Another intersting old Windsor photo from the Virtual Motor City Collection:
This aerial view is dated July 1971.
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Very interesting photo, so different from today. It looks like there is a building on the southeast corner of Riverside and Ouellette. Anyone know what that was?
Err…sorry, I meant the northeast corner, actually….
that was a hotel but I can not recall the name of it though
Was it the ‘British-American Hotel’ maybe?
Windsor, intact, before the full ravages of the car and bad decisions could take its toll.
Windsor’s population boomed from about 130,000 in the mid 1960s to over 200,000 by the early 70’s. Everybody was moving here.
Yes, it was the British American Hotel.
The foundation is still there along with a plaque about the hotel.
Where was the Holiday Inn? Was it the same building and they just changed the name? I heard it was also on the North Side of Riverside Dr. somewhere around there.
Not the same building David.
The Holiday Inn was located further west, closer to Pumping Station at Caron Ave.
The British American Hotel was the last building in the downtown core (except for the Holiday Inn) to fall to the wreckers ball. I think it was demolished in the mid 1970’s.
No requiem for the Plywood Palace, huh?
Well John, personally I loved the old plywood palace, plenty of good memories there. I’ll never forget hizzoner Hurst on the front of the Star the next day grinning wildly as it burned–firefighters and tax dollars at risk in the meantime. As wonderful as the ribbon of parkland along the river is–the zealots who pursued that agenda so feverishly are another matter altogether. To think that heathens would same day want a liquor license for a bistro in that park–OH THE HUMANITY!
Remember the swanky 60s-style lobby for the Odeon? Survived pretty much unchanged right up until it closed–best view I’ve ever gotten from a cinema lobby for certain!
The Holiday Inn, for interest sake, had no foundation–it was built literally sitting on top of the old Government Dock. I’m guessing some of that same concrete still exists under where the hotel was–mind you it’s been resurfaced.
Is the Steamboat Landing proposal still alive for that area–or has it been deemed “too commercial”?
It’s also too bad that the very nice Essex Building at Riverside and McDougall didn’t make it into that picture–remember who great that place was looking right before it was demolished?
There was actually another hotel on Ouelette which was demolished some time in the mid-80s or thereabouts. If memory serves, it was between Erie St. and Giles Blvd. and is now a large parking lot. It was several stories high, I’m guessing at least 10 or 15. I couldn’t tell you the name, but I’d be curious to know. It’s not visible in the photo due to being obscured by the large apartment building (Ouelette Manor?).
Anyway, very cool photo. It really makes me miss the Norwich block.
WFW The hotel you are referring to was the Viscount Hotel which ceased operations on January 3 1983. It was 19 stories with CKWW occupying the top floor. It was connected to the adjacent Macabee building (4 stories). It was quite the hotspot at one time, with it’s 18th floor Dining Room and 17th floor Disco Lounge .
17th floor disco lounge. I wonder who went there. And if it was good — or sort of lame.
Viscount is a fuzzy memory for me, but I remember thick carpets and wallpapers, sort of a baroque 1960s feel.
I agree about the Odeon Lobby….very nice, and great view of Detroit.
How can one see pictures of the former Viscount Hotel? That building sounds interesting. I wonder what the architecture was like.
i have an old photo of the viscount, but it’s very poor quality taken from the roof of the royal windsor terrace in the early 80s.
IFor perspective, if I were standing on the Detroit side of the river, where would I be? The Norfolk & Western car float is throwing my ability to locate the shot a bit……
The Viscount Hotel eh? Thanks for the info. I was only a kid when it closed, but I remember having a great view of it from my Grandma’s apartment on the 23rd floor of Ouellette Manor. If memory serves, it was a fairly typical 50s (I’m guessing) glass & steel construction. I recall dark-tinted windows and a large red neon sign on the roof which presumably read “Viscount Hotel”.
Doug,
On the Detroit side you would be about where the RenCen is. If the photo wasn’t from 1971, you could have been on the top floor.
I remember being taken to the Viscount for swimming lessons as a very young child. And going to the CKWW studios on the top floor when my parents enrolled me in the “Tepperman’s Junior Announcer” contest. After the taping, they gave me some consolation prizes and some other kid with a cute peppy voice won that month.
The picture could have been taken form the ANR Building, now One Woodward, as the view looks straight down Goyeau St. Ouelette is more opposite Griswold.
I went there many times to that top resterant because the menues were excellent & good view.
Stayed there on the wedding night before travelling away.
I was there on a windy day & you could feel the building moving.
No wonder it is not there today.
Old memories removed including that wife also!
iremember when i was a kid maybe 14-15 years old me and a couple friends were downtown one sunday in the summer on our bikes the foundation for the Holiday inn was there before they built the walls i remember picking up a broken coke bottle to toss in the river and grabbed it the wrong way i cut my hand now i’m approaching 59 and i still have the scar from that cut