Sparks Street

Sparks Street (French: Rue Sparks) is a historical street in Uptown Ottawa, Ontario that was converted into an outdoor pedestrian street in 1967, 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 and merges into Bronson Avenue going south.

The mall and most of the buildings on the south side are owned and operated by the National Capital Commission. Buildings on the north side of the mall were expropriated by the Government of Canada in 1973 and are currently operated by Public Works and Government Services Canada.

Located one block south of Wellington Street (the home of the Parliament of Canada), 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 in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was home to a number of the city's banks and the lumber companies of the Ottawa Valley, as well as "the best shops, hotels, dining rooms, and theatres.". It once contained the Murphy-Gamble (later Simpson's), Morgan's, C.Ross, and Bryson-Graham's department stores.

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