Quinn's Row
245-251 Nepean Street
Written by Bytown Museum
on
03/Dec/2009
This four-unit row house was owned by Patrick Connelly Quinn and likely housed some of the labourers hired to build nearby Saint Patrick’s Basilica. It is the only 19th-century, working-class row house to survive in Centretown.
The first record of housing on this site occurs between 1889 and 1890, but Quinn’s Row is styled after other 1870s homes. This raises the question, was this row house newly built on the site or moved from another site to this one? Many believe it is the latter.
Patrick Quinn immigrated to Canada from Ireland as a very young man in the 1850s or 1860s. He ran his own construction business and owned a number of lots and houses in Centretown including his own home on Gloucester Street.
In the 1980s, the Centretown Citizens' Community Association was successful in obtaining a heritage designation for Quinn's Row.
