By Michel Rossignol
For more than a century, Kiweki Point (formerly known as Nepean Point) has been a popular park with a great view of the Ottawa River and the Alexandra Bridge. The park has been closed for many months but, in the summer of 2024, visitors will see a brand-new version when the National Capital Commission (NCC) completes its major redevelopment of the park. The Astrolabe Theatre, constructed in 1967, has been demolished and one of the new features of the park, a pedestrian bridge to Major’s Hill Park, was installed in September 2023.
This redevelopment is the latest step in the transformation of Kiweki Point over the last century. In the 1930s and 1940s, the area around the park was a small neighbourhood similar to many other Lowertown neighbourhoods of that period. There was a row of homes, an apartment building, an industrial building, and a park. In my article about Lady Grey Drive in the June-August 2023 edition of the Echo, I noted that there were a few homes on the driveway near the park. These homes were between the small apartment building at the northwest corner of St. Patrick Street and Sussex Drive and the hill where the road went down to the shores of the Ottawa River.
In the 1920s, it was not surprising to find homes on the driveway because there were also a few homes on the west side of Sussex between Kiweki Point and Water (Bruyere) Street. The industrial building near the park was the Government Printing Bureau on the northwest corner of St. Patrick and Lady Grey. This was a big building with five floors where most of the federal government’s documents were printed. The building dominated this area until the 1950s when it was demolished after the construction of a new Government Printing Bureau in what is today the Hull sector of Gatineau. The demolition of the homes on Lady Grey and other changes in the 1950s provided easier access to the park.
Another major step in the transformation of Kiweki Point was the construction, between 1983 and 1988, of the National Gallery of Canada at the corner of Sussex and St Patrick. This removed the last traces of the old neighbourhood and brought more visitors to the area. The old neighbourhood around Kiweki Point, like a few others, disappeared without leaving a trace, but its place in Lowertown’s history should not be forgotten.
