Monday, December 08, 2008

Evergreen Starts Brick Works Renovation


Yilin Zhao, a local schoolgirl praises Evergreen's initiative. Other speakers included Jim Flaherty (Feds), Aileen Carroll (Province), Mayor David Miller, and Geoff Cape

I attended Evergreen's official ground breaking ceremony this morning at the Brick Works. It was chilly and snowy but I still rode my bike. There were about 200 people in attendance but I saw only one other bicycle in the racks (hmmph!). It was nearly 2 years ago when Flaherty and co were last here to announce $20 million in funding for this project. Props to the feds for coming through on a project in the Don (the first of many?).

There was a lengthy series of speeches. Apart from bad Ottawa jokes they mostly thanked everyone under the sun who had anything to do with the project. The one bright spot was a group of schoolchildren recruited for the photo-op. One of them stood at the podium and made quite a good speech about why the environment is important to her (hope everyone on the podium was listening).

After the speeches there was a ceremonial tree planting followed by champers all around. Now that we've seen the project kickoff, expect to see some dust to fly in the near future as construction gets underway. You should be able to follow the project's progress on Evergreen's Brick Works journal blog.


Large crowd in attendance


Champagne anyone?


A trip to the Brick Works should always include a visit to the quarry ponds. Here's a shot of the southern pond looking north to Governor's Road.

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