Piazza Dante.
Peter Scott and Angelo Filoso stand in the crumbling relic of Piazza Dante, a Little-Italy focal point that will be completely reconstructed this summer.
Laura Mueller
LITTLE ITALY - The next step to create a bright future for Little Italy will also help honour its past.
Over the years, what was once an impressive Centennial fountain across from St. Anthony’s Church has become a crumbling rock and cement relic.
That is set to change as an ambitious $520,000 project to completely makeover the park gets underway.
Instead of a decaying fountain, by September there will be a modern, computerized splash pad in the park, which dominates the intersection at Gladstone and Booth streets. The fragmented and unsightly cement surface (about 9,300 square metres in area) of Dante Park will also be redone.
But the park will also contain some more symbolic aspects that will resonate with the local Italian community.
Piazza Dante, as it is known in Italian, will feature four stately granite columns and a solemn nod to the strife Italians faced in the not-so-distant past.
Approximately 630 Italian-Canadians were sent to internment camps in 1940, after Italy’s declaration of war against the allied forces.
Among those “enemies of war” were five Ottawa men of Italian origin who were sent to internment camps in Petawawa, Ont. and Gagetown, NB. Their names will be recognized on a monument wall that will become part of the park.
Anthony Filoso, a community leader who has taken the lead on planning for the project, said the internment affected his friends and their family members, he felt it was important to recognize that.
“I wanted to bring some closure to that particular event,” Filoso said.
The revitalization of the park has been in the works for about four years, and was championed last year by Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes, who asked the city to put $400,000 from the city’s cash-in-lieu of parkland reserve fund towards the project.
According to a city report, the monument is intended to “…increase the knowledge and understanding of the impact of the internment during the Second World War on the Italian Canadian community and of their contributions to building a strong Canada during the Post War period, and to contribute to healing and reconciliation amongst internee descendants.”
The park will also be getting its namesake back.
A bust of Dante Alighieri, an Italian poet known as the “Father of the Italian language,” will be returned to the park. The sculpture originally called the park home, but at some point it was stolen. It was eventually returned, but currently resides across the street at St. Anthony’s Church, said Peter Scott, a Little Italy resident who has been involved with the plans for the park.
“It used to be beautiful,” Scott said. “This will make the park into something again.”
The concept was well-received at a public meeting in May, just before the city approved the project. Approximately $82,000 for the project will come from the federal department of Citizenship and Immigration’s Community historical recognition program.
The Italian Canadian Community Centre of the National Capital Region received the grant in 2009.
The Italian community centre is dedicating $22,260 to the projects, while donors and fundraising have contributed $15,000 and about $5,000 respectively.