Think of Circle Road as Summit Circle lite.
Crazily-wealthy Sam Bronfman was one of the original residents of Westmount's mountain-crowning Summit Circle while not-so-crazily wealthy Sam Steinberg was one of the first to settle on Circle Road in NDG in the 30s and 40s.
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Seventy years later the residents of Circle Rd were still imagining themselves to be part of that fine mountaintop tradition, without realizing that they are not actually part of the club they imagine themselves to be in.
The street has long been infected with the Westmount-wannabe virus, and one initiative saw 98 percent of street residents inking a petition in hopes of joining Westmount.
They wanted better snow clearance, lower taxes, a cuter library, more English services and increased home values.
The street is not geographically connected to Westmount.
The proposal would have created an unprecedented, separate island of Westmountness, a sort of Beemer-driving municipal equivalent of cold war West Berlin.
The street, which is otherwise no great shakes, might harbour delusions of exclusivity due to the fact that it's a pain-in-the-butt to access.
If you're in a car at the corner of Victoria and The Boulevard, you cannot even get to Circle without going down to Cote St. Luc, turning right and then going up Ponsard. A lot of driving for what? Who's the designer that made Bonavista a dead end?
Ottawa writer Bill Conrod, who has penned a pair of books about the Snowdon area (Because what is there to do in Ottawa but wish you were in Montreal? -Chimples) - with healthy bits of help from contributors - has asked if anybody out there knows how or why the street was originally laid out as such.
Please toss a bone in the comments below if you know the back-story.
The only flashy bits of history from the street? A home on the street was the first choice for an FLQ kidnapping before the Quebec separatist terrorists opted to go west to take Jame Cross in October 1970. And it was also the site of a 1980 hostage standoff involving a downtown jeweler.
Crazily-wealthy Sam Bronfman was one of the original residents of Westmount's mountain-crowning Summit Circle while not-so-crazily wealthy Sam Steinberg was one of the first to settle on Circle Road in NDG in the 30s and 40s.
The street has long been infected with the Westmount-wannabe virus, and one initiative saw 98 percent of street residents inking a petition in hopes of joining Westmount.
They wanted better snow clearance, lower taxes, a cuter library, more English services and increased home values.
The street is not geographically connected to Westmount.
The proposal would have created an unprecedented, separate island of Westmountness, a sort of Beemer-driving municipal equivalent of cold war West Berlin.
The street, which is otherwise no great shakes, might harbour delusions of exclusivity due to the fact that it's a pain-in-the-butt to access.
If you're in a car at the corner of Victoria and The Boulevard, you cannot even get to Circle without going down to Cote St. Luc, turning right and then going up Ponsard. A lot of driving for what? Who's the designer that made Bonavista a dead end?
Ottawa writer Bill Conrod, who has penned a pair of books about the Snowdon area (Because what is there to do in Ottawa but wish you were in Montreal? -Chimples) - with healthy bits of help from contributors - has asked if anybody out there knows how or why the street was originally laid out as such.
Please toss a bone in the comments below if you know the back-story.
The only flashy bits of history from the street? A home on the street was the first choice for an FLQ kidnapping before the Quebec separatist terrorists opted to go west to take Jame Cross in October 1970. And it was also the site of a 1980 hostage standoff involving a downtown jeweler.