Today is a shot looking east along Wyandotte from just beyond Lincoln Road. Interestingly enough, unlike most of the city, not too much has changed in the last 45 years.
The Kaplan’s Furniture sign on the south side of the street was only removed in the last five or so years, after becoming The Walker Boys.
Interesting to see that there was a substantial building on the north east corner of Lincoln & Wyandotte, that was replaced with a drab one story building. I believe it was once a bank, but is now home to a legal office, if it’s open at all…
I love the steetlights. Just the other day as I drove over the Ouellette overpass I couldn’t help compare the drab look of the rail, the streetlights that are pretty much the same everywhere in the core and the amount of concrete used. We use it for everything except on the streets! Why not cobbles or limestone for curbs?
The building interests me as well. But it doesn’t have the look of a bank with the front protruding like it does. Maybe you could search your old fire maps and see what is was? I would be interested to know.
Perhaps we use concrete because it can be moulded into various shapes, easily portable, economical and, when done right, it actually increases in strength with time. Of course, the “done right” part is critical. We seem to have a proliferation of “craftsmen” who like to add way too much water to the mix.
Perhaps the streetlights have been changed because the ones pictured above are unsafe. I would love to see the statistics on people running red lights back in the day. We place them in the driver’s line of sight for a reason. We could probably change them to the European horizontal style, but that would hardly take care of the uniformity issue.
The 1937 FI Map, shows a house on the corner with a Funeral Home beside it, then the building that is home to the Velvet today beyond that.
The Funeral Home would be where the vacant lot is today. Looks like a storefront was added to the house on the corner, but it’s not noted on the 1937 FI Map.
Interesting to note that there was a green house behind the Velvet…
The northeast corner of Lincoln and Wyandotte used to be a credit union. It moved or went belly up around ’92 or ’93. I used to live in the house directly behind the credit union during that time. From what I heard, back in the 80’s that house was abandoned for a decade or so and then the credit union wanted more parking. They wanted to buy the house and rip it down to build a parking lot. After trying to find out who owned it, they found out _they_ already owned it. Apparently it cost too much rip it down so it was cheaper to rent it out.
Once the credit union left, some bank owned the house for a few months and rent checks were sent to some collection agency in Ottawa. After that, the law firm bought the old credit union and some guy bought the house. I think you can still sort of see the remnants of the old credit union sign underneath the law firm’s current sign.
I too miss the more ornamental touches that were a part of our past. For example, bridge railings, handrails on stairs, lamp posts and their attachments, phone booths, fire pull boxes, and on and on. However most of these items were made of cast iron and required regular maintenance to keep them looking good. Now, considering the track record of our outside city workforce, is it any wonder we’re using concrete and/or the other aggrigate based materials. We have students painting the fire plugs as it is. Using concrete poles is almost on par with slapping stucco on on brick.