As you turn off of busy Rochester Street to Anderson Street a sudden calm takes over the neighbourhood.
Anderson Street links Preston Street with Booth Street and despite being between three busy streets, it appears surprisingly quiet. Anderson is mostly made up of small red brick houses, except for the odd wooden structure, with lots of trees.
Standing at Rochester Street you can look down both ends of Anderson Street. Towards Preston Street, blue-framed apartments mark the entrance to Anderson Street. Walking down Anderson Street towards Preston the sidewalk suddenly turns into a steep hill. On one side, you pass what appears to be an attempt to re-create Green Gables in Ottawa. On the other, between the smaller more common red brick homes, is a larger home with a wide front yard, almost like a little piece of suburbia in the heart of Centretown.
As you continue down the hill more cars begin to emerge, Mercedes and Mazdas share driveways, buried beneath a recent snowfall. When you reach Preston Street one house remains and across from it, a tired looking glass store.
If you had walked to the right at Rochester Street you would have seen a one-way section of Anderson Street. This deceiving little street section can easily be confused as an alleyway as it lacks signs and even the snowplow forgot about it.
Anderson Street was named after William Anderson, manager of Booth’s Mill. John Rudolphus Booth owned and operated the major lumber company in Ottawa’s early days, including a pulp mill and a paper mill built in the first decade of the 20th century.