The stretch of Bank Street that runs through the Glebe is one of Ottawa's premier shopping areas, with many small stores and restaurants offering a wide variety of services.

By the late 1960s, the Glebe was bounded by the Queensway on the north side, by the Rideau Canal on the east and south, and with Bronson Avenue as a western boundary.

[5] In 1871 James Whyte, one of the leading merchants of the town, built a large residence on Canal Road on the north side of the waterway at midpoint between what is now Bank Street and Bronson Avenue, which served the Basilian Fathers in the 1960s.

In 1872, James Whyte moved into a new home on Bank Street near Holmwood Avenue, which served the community in the 1960s as a residence for older people.

In 1882 the creation of Central Park and the construction of the new Canada Atlantic Railway terminal on the west side of the Rideau Canal at the end of the Glebe encouraged the development of the southern section of the city.

First Avenue Public School and St. Matthew's Anglican Church, then a small frame structure, opened their doors about the same time in 1898.

Mutchmor Public School on Fifth Avenue was built in the 1890s with additions in 1911 and 1920 as housing density increased and new families moved into the district.

Roman Catholic families attended Mass for some years to a temporary chapel on the south side of Fourth Avenue near Percy.

The Drive way, from Elgin Street and Laurier Avenue over the route to the Experimental Farm, was built between 1900 and 1903, providing added impetus to city growth on the south side.

Between Powell and Carling Avenues, a transformation gradually took place since an address in this part of the Glebe showed that the owner had property or position, probably both.

[citation needed] A series of distinctive homes, both east and west of Bank Street, were indicative of the style and wealth of the owners.

Noffke and David Younghusband,[citation needed] while others were pattern-book homes built by local builders based on catalog designs similar to foursquare architecture elsewhere in North America.

Ottawa Ladies' College, a private school specialising in the education of young women, operated on First Avenue from 1914 to 1942.

After World War II, however, these areas were largely removed or rehabilitated so that by the late 1960s, generally speaking, the Glebe possessed housing stock suitable for both upper and middle income groups.

[4] In the middle part of the century the Glebe changed as the middle class moved to more distant suburbs such as Alta Vista and Nepean, and the Glebe became transformed into a predominantly working-class neighbourhood with the houses subdivided into multiple apartments or turned into rooming houses.