[sights] A walking tour of 80th Avenue
This week I have another panel presentation, this time about the Particulate Matter and Ozone Management Framework, so I have writing to do today (and updating is a kind of warm-up). But it is a warm Sunday afternoon and I could not let the day pass without going outside to enjoy some of it.
Keeping with Walt Disney's idea of an 'education enriched environment', I like to tell stories about my neighborhood.
I live across the street from Tipton Park and Arena at 80th Avenue and 109th street. John G. Tipton was the grandson of Joseph Tipton, a North Carolinian who fought in the American Revolutionary War. John G. grew up in Fulton County, Illinois and became a lawyer before moving to Alberta in 1894. He was elected to the council of the City of Strathcona and supported amalgamation with Edmonton across the river in 1912.
Tipton Park was the longest lasting of the playgrounds built by the Gyro service club and the last in Edmonton to fall to the uber-safety rules that have outlawed merry-go-rounds, straight slides, and anything with a 'draw-string catchment'. This is an artist's rendition of what the playground used to look like from a mural on the backside of Tipton Arena.
(Donna-lee has indefinitely loaned me her toy camera which I've been using recently for my blog illustrations. The viewfinder is off-set to the left from the shutter and I haven't quite perfected the correction for it.)
The slides in the painting were removed in 2001. They were amazing things; three stories high - just climbing up the ladder was a thrill let alone sliding down it. Expatriate Edmontonians would bring friends to Tipton Park from as far away as Tennessee just to prove that the slides existed. Long-time Queen Alexandra (the name of my neighborhood) residents fought the changes to Tipton Park and the compromise was reached: the slides were removed, the three-story swings would be lowered to 2-stories, and the merry-go-round would be anchored. So, now we have a big L-shaped sandbox where the slides once stood, and a very uncomfortable round bench.
Walking east from Tipton Park on 80th Avenue, at 107th Street is the Parkside Apartments. The site of what has been called "the most horrifying act of vandalism" blamed on the Whyte Avenue bar crowds: the horse. This cement horse had its front legs broken leaving black hoofs suspended at the end of its rebar leg-bones.
I guess the folks at the Parkside missed the 2001 Canada Day riot.
Next on our tour of 80th Avenue is a house once owned by John J. Mellon Jr. (JJ) who became a prominant Edmonton businessman and landowner, but is most interesting to me for having participated in the 1885 Riel Rebellion.
I was trying to think of an historical parallel for Louis Riel in American history. Riel was a 19th century Metis leader who led the provisional government which eventually created the province of Manitoba. Recognizing that white expansion into the West threatened the Metis/First Nation's way of life, Riel led a failed rebellion in 1885 and was executed for treason in November of that year. In Western Canada, Riel is considered a hero, but during a visit to Province House in Prince Edward Island where Confederation was negotiated, I saw an audio-visual presentation describing him as "the villain Riel". Startling.
My last stop on this tour is Rosie's Restaurant at 105th Street and 80th Avenue. In 1995, a suitcase washed up on the shore of Edmonton's North Saskatchewan river containing a woman's torso. It was eventually determined to be part of Jo-Ann Dickson who had been picked up in the bar of the Convention Inn South (now the Delta) Commercial Hotel by Donald Smart in July of that year.
"He strangled her at his apartment when she refused to have sex with him. He had sex with the corpse, cut it up and disposed of the parts - dumping her head down a pipe and stuffing her torso into a suitcase. Smart, a Star Trek fanatic who once won a prize for best Klingon costume, was handed a life sentence for second-degree murder with no eligibility for 20 years." http://www.skicanadamag.com/CNEWSFeatures9910/11_diving.html
Donald Smart worked as a dishwasher at this restaurant.
Keeping with Walt Disney's idea of an 'education enriched environment', I like to tell stories about my neighborhood.
I live across the street from Tipton Park and Arena at 80th Avenue and 109th street. John G. Tipton was the grandson of Joseph Tipton, a North Carolinian who fought in the American Revolutionary War. John G. grew up in Fulton County, Illinois and became a lawyer before moving to Alberta in 1894. He was elected to the council of the City of Strathcona and supported amalgamation with Edmonton across the river in 1912.
Tipton Park was the longest lasting of the playgrounds built by the Gyro service club and the last in Edmonton to fall to the uber-safety rules that have outlawed merry-go-rounds, straight slides, and anything with a 'draw-string catchment'. This is an artist's rendition of what the playground used to look like from a mural on the backside of Tipton Arena.
(Donna-lee has indefinitely loaned me her toy camera which I've been using recently for my blog illustrations. The viewfinder is off-set to the left from the shutter and I haven't quite perfected the correction for it.)
The slides in the painting were removed in 2001. They were amazing things; three stories high - just climbing up the ladder was a thrill let alone sliding down it. Expatriate Edmontonians would bring friends to Tipton Park from as far away as Tennessee just to prove that the slides existed. Long-time Queen Alexandra (the name of my neighborhood) residents fought the changes to Tipton Park and the compromise was reached: the slides were removed, the three-story swings would be lowered to 2-stories, and the merry-go-round would be anchored. So, now we have a big L-shaped sandbox where the slides once stood, and a very uncomfortable round bench.
Walking east from Tipton Park on 80th Avenue, at 107th Street is the Parkside Apartments. The site of what has been called "the most horrifying act of vandalism" blamed on the Whyte Avenue bar crowds: the horse. This cement horse had its front legs broken leaving black hoofs suspended at the end of its rebar leg-bones.
I guess the folks at the Parkside missed the 2001 Canada Day riot.
Next on our tour of 80th Avenue is a house once owned by John J. Mellon Jr. (JJ) who became a prominant Edmonton businessman and landowner, but is most interesting to me for having participated in the 1885 Riel Rebellion.
I was trying to think of an historical parallel for Louis Riel in American history. Riel was a 19th century Metis leader who led the provisional government which eventually created the province of Manitoba. Recognizing that white expansion into the West threatened the Metis/First Nation's way of life, Riel led a failed rebellion in 1885 and was executed for treason in November of that year. In Western Canada, Riel is considered a hero, but during a visit to Province House in Prince Edward Island where Confederation was negotiated, I saw an audio-visual presentation describing him as "the villain Riel". Startling.
My last stop on this tour is Rosie's Restaurant at 105th Street and 80th Avenue. In 1995, a suitcase washed up on the shore of Edmonton's North Saskatchewan river containing a woman's torso. It was eventually determined to be part of Jo-Ann Dickson who had been picked up in the bar of the Convention Inn South (now the Delta) Commercial Hotel by Donald Smart in July of that year.
"He strangled her at his apartment when she refused to have sex with him. He had sex with the corpse, cut it up and disposed of the parts - dumping her head down a pipe and stuffing her torso into a suitcase. Smart, a Star Trek fanatic who once won a prize for best Klingon costume, was handed a life sentence for second-degree murder with no eligibility for 20 years." http://www.skicanadamag.com/CNEWSFeatures9910/11_diving.html
Donald Smart worked as a dishwasher at this restaurant.