Lowertown

One of the oldest parts of the city, Lowertown (including the Byward Market, Sandy Hill, and the University of Ottawa campus) boasts century-old houses and parks, quiet residential homes, as well as various embassies (France, India, South Africa, Spain), and is the only original part of what is now the City of Ottawa that was originally subdivided for urban development (unlike the Glebe, for example). Lowertown is home to two of the city’s founding linguistic communities, French and English, where they have done business side by side for decades.

The Lowertown neighbourhood originally constituted the geographic divide between the upper class of New Edinburgh to the immediate east and the residents of the lower income Lowertown, which was predominantly settled by the Irish and French, many of whom arrived to do the grunt work that came with building a city. Lowertown was the flip side of the coin to the predominantly Protestant Uppertown (which explains the three large Catholic churches in close proximity), and became the centre for industrial power in 19th-century Bytown (what Ottawa was called prior to 1855). Many of the French Canadians of Lowertown were lumbermen who had been working for timber magnate Philemon Wright across the river in Hull to supply the Rideau Canal with wood and related materials. These workers’ homes, unlike the large stone residences that still exist in New Edinburgh and parts of Lowertown, were made of wood and have long since disappeared. Some of the highlights of Lowertown include various outdoor patios, clubs, and restaurants of the Byward Market; used bookstores and shops along Dalhousie Street; the Rideau Centre (Ottawa’s largest downtown shopping centre), the National Gallery of Canada, and various commercial art galleries.