In honour of the passing of another link to downtown’s more glorious days, I present some scans from a late 1950’s era brochure on the top hat.
The brochure featured an action photo of the Pride of Toledo, OH in action
Just a few of the stars that had graced the Top Hat Stage…
Guaranteed!
Some of the house staff…
A rare view of the Top Hat as it looked before its final renovation in the 1970’s.
i only ate there once in my life i think. maybe once with my parents, but i think once with my first love danielle too in the 80s.
all roads lead to top hat. is that add saying you could get a…..top hat credit card?
that’s a pretty cool looking waiter above the door there too.
andrew, was the top hat anything else before it was top hat? the building looks to date back much further(maybe mid 20’s), and might have had some gi-normous windows that look “recently” bricked in in that picture.
hmmm….arn’t those the god awful flower pots the city has spread all over the place?
cool
I knew some great stars played there but as a huge bobby Vinton fan I never realized his presence graced our city streets. How I long to have known those days of great lounge acts and big band singers.
Today all we have are kiddie bars catering to drunk buffoons and whore-ish girls playing “music” much too loud with no decent talent. Too bad Windsor has lost it’s only charm and elegance. Now we have nothing, truly nothing to boast about at all. Stay unclassy Windsor!
It is sad to see that link to a bygone era finally disappear. However, the people who went to Top Hat in the day were young, affluent people. Today’s version would not likely be interested in a supper club, and who would perform? Kid Rock? Jessica Simpson? Jewel?
What’s left of popular music will never produce original talent like in those days. I find it interesting that video games “RockBand” are introducing kids to AC/DC and rock and roll!
One way for Windsor to get rid of the drunks downtown is to raise the age to 21 in Ontario. That would eliminate the kids crossing from the US, which is 80% of the problem. Then ban serving alcohol past 12am and enforce it with severe fines, losing liquor licenses. Then start ticketing drunken behavior – pay now or sit in jail until you do.
To all – Windsor once had more international super star entertainers walking the streets of Windsor and Essex County due to the power of CKLW.
The day Trudeau signed the Canadian Content Law , Windsor was sacrificed.
JB, the passport requirement will do it anyway. I for one can’t wait until it happens. Maybe then Windsor city hall might actually re-build the downtown for residents instead of young alcoholics. But I am with you on the drunken behaviour tickets. Pay up or rot in jail, your choice!
The province does have laws on the books concerning public intoxication. Maybe just a matter of ascertaining if Windsor Police Service is enforcing this downtown or not. And if not…. why? Coming out of the bar with a buzz-on is one thing, but busting windows, urinating in doorways, and waking residents at 3am is clearly unfair to the people who call downtown home.
John – Stop being such a naysayer.
Downtown is perfect just as it is! Fun for the whole family!
I’m gonna second or third what was said on police throwing the book at drunken behaviour in downtown. I had a large window smashed last weekend. A door graffittied the other. Just pointless drunken vandalism.
Oh, I wish I could catch whoever did it to deliver some street justice, but short of that, police should be more active in pulling these drunken guys off the street. Police should also be more active in inspecting bars and pulling liquor licenses for being one of the causes. There’s absolutely no respect for the property of others in downtown.
I see that Feelgoods on Huron Church will soon be razed for this new border road. Andrew do you have any old photo’s when it was The Sandhill House. Another historic building meeting it’s fate,sad. Here is the story that was in the Star.
http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/story.html?id=b2853220-aa8e-43f2-bbd7-677fa3605bcc
The way the maps for dric look, it appears the 1920s era former gas station on the corner as well as the first house on Grand Marais – also late 20s from when Huron Divisions was first being built – will also be lost.
nice of them to go ahead and tie this crap into the expressway without asking,eh?
But Eddie had stated he wouldn’t compromise which is why he gave councillor Halberstadt such grief. Yet here he is compromising (he should have in the first place). I also thought he didn’t want to use EC Row but I guess he thinks it is o.k. to change his mind when he wants but if others do it look out!
Windsor just reminds me of the Detroit Lion’s organization. Say one thing, do another, talk, talk talk but accomplish little. Both organizations are totally inept!
Anybody have photos of the first house on Grand Marais? There’s a house on Grand Marais between Glenwood and Mark Avenue that I have been curious about since childhood. I wanted to take photos of it the last time I was in the city, but I saw people milling about the front yard, and I lost my nerve.
PP I have a photo I took + a screencap photo of it in the 1920s. Ditto for a bunch of other houses. If you search this site Andrew did a profile on some of those homes a while back. Try this photoset for starters http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiz68/sets/72157602092337662/
Thanks, John. I grew up nearby, but most of these houses strangely didn’t look all that familiar. Of course, in those days brand spanking new 60s bungalows were much more valued than anything older. I think the house I’ve been curious about could be the last one in your set. It had a huge lot, garden with a large separate garage. It was a lot larger than any of the others there. I’ve always thought it was custom built for someone who owned more property before the area was developed. The house numbers on Grand Marais don’t mean that much to me because most of the residential streets run north- south rather than east-west, but I’m guessing that most of them are just east of the Yorktown Plaza, except for that last one. Is the video Building the Bridge available online?
Thanks again.
It can be borrowed from the WPL in VHS format, PP. If you have trouble with the house numbers just punch the address into Google Maps and that will give you a good idea where each is.
My son’s mother-in-law worked as a bookkeeper at the Top Hat for many years when they had night club entertainment. She kept a photo album filled with personalized autographed star photos, some taken with her. Great to look at.