Origins of Ottawa General Hospital

In June 1847, a typhus epidemic broke out in Ottawa’s Lowertown very soon after the Sisters of Charity constructed the building that would eventually become Ottawa’s first General Hospital (being little more than a wooden house on St. Patrick Street at the time). The disease was thought to have been brought over with the thousands of Irish immigrants fleeing the Potato Famine. By the following May, 167 of the 619 people afflicted had died. The overflow of patients was quarantined on the west side of the Rideau Canal in wooden sheds, under boats, and in tents. Unfortunately, with all the fear of infection from typhus and smallpox, the last thing any of the residents of Sandy Hill wanted in their neighbourhood was a hospital of any kind, and as late as 1879, a couple of them were even burned down by locals. After the typhus epidemic had subsided, the Sisters purchased six lots at what is now Sussex Drive and Bruyère Street (previously Water Street) to build a new General Hospital, which was finally opened to patients in 1866.

Fifth Avenue Court, Convent Sun Dials, Pubs

At the corner of Sussex Drive and Bruyère Street, on the Mother House of the Grey Nuns of the Cross (the current Elizabeth Bruyère Health Centre), check out the sundials just overhead. Erected in 1851 (at just about the second-storey line at the corner), the vertical sundials were designed by Père Allard, geometry teacher to the nuns.

A Hidden Retreat

Even though it earned an award for excellence for the developers who created it in 1980, the Fifth Avenue Court at Bank Street and Fifth Avenue is almost completely empty most of the time. It’s a quiet place with indoor patios for the businesses that surround the fountain and courtyard, including the British-style pub, the Arrow & the Loon. They’ve been known to host the National Arts Centre Orchestra in their courtyard from time to time.