The Ottawa Chinatown Gateway project aims to construct a Chinese archway over Somerset Street at Cambridge, in the heart of the Asian district, just west of Bronson. See photoshop picture at the top.
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There are already Chinatown archways in many North American cities, including one just opened in Toronto. However, Ottawa's will be the only one with status of a Royal Archway, suitable for an Emperor to pass under. Ottawa is twinned with Beijing, which has supplied the design of the archway and the materials.
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Gathered together this morning to announce the construction and design were politicians (Mayor OBrien, Diane Holmes, Royal Galipeau, John Baird, Yasir Naqvi) all smiling at one another and shaking hands, the Ambassador of China, and others. The Feds and the Prov each gave $125,000 for the project, the City gave no money, but donated a parking space on each side of Somerset St for the bulb outs where the piers will be located (surely the foregone revenue from those meters will be significant...). There will be a ground breaking ceremony in October, when the politicians will gather in pleasant summit once again.
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Larry OBrien was the only speaker to utter a few words in Chinese.
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The microphone did not work well, which served to clearly identify the professional politicians from the ordinary folk: even without a microphone, you could hear the politicians loud and clear through their big smiles. Even louder were our democratic representatives when pounding the ceremonial chinese drum supplied for the event in the low-cielinged downstairs room at the Yangtze.
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Also notable is that the Somerset Chinatown BIA contributed a significant portion of the construction costs, one of only two stimulus projects in Ottawa to use non-government contributory funding.
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