Vandalism of the “fixture” on the Flora Footbridge is not the first time this has happened to a Mainstreeter box
Tim Hunt saw nothing on the spot near Ottawa’s Flora Footbridge, where a brightly colored newspaper box usually stands.
As the newspaper’s “resident sketch artist,” Hunt had been asked by the paper years before to paint a mural on one of its newly purchased boxes. When that same box disappeared all of a sudden, he called the editor-in-chief right away.
Over the phone, Hunt found out that the newspaper box had been taken from its home on the evening of December 22, moved to the middle of the Flora Footbridge, and thrown onto the frozen surface of the canal below.
He said, “I guess someone wanted to see what would happen if it fell.”
What happened, Hunt said, was that the metal sides got a lot of damage. Its mural was scratched and peeling. It had a broken plexiglass door with loose hinges.
The Mainstreeter is a hyperlocal community newspaper that serves the Old Ottawa East neighborhood. It was strewn around the box on the ice next to the holes.
When Hunt heard about the damage, he volunteered to fix the box before the next issue of the newspaper came off the press.
‘The rescue effort
The editor-in-chief of the Mainstreeter, Lorne Abugov, said that his phone and email started “lighting up” soon after the missing box was found.
“It’s been there for a while,” he said. “At that point, I think other people had already joined what we’ll call the rescue effort.”
As soon as the box was found, local man and Mainstreeter contributor John Dance used a stepladder to get into the canal.
“John took a chance by going over to the box, you know,” Abugov said. “It wasn’t the safest thing in the world to do.”
Abugov says that three other residents “jumped into action” and helped Dance carry the box back up the ladder and out of the canal.
Abugov said that the box was too messed up to hold newspapers because it couldn’t stand up straight.
Instead of putting it back where it was, the neighbors took the pieces and gave the broken door to one house and the metal body to another.
‘I wanted to fix it up
Hunt took over the restoration because he was the original painter and a skilled metalworker.
“Plus,” he said, “I felt a little protective of the box.” “I wanted to get it back to how it was before.”
Hunt put the pieces back together, beat out the dents, cut a new plexiglass door, and painted the outside.
The next issue of The Mainstreeter was due out on February 9. Hunt put the box back in place and fixed it up two days before his deadline.
Abugov said that Hunt’s box wasn’t the first to have an “incident.”
Not Mainstreeter’s first “accident
The Mainstreeter bought five boxes from a Carleton Place newspaper that was going out of business about two years ago. At the time, it asked five local artists to paint one box each with a different design that showed something about the neighborhood.
One that was put near the Lees Avenue transit station was stolen and never found after six months.
Only four remain, and Hunt’s box near the Flora Footbridge has just been fixed up.
He said, “It feels good to see it back there.” “And the fact that a lot of people helped get it out of the canal made me feel great.”
