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Coordinates: 45°25′14.1″N, 75°42′9.5″W

Sparks Street at Bank Street

Sparks Street is a street in downtown Ottawa, Canada that was converted into an outdoor pedestrian street in 1966, making it the earliest such street or mall in Canada.

Sparks runs from Elgin Street in the east to Bronson Avenue. The Sparks Street Mall, that contains a number of outdoor restaurants and also a number of works of art and fountains, only runs from Elgin to Bank Street. The pedestrian only portion continues for another two blocks westward, with the final two blocks west of Lyon Street being a regular road.

The mall and most of its buildings are owned and operated by the National Capital Commission.

Sparks Street in 1909.

The Centre Cinema, the Murphy-Gamble department store, and the offices of the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, on Sparks Street in 1940.

Located one block south of Wellington Street (the home of the Canadian Parliament), Sparks Street is one of Ottawa's more historic streets with a number of heritage buildings. The street is named after Nicholas Sparks, the farmer who, early in the mid-nineteenth century, cut a path through the woods on his holding that would eventually become the street.

When Ottawa was selected as Canada's capital the area became even more important as the street became home to a number of government offices and homes for parliamentarians. One of these was Thomas D'Arcy McGee who, in 1868, was assassinated outside his home at the corner of Sparks and Metcalfe. The street also became Ottawa's commercial hub and was home to a number of the city's banks and the lumber companies of the Ottawa Valley. It once contained the Murphy-Gamble (later Simpson's), Morgan's, C.Ross, and Bryson-Graham's department stores.

The peak of the street was in the early twentieth-century when a number of Beaux-Arts buildings that still stand were erected. As the city expanded the downtown became less centralized and commerce spread to neighbouring streets. Government ministries, requiring larger offices, also went elsewhere. In 1959 the street's streetcar line was closed, further hurting business.

In 1961 a plan to temporarily transform the street into a pedestrian mall for the summer was introduced in an attempt to revive its fortunes. The success of these closings convinced the city to close the street permanently to vehicles. This effort has only been partly successful. Sparks street is far less central to the commerce of the city than Rideau Street or Bank Street. The lack of nearby parking reduces the amount of business and it is most frequented by the denizens of the many nearby office towers. On evenings and weekends it is thus quite empty. In part to rectify this, an attempt is being made to bring more residents to the region with the creation of nearby hotels and condominiums.

Sparks Street is home to the Sparks Street International Chicken & Rib Cook-off every year in late June.

Each year, around the August civic holiday, Sparks street plays host to the Ottawa International Buskers Festival, where buskers from around the world come to showcase their art to tourists and locals in downtown Ottawa.[1]

Sparks contains some of Ottawa's most important structures. Just past the eastern end of Sparks at Elgin Street is the National War Memorial and across Elgin from Sparks is the National Arts Centre.

The eastern section of the street sees a number of the oldest buildings, including Ottawa's post office from 1937; the Ottawa Electric Building, home of the company that ran Ottawa's streetcars, built in 1926; Ottawa's first high-rise, built in 1910; and branches of a number of Canada's banks from the same era.

A pair of notable newer buildings are also on this section of the mall. The first is the new Ottawa Broadcast Centre of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The second, at the corner of Metcalfe and Sparks, is the large Thomas D'Arcy McGee Building, one of Ottawa's more visually arresting high-rises as it is shaped somewhat like a squat "7".

West of Bank Street, outside of the mall itself, the street is overshadowed by the C.D. Howe Building, the home of Industry Canada on the south and the headquarters of the Bank of Canada to the north. West of the bank is the home of the Department of Justice in the St. Andrew's Towers and the East Memorial Building with other government departments in the West Memorial Building. West of these buildings the street becomes far less notable being home to several hotels and smaller buildings. The final block of the rather short street has the Garden of the Provinces to the north and Christ Church Cathedral, Ottawa's main Anglican church, to the south.

West of Metcalfe Street was the location of the clinic in which the first successful procedure to reverse achondroplasia was performed. The spot is now home to a clothing boutique that preferentially caters to men of tall and heavyset profiles.

See Downtown Ottawa for a map of the entire area.

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Sparks Street

• Official site of the Sparks Street Mall
• Site critical of the National Capital Commission and its management of the Sparks Street Mall