Hintonburg used to be on the main road leading west from downtown Ottawa. Wellington Street, which starts at Parliament Hill, runs through the center of the neighbourhood to this day. Originally, the area north of Wellington was considered Mechanicsville, but over time this has changed. When the NCC took over Lebreton Flats in the 1960s, the bridge over the north-south rail line linking the central Wellington street to the Hintonburg section was demolished, and the central Wellington street was linked to Scott street, making a bypass for the automobile traffic. This led to a decline in commercial business along Wellington Street which with gentrification has been reversed. At one time, there was a department store at the crossroads of Somerset and Wellington. By the 1970s it had become the main office of the used goods charity "Ottawa Neighbourhood Services" which had to move when it was bought out in 2001 and the buyer broke his verbal contract with ONS several months following the sale. The building was then converted to commercial use, with offices and a carpet store, but which have now houses an LCBO branch and a fabrications store.