the crosswalks that were painted on the street

Other interventions on the street include, crosswalk designs that refer to absences related to the site where they are located. These simple patterns are stenciled onto the pavement. For example; Rideau Chapel (arches), the bywash which was a cholera ridden ditch that crossed the street ( wavy lines) and a boxing ring where lumbermen could let off steam ( a yellow square.) These crosswalks require regular repainting, and they are not always part of the streetscape.

At one point there were seven crosswalks painted on the street simultaneously - the three that you see here and another set of four which went entirely around the crossings at the intersection of Rideau and Dalhousie street that had enlarged animal footprints and the names of indigenous trees no longer present on the street.

All of the designs referred to some feature of the street that was no longer visible. The stars were intended to complement the image "shelter its loss and replacement" on the page 1 click back. The Arches were at the location of the destroyed/relocated Rideau Chapel but my favourite was the design with waves and a golden box at Freiman Mall. That mall (actually now buried, and forgotten within the Hudson Bay store) was close to where the cholera ridden By-Wash crossed Rideau street in the 1830's. Also nearby was a fist fighting place for lumbermen to settle their disputes. The waves and the yellow box are intended as visually playful reminders of the character of the street long ago.

The stencils were made with extremely heavy mylar (for the text and detailed images) cut with a computer driven router from vector based artwork. These mylar stencils were then placed into "windows " cut into 4x8 foot sheets of coroplast that could be positioned on the street. Rideau street is atypical - it is 99 feet wide instead of the usual 66 (1 surveyor's chain.) This was a pretty big undertaking and there was a lot of coroplast used. Plywood was useless - too thick to hold the necessary detail , too heavy to manage and too difficult to clean and dry in the short time available for application - pricey too.

The application of the stencils is done late at night when traffic is light and in warm weather. A crew equipped with the stencils, measuring tapes and gasoline powered spray equipment for painting roads is needed. The paint used is very thick and is thinned with xylene solvent (gets you really high!) The paint takes about 1 to 2 hours to dry from the time it is applied and while this is happening the road must be "coned" off to prevent traffic from driving on it. I had no idea how many idiots drive drunk before I did the installation work on this project - it is amazing how many stupid things we saw people do with their cars on Rideau street at 4 am.

This work was done with 3 men and equipment from Western Signs and my intrepid assistant Wiley Thomas. Wiley really disliked this job. I did too ... toxic.

There are also texts in the glass of bus shelters that refer to events that are lost to memory or are ironic when considered in the present urban setting of the site ie: newspaper reports of a long dead lost dog, public notices about the cholera epidemic accounts of the "arch riot" or an extraordinary display of the northern lights visible from downtown.