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Ottawa Street, Hamilton
Discovering the Antique District
Ottawa Street North, Hamilton, long known as the best textile shopping district in Ontario, is now gaining a reputation for something new (or should I say old) – antiques!
Rumours about a burgeoning new antique district or "décor district" in Hamilton have been floating around for a couple of years now. Because I'm a bit of an "antique nut", I recently decided to take a Saturday afternoon and check it out in person. The area consists of several blocks of Ottawa Street North in the eastern half of the city. We're talking about the blocks running from Cannon Street in the south to Barton Street in the north (right near Centre Mall). This strip is jam-packed with antique and collectibles shops – a full dozen at last count. If you start at Cannon, the first one you'll come to is Grannys Attic Treasures at 186 Ottawa Street North. It was the brownie's uniform (c. 1960s) hanging in the window that drew me in. It looked exactly like the one I wore when I was a girl, right down to that orange scarf and the badges on the sleeve. When I entered the shop, a quick glance around made me feel like I'd walked into my own personal past. I recognized quite a few holy pictures and statues that my parents had owned. Some of them were exact matches in fact. When I mentioned this to Kathy, the owner, she laughed. "Lots of people have the same reaction." She told me many of her customers are drawn to objects from their childhood. (Perhaps we're getting old and sentimental? No!) So how much do these "souvenirs of times past" cost? Not much. Take the holy pictures for example. Seven bucks. Or that yellow formica table and chairs? $80. Prices seem reasonable. "I like to keep my prices low so people can afford them." She sells mid-20th century collectibles, as well as some antiques (items 100 years or older). These art glass pieces made such a wonderful display. Someone has an eye for colour!
The store is small but well organized and clean-smelling, unlike some dusty vintage shops I've visited.Kathy opened her shop about 3 years ago after a collecting habit outgrew her home. "I started selling on e-bay and then decided to get the shop." Three years ago is the about the same time that another shop up the street, Decades, opened. It's at 330 Ottawa Street North. I was snapping a photograph of the curious heads hanging from the store front,
bracketing the store name above the door when the store's owner Patrick came out to greet me. "They were originally made for the wall of a bank in Toronto," he explained. He found the mold for them at an antique market. "Apparently they were politicians." Well they certainly look like politicians, don't they? Decades used to be on Locke Street just west of downtown Hamilton, but Patrick moved here to Ottawa Street when rents started rising there and the street began changing from an antiques district to a food and boutique area. "When I heard Starbucks was coming in, I knew it was time to go."
His new store is spacious and has a high ceiling covered in tin. "It had a drop ceiling when I moved in, but the tin was there hidden away behind it," he said. You can easily imagine this place as a general store in the early 20th century, with the high tin ceiling, great wooden floors, and chandeliers dangling above. Inhale: you can almost smell the spices in the drawers, the apples in the barrels, and the fresh (but non-Starbucks) coffee simmering away on a pot-bellied stove. Decades sells a range of antiques and collectibles, including some gorgeous furniture, unusual lamps and plenty of framed art. Maverick Antiques, at 308 Ottawa Street, is just as eclectic. The owner, Camille, told me she just "loved too many things to specialize." So you'll find military memorabilia, collectible tins, silverware, antique photographs, and plenty of glassware neatly arranged by type around the perimeter of the room. In the centre is furniture ("I can't keep up with the demand," she said), and a mish-mash of decorative objects for the home. I wound up buying this early 20th-century souvenir drinking glass of St. Thomas Ontario for $12:
I have few "firm beliefs" in life, but one of them is this: You can never have too many lovely drinking glasses.Across the street, Antiques Unlocked, at 271 Ottawa North, is another immigrant from Locke Street. The name is telling: it used to be "Antiques on Locke". They have plenty of furniture, décor items and a good selection of cookware including those glass refrigerator boxes that I love. It's a very pretty shop, almost "girly". It definitely has a designer's touch. I also spent some time browsing in some of the other stores including the consignment shop, "The Millionaire's Daughter" and the lovely "B&B Antiques" (great name) before hitting one of the restaurants, Helen's, for dinner. If you're looking to refuel you'll find several choices here, by the way, including one special place with a "vintage" flavour: the very first Tim Horton's in the world, at 65 Ottawa Street North. Although it looks disappointingly like any other Timmies from the outside, except for the historic plaque on the wall, inside you'll find two large display cabinets and a few pictures on the walls commemorating the hockey player who started this international coffee chain.
There are a couple of other restaurants on the street with that "vintage" flavour too: Logan's Restaurant, for example, with cozy country décor, Helen's Restaurant with hearty food like perogies and cabbage rolls and prices from the past (zero décor though), and a couple of Chinese restaurants that remind me of hangouts from my teen years. There's also the trendy-looking Limoncello and Poco Loco, a Tex-Mex place. Another charming aspect of Ottawa Street North is the work that the Business Improvement Association has done to "brand" the area and honour its textile history. See for example this new little parkette:
and the creative street décor with textile-themed symbols:
With all of these antique shops flooding in, though, how long will it be before the BIA will have to recognize the role these entrepreneurs are playing too in helping bring new life to Ottawa Street North?For more information See the Ottawa Street web site: http://www.shopottawastreet.com
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