Here’s an interesting photo. It was taken September 24, 1970 shortly after the opening of the Ouellette Avenue Mall.
The info on the back indicates the musicians are:
The photo is amazing, it’s neat to see a Windsor with the downtown streets packed. September 24th was a Thursday to boot.
What a difference actual stores make on the vibrancy of a downtown (and not a drop of stucco anywhere)!
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Fascinating....lots of energy downtown in those days. A stark contrast to the "dead zone" of today. I certainly recognize the characters and all the various businesses of that era but I have absolutely no recollection of any mall around that time, even though I lived just a few blocks to the west and spent more than my share of time downtown. But the photo tells the tale. Was this mall a short-lived experiment? More info please.
What intersection is this? Looks almost like the west side of Ouellette and Elliot. The building across the street from Tamblyn looks like the Enwin Utilities office downtown.
That's right in front of Banta Shoes, near the corner of Ouelette & University,(where the Starbucks is now}. I remember that "Downtown Mall" experiment when I was a little boy, although I thought it was in 1971. Does anyone else remember the free concerts that were held on Pitt St. beside the Post Office? I think it was around this same time period (early 70's}
Robert is right other Andrew, it is Ouellette & University.
As for the date, the photo is stamped on the back with the date (Sep. 24 1970). It was late in the year, so maybe there was a soft opening with the "official" one in 1971?
I don't know much behind the downtown mall story, other than it didn't work ;)
Hopefully there is a reader out there who can share the story...
Yep no stucco! But they had that awful pea-stone that was spread across the outer walls (like the Metropolitan building on University and the old Greyhound Bus station).
It sure would be nice to have that vibrancy downtown again. But fakeness of a mall is all the sheople can handle in this city.
By the way, in pic 2..."get a haircut hippy". :)
It's all relative. The mall experiment was to try and re-vitalize the core and bring it back to what we had in the 50s and sixties which was much more vibrant than you see in this photo. Ever since then the downtown has been in a state of perpetual flux. One experiment on top of another hoping that any one or combination of things will catch. There is barely a pulse now. Retail is definately needed but the primordial soup, the right things of life are not there. Sadly...This is too big for a group of downtown business' to solve nor can it be their core concern. The municipal government has to take charge and they have to have the will to map out the future for Downtown's health and prosperity. They and councils after them have to cultivate it like a garden starting with a realistic master plan. No matter how tuff. Sorry for the rant.
It is kind of a vicious circle. Stores need local customers. Residents need close-by stores. Same residents need close-by work places so mass transit or foot traffic is do-able. It doesn't make sense for someone to move downtown only to drive to Lakeshore to shop. Or then drive to their job on Talbot road. If that's the case then downtown is only synthetic. Maybe if Windsor can transition to a service economy where big industrial parcels aren't needed, and those businesses move downtown instead of an office park off EC Row, then people will feel the need to live downtown, and other feeder businesses will follow. And some people like urban living, others do not, no matter what.
In the early-to-mid 70s Yonge Street also experiemented with a pedestrian only mall. It too didn't work for a variety of reasons.
I heard more bars are coming downtown soon in the paper which makes me angry. We really need some sort of department store downtown to help draw a larger variety of people. Something that would appeal to many different people who live downtown. I know it would be a gamble and risk though since it would take a lot to open. It would need the help of a lot of people, including the city and government to try to get business back into downtown. We don't need more bars! There's a lot of people who live downtown and need a place to shop.
The same thing that killed downtown shopping in Windsor Happened in Detroit only sooner there.Suberban Malls Devonshire Free Parking galore.
The auto industry that helped to build the city, helped to depress it.Also the lack of national retailers, like Simpsons, Eatons, or Simpson-Sears or the Bay alsocontributed.