That make all the difference. I was recently passing through Goderich, on my way home from the Bruce Peninsula, when my wife and I decided to pull over downtown at the “square” and eat our picnic lunch.
I noticed all around the square, these beautiful wrought iron planters, and it made me wonder why Windsor couldn’t do better.
University Ave. in front of City Hall is a disgrace. Our planters look cheap and crappy, while Goderich’s planters look nice, and solid.
There were little plaques on the planters noting that they were a gift of the Goderich BIA.
Ours look like laundry tubs.
There’s no problem throwing $65 million (and counting), at a new arena on the edge of town, but no money for nice looking planters. For all the time and effort spent on attracting visitors to Windsor, we sure don’t make much effort to leave a lasting impression. You would think someone could have done better than going to the dollar store to get the planters that grace a main road through the downtown.
Aren’t those gray things the so called “self watering” planters that caused a minor stink about three months ago? I agree that they look pretty cheap. but the placement of them in the second photo is the worst ever!
Windsor’s plants in the photos also look unhealthy and untended compared to Goderich’s.
It must be from the urine from all the unleashed dogs that the city is turning a blind eye too.
You didn’t show the planters on Maiden Lane. I saw Betty Wilkinson’s friend out tending to them yesterday. Personal ownership is a wonderful thing. Mrs. Wilkinson’s plants all look pretty good and she’s quick to replant and clean up after the dumbasses pull them out late at night.
Worse yet are these awful washtubs being put all down Dougall Ave. It is disgraceful, especially with the decent landscaping job done by the Rail-yard entrance. They looked like they were randomly placed and on top of that the median looks like it hasn’t been repaired in the past 30 years. Maybe they are waiting to replace the median with more canals, then I can boat from the burbs – yes I live in the burbs, when I get my own place I promise I’ll change – to downtown.
Try it this way. Even if Windsor had gone out an purchased the planters that Goderich did, what would you end up with?
Well, you’de end up with what you’ve got, basically some planters sitting by the curb in what looks like a biike lane, looking for all the world like an illegally parked car. Goderich’s planters are part of a landscaped park and look very pretty there. Windsor’s, no matter how you dress them up, look like a tack on.
But, look across the street in the first photo. What Goderich has attempted to do is work out a landscaped streetscape that includes trees and hanging baskets on the lamp posts. They’ve done an effective job of it by the pictures. Frankly, what Windsor has apparently done by putting planters on the street without considering the entire street scene looks, well, cheap……
James, I skipped Maiden Lane, becasue the ones on University Ave. were the closest I could find to find to planters in the same kind of setting. The ones in Goderich circle the County Court House, while the Windsor ones front City Hall Park.
Doug, point well taken. The curb along University looks harsh. However some nice planters like the Goderich ones, I think would go a long way to softening the harshness of the streetscape. Given the amount on concrete, maybe black wrought irones one of a similar style would look better. Either way the laudry tubs look terrible.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I like the Windsor planters better. They hold water better, and for me that is top priority. The last thing I want to see is plants being watered. They were created naturally, let them get their water naturally. Don’t waste more water on man-made artificial crap. So, the Windsor ones win, period.
Like a canal plan that will have the canal filled with municipal tap water? 🙂
Naysayer!
Why not take all the money that the City is throwing away on the canal study and use it to landscape Ouellette all the way from Tecumseh to Riverside. What about a dedicated bike lane on Ouellette to encourage people to ride their bikes? No we can’t do that because that would be too practical. We need a new mayor and city council pronto!
Forget the planters, what downtown Windsor needs is trees. The area around City Hall square is a wasteland of concrete and asphalt, especially oppressive in summer, with the tarmac soaking up the solar fire. Of course, a canal and man-made lagoon or two might cool things off.
What downtown needs is people. Maybe the city can put mannequins everywhere.
Andrew, don’t get me started on that hare-brained, environmentally unfriendly, money pit of a scheme!
Those concrete panters are another disgrace.
I will never understand why the concrete couldn’t be a foot high with the remainder being nice wrought iron (in any style)? The one’s on Woodward in Detroit are fantastic and people CAN’T use them as benches (which is one of the proposals of the Bellmio report that the city still ignores! IE: Don’t have benches in the downtown because the bar crowds will linger after they close).
What is it with Windsor and concrete? We have a great park on the water that has tons of concrete with no discernable break near the old locomotive, the police HQ is just that, concrete (it looks like a frick’in bunker), the planters, the pedestrian crosswalks that had at least stamped concrete dyed a different colour. Now we have a crappy concrete crosswalk with no appeal and asphalt for our main downtown road. What a shame!
Haha, Scooters right! Let’s start putting statues up all over the place like downtown Detroit so the place doesn’t look so empty like the newspaper reading guy they’ve got at one of the entrances to the Detroit People Mover.
Is everybody missing the point here? Planters are nothing more than vessels to hold plants!
Attention should be paid to the plants IN the planters. If this isn’t happening, then there may be an issue with what’s planted and how they’re maintained. It would be nice to see a uniform planting scheme, rather than every colour thrown in leaving the planters left to look like they’re filled with the derelicts of the greenhouse. With some planning, height of the plants in them and tendrils of plants draping over them make them look pretty darn good. You focus on the flowers and not the container. Orange, greens, white, red and pink in a 2 foot(or so) square planter is a dog’s breakfast. Most people wouldn’t be caught dead wearing all of them at the same time, unless making a ‘statement’.
It sure says something when our streets are adorned like this. When you have a whole street of planters that are a complete mishmash of plants and colours the result is horrid and disturbing to the eyes, not to mention the mind.
It’s not an image that adds to the wonderfulness of downtown.