One of my favourite children’s stories is Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant, which tells of a Giant who builds a high wall around his beautiful garden so the neighbourhood children can’t play in it.
Ottawa, it turns out, has had its own inaccessible garden — minus the villain — at Snider Park.
For those unfamiliar with it, Snider Park is a beautiful little urban park on Bank Street, between Laurier and Slater. It is cobblestoned and boasts flowers and herbs and fescue, colourful murals, benches, picnic tables, strings of patio lights, a small performance stage, chalkboards and a coffee kiosk. It’s an ideal spot in which to enjoy an al fresco lunch.
But if you’ve walked by it this summer, there’s a good chance you haven’t been able to get inside.
That’s because Snider Park kept what might generously be described as bygone banking hours — from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday to Friday, and 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Saturday.
And on Sundays, forget it. It’s been closed.
That worked out to just under 30 hours a week. The rest of the time — more than 80 per cent of the week — a prominent black metal fence with locked gates stood between the public and this small urban oasis.
Throughout the summer, Snider Park on Bank Street has mostly been closed to the public.
And that problem was what I was going to write about here.
When it launched Snider Park in June, the Centretown BIA, which operates the space, said this on its website: “Cities need places where people can simply exist. Places to meet up with friends. Grab a coffee. Work outside for an hour. Listen to music. Attend a community event. Slow down for a moment between destinations.”
These ‘third spaces,’ the BIA continued, “are essential to healthy, connected communities. They support mental well-being, encourage social connection, create safer and more active streets, and help downtown neighbourhoods feel alive beyond office hours.”
I wasn’t sure how “beyond office hours” jibed with the park’s 10-3 schedule, but the frustrating part was that the BIA was right. Snider Park is exactly the sort of space downtown Ottawa needs.
I visited the park a few times recently, and found numerous people doing precisely what the BIA hoped they would. One office worker, Sabrina Lafontaine, said she liked the space for a very straightforward reason: “There are no other places around here to sit. It’s the only place to enjoy the weather.”
Bingo.
Another, Émilie Marineau, comes to the park two or three times a week, usually at lunchtime.
Marineau also lives in the neighbourhood, and didn’t understand why a park should close in the middle of the afternoon. Why not leave it open until 11 p.m., she wondered, like an actual park?
She has a balcony where she lives, but recognizes that not everyone is so fortunate.
“For a lot of people,” she says, “their terrace is the park.”
Bingo again.
There is an important distinction, however. Snider Park is a park in name, but it isn’t a City of Ottawa park.
The land is owned by Morguard, a real-estate firm that allows the BIA to use it rent-free. The BIA pays for hydro, insurance and upkeep.
Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster told me she has heard repeatedly from people wondering why the gates were so often locked.
“They call it a park and it’s not operating as a park,” she said.
Snider Park, on Bank Street, is the sort of ‘third space’ that Ottawa needs more of.
Admittedly, she noted, the BIA has a different mandate than the city. The city provides public spaces for everybody, whether or not they spend any money. A BIA exists to promote local businesses and economic activity.
But the city did kick in a pretty penny to help set up that park last year as one of the Uncommon sites, so it’s not like the public has nothing invested in it.
Kyle Ratchford, a.k.a. The Booj, of AHH! Coffee, the name of which appears on the park’s branding despite the notable absence this summer of any coffee there, is a proponent of third spaces. He operated a coffee stand last year at the Uncommon Space on Frank Street and Bank. He agreed to do the same this year at Snider Park, but says there were a “mountain of logistical issues,” including electrical and space ones, that made it impossible.
“It was just not ready for an actual business,” he told me recently. “But there’s no reason the park shouldn’t be open, regardless of any logistics of a canteen.”
When I reached out to BIA executive director Sabrina Lemay in early September, I discovered I was a day late.
As of Sept. 3, Snider Park is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week.
In other words, it’s acting more like a park.
Lemay didn’t pretend things have run smoothly this summer. She acknowledged some of the same problems The Booj cited. The coffee canteen wasn’t properly prepared, she said, and there were problems with electricity and air circulation. Additionally, the BIA had hired a team to open the park, but “they weren’t doing it consistently.
“We recognize that this has been an unfortunate situation,” she added. “We are going to ensure this does not happen next year.”
And so the BIA has just entered into an agreement with Operation Come Home, which helps at-risk and homeless young people. OCH is training and providing workers who will open and close the park seven days a week and keep it clean. According to OCH executive director John Heckbert, OCH will pay the workers, with the BIA reimbursing the organization. They already started.
OTTAWA -Snider Park
There are still wrinkles to iron out. Lemay says the BIA hopes to work with The Booj to get AHH! back. And she’s thinking about next year, when she wants to add more greenery and reconsider the black gates.
“I recognize the gate is there for safety purposes,” she said, “but it’s not also the most inviting in terms of keeping it open where it looks like it’s welcoming.”
So despite a wasted summer for Snider Park, I’ll give the BIA some credit. It had a good idea and tried something. Parts of it didn’t work, but rather than insist everything was fine, it acknowledged the problems and changed course.
The park wasn’t the problem. People use it. They eat lunch there. They meet friends there. They do the mostly unremarkable things that make a city a pleasant place to live.
Downtown revitalization isn’t always the big stuff — office conversions, transit, nightlife and such. Sometimes it’s just a table, a chair, some greenery and permission to sit there.
In the Selfish Giant, the Giant eventually realizes that his beautiful garden is better with children in it, so he knocks down the wall.
There was never a Selfish Giant at Snider Park. Just a good idea with growing pains, and a gate that spent far too much time locked.
The garden is a suddenly lot easier to get into. Next year, I hope they knock down the fence.
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