Hi Charlotte,
Hmmm, well I'm not an expert in Ottawa history, but here is my best effort.
I would say that Booth Street would have been a fairly working class or MAYBE lower middle class neighbourhood, with a fair number of recent immigrants.
Currently, Booth Street is a mix of brick and wooden late-Victorian/early 20th c. houses - some singles, some duplexes, some row houses. It is more commercial now than I would imagine it would have been then, although I'm sure there would have been shops scattered about among the houses.
The south end of Booth St. is 2 blocks east of the heart of Ottawa's Little Italy, so I would imagine the immigrant influence would have been strong there, although perhaps not as strong up in the north end at number 236 where Ralph was living. At the very top end of Booth Street would have been LeBreton Flats (a neighbourhood that no longer exists), the Ottawa River, and a fair number of lumber mills. Streetcars would have travelled on Somerset Street, 2 blocks south of Ralph's 236 Booth address. Go here for some photos of Ottawa streetcars in the 50s/60s, just before they were discountinued
http://transit.toronto.on.ca/streetcar/4754.shtmlI find
http://maps.google.ca is a great site for modern-day Canadian street maps. Just type in 236 booth street ottawa and you will see the area quite clearly. There is a satellite photo option as well, so you can get a sense of what it looks like today.
As I said above, St. George's Ward encompasses mostly what is now known as the neighbourhood of Sandy Hill. It is not a suburb - quite in the heart of things actually. The campus of the University of Ottawa separates Sandy Hill from the main downtown core. It is mostly large brick Victorian homes and higher-end brick row houses. Some of these have been well-maintained and are used frequently now as embassies and ambassadors residences of mid-range countries of Eastern Europe and the wealthier South American countries (the "big" countries like the US, UK, Western Europe, have downtown embassies and their ambassadors live in the ritzy Rockcliffe Park); others of these have been converted into apartments and house mostly university students. It is a fairly eclectic, vibrant neighbourhood these days. Definitely middle/upper-middle class back in the day I would guess.
As you get in to the northern end of St. George's Ward (between Laurier and Rideau Streets) you get into more low-rise apartment complexes - 4 to 6 stories. Many of these are from the 20s and 30s, so I don't know what was there before that.
Hope that helps...
MJP
