The street was named for members of the Eccles family, who moved to Ottawa from Almonte, a small town about 50 km west of the city.
Several buildings, such as the former telephone exchange centre, show Eccles Street’s heritage.
On the corner of LeBreton and Eccles is the Annunciation Orthodox Cathedral – a brown brick building with stained glass windows above antique wooden doors and a cement plaque indicating it was built in 1939.
It was also the first “poured cement” building in Ottawa, notes Father James Griggs.
Around the cathedral, he says, is a sometimes rough neighbourhood where drug activity and prostitution occur.
“There was a brick thrown through our window one evening because we were making too much noise singing,” Griggs says.
But Steffi Retzlaff moved into her Eccles Street home in the summer and says at first felt unsafe in the area but now likes the neighbourhood.
“It turns out the people are really nice,” Retzlaff says.