Viscount Hotel

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• The Viscount had a brunch on Sundays. Our family would go occasionally, and it was a real treat. The view was great.

• Shortly after it was torn down, a future condo project started there, but I don't know if they even got a shovel in the ground. All I remember was the big sign on the perimeter fence around the old Viscount property. There was the usual pre-selling hype. It was called "The Pheonix" and the gimmick was that this great condo building was to "rise from the ashes" of the Viscount. For whatever reason, that went bust and as Andrew noted, we have a parking lot for HDH hospital instead.

• How's that song go- "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot"....

• Wow, a nightclub on the 17th floor. It's very unique. It must have been pretty popular, especially with no cover. I'd pay a huge cover to get into a place with a 17th floor view like that.

  It's too bad they couldn't do something like that with the RenCentre--turn the top floor restaurant into a nightclub.

  As for the demolition, the title of tallest demolished building in Windsor will be beat as friend of mine said that the casino already handed out notices to the residents that they'll be demolishing the Raymond Demarais highrise on Riverside, which is 20 stories for another parking lot, in a year and a half. So, unnecessary and backwards. Demolishing high rises for parking lots in downtown. Maybe we should bring back cobblestone roads and horse drawn carriages to downtown.

• I.m not sure it was the tallest building ever raised here. Does anyone have any info. on the Norton Palmer Hotel or the The Prince Edward?
  In the seventies free cover was a given just about everywhere. The Viscount was one of many cool dancing joints. As far as the demolition goes there were serious problems with that building. As new as it was, it started to lean. You could see it against the skyline from east to west. Probably the footings were made from reinforced oatmeal.

• "Continuous Dancing" -- that's funny. In the early days of discotheques, there there was no language -- or assumed knowledge -- about what these nights were like.

  Some deep googling didn't reveal any photos of the Viscount, but somebody must have some in their collections somewhere. It was an interesting building because it was so square and narrow -- and the interesting top floors that were dark glass. Mysterious looking and curious.

• M.O.M.> Indeed yes, I've heard people talk about the elevator shafts squeezing the elevators over time, or something to that effect.

• The Viscount was the first place in which my wife and I stayed before we came to Windsor. Early 1974, we walked over from the train station, checked in at the Viscount, and had dinner at The Green Man restaurant (which, if I remember correctly, was on the southeast corner of Elliott & Ouellette).

  Sometime in the early/mid-eighties, one of the news guys at CKWW (which used to occupy the top floor of the building), told me that the roof was in such bad condition, that they were concerned that the air-conditioning unit (a somewhat substantial size) was in danger of coming through the ceiling. He had heard that there was so much water damage to the structure underneath that the cost of repair was higher than the owner was willing to bear. And of course, a few years later, the building was taken down.

• thanks for posting this. i sent you a better quality wider shot also today. or last night. can't remember. i seem to remember going there for breakfast at a restaurant inside somewhere. i think on the street level, but hard to remember now.

  i wonder why it was torn down. such a large building. i've used that parking lot quite a bit to see a doctor. makes me sad that's all there is now.

• I highly doubt a leaky roof had any bearing on demolishing an 18 storey highrise built in the 1960s. Roofs are replaced all the time on highrises, the floors and framing is steel and concrete and water stained ceiling tiles are easily and cheaply replaced. If there was any concern with regards to an air conditioning unit falling through the roof (which I doubt because the roof and everything added to it like an air conditioner has to follow building code and be reviewed by city building inspectors and engineers). The roof could be easily reinforced with steel "I" beams to prevent that. The cost is such a small amount as a percentange in comparison to the total value of the building. They've got 80 year old highrises in downtown Detroit that have been vacant for 30 years and are still structurally sound even though the roofs are gone because they are steel and concrete structures. And, I doubt it'd cost that much to reinforce the footings if you're looking at percentages of the building's total value. I suspect it had more to do with high hotel vacancies, high commercial property taxes and piss poor planning or initiative on the owner to consider an alternate use for the hotel section.