Parks Canada-Government of Canada

Address : 1 Rideau Street, Ottawa, Ontario

Recognition Statute: Historic Sites and Monuments Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. H-4)

Designation Date: 1981-01-15

Dates:

• 1908 to 1912 (Construction)
• 1920 to 1920 (Significant)

Event, Person, Organization:

• Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company  (Organization)
• Machine Gun Corps  (Organization)
• Bradford Lee Gilbert  (Architect)
• Ross and MacFarlane  (Architect)

Other Name(s):

Joe O'Connor- The National Post

June 1, 2012

Keep your head up, especially on the sixth floor. It was a survival strategy every bellhop working at the Château Laurier in the 1940s and 1950s learned.

On the sixth floor you ducked, you looked out ­— for big men, flying elbows and footballs.

“Back in those years, the Château was the only place in town to stay,” says Jean Claude Côté, a bellhop for 46 years at the Grande Old Dame on Rideau Street, beginning with his first shift on Feb. 12, 1947.

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