Some comments the other day were asking about the peabody bridge. I don’t have much info about it, but here’s what I do have.
A postcard view, you can see the bridge to the right of the silos.
An aerial view from 1952
1981 – Note the Peabody building is still standing. If you look at the corner of Devonshire and Riverside Dr. you can see the footprint of the flatiron building.
2007
A view from 1913 of the Peabody Building, and the Peabody Bridge.
Obviously the bridge was in place in 1913, and was well built, as it lasted into the 1990’s, only being removed after the rail lines came off the river front.
As much as we’re all fans of the heritage of the city, I doubt you’ll find many tears shed over the loss of the Peabody bottleneck. 😉
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There where two bridges that I know of, the first one an wood bridge and was called the GTR bridge, for the Grand Trunk Railway before it became part of Canadian National Railway. The second bridge is what everyone remembers was an concrete one, I believe when it was rebuilded that is when the ramp and platform on the north west end of the Peabody building was added for shipping and recieving by trucks. When heading east on Riverside Dr. just before going onto the bridge there was access to Kildare Rd. ,one way, there no access from Kildare to Riverside Dr. I have seen a 30 second film that shows an SW&A street car on an shoefly that was used by the SW&A when the bridge was being rebuilt.
colin, i think that building is or was called the neon shop? i remember hearing about some bands renting lofts up there for jam sessions and whatnot.
you are speaking of the only building left on that plot of land, right?
neat how riverside drive still couldn't really avoid taking the same shape as the peabody.
something about that bridge being there in the first shot makes the area look more....glued together.
thanks andrew!
bernie....what's a shoefly?
That building did house sign shops, skate shops, bands, etc. They all had to leave as the building was not good for tenancy. There were some stories in the paper a few years back that the city was preventing the owner from zoning the building how he wanted and therefore he couldn't sell it for condos. Don't know how true that is. It's neat inside though, but pretty creepy. It's all still there and the Drive advertises their covers on the side.
Aaron and Colin, that building is the Walker Power Building. I made a blog post yesterday with some pictures from it, and an itty-bitty description of it, but Andrew could do a much better job of detailing the history of that place!
http://community.livejournal.com/windsor_visuals/66978.html
The Peabody Bridge (1) Had a steep inclined ramps and motorists creeping up them risked sliding backwards in fresh snow and ice. (2) Although sort of “S†shaped it had two sharp “elbow†bends rather than easy curves. That led to many accidents, often involving speed and drinking. (3) The pitched incline, bends and mostly solid side walls, impaired vision. Once my relatives from out of town got lost and found themselves on the bridge, fearing they were on their way over the river to a mean, scary, post-riots Detroit. Also you wouldn’t see oncoming traffic until suddenly confronted at the bends. (4) It was built solid. Even when chunks of the deck were falling out and you could see through to the tracks below, the city engineers found it was safe for regular passenger cars traffic. (5) It has a neat history involving wartime sabotage. Check the first comment above.
Did anyone know there was an indian draveyard underneath the peabody bridge?
They discovered bones when they removed the bridge, and i guess they put the bones back where they belonged..........
I wrote graveyard wrong haaaa
I heard a story about a burial site there too but it went a little different than that. Had something to do with a brief epidemic and that victims of said epidemic were buried there sometime prior to the turn of the century. Always wanted to get some solid info on that. It is quite intriguing.
westerntragedy - thanks for the info! those are some great pics you got there, great job!
http://www.citywindsor.ca/DisplayAttach.asp?AttachID=4370
"In 1992, the City of Windsor commissioned M.M. Dillon Limited to conduct archaeological investigations in conjunction with the demolition of Peabody Bridge in Walkerville. Directed by W. Bruce Stewart, the investigations focussed on the potential for impacting a mass grave of some 60 Norwegian immigrants who died of cholera in 1854 and were reportedly buried in the area of the bridge. The study area was defined by Moy Avenue on west, Devonshire Road on the east, the southern limits of Riverside Drive and C.N.R. lands on the south, and the northern limits of Riverside Drive and C.N.R. lands on the north (Stewart 1993: ). The road bed was not tested; testing was reserved for the former railbed of C.N. lines and edges of street allowance."