Ouellette Avenue – 1965

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• The Gitlins store was Meresky & Gitlins furnture store one of the old family owned stores like Baum & Brody, and others that dissapped from downtown.
  This all happened before Eddy and the present council where old enough to VOTE. Blame the people that DID NOT support the Downtown.
  The multi-storied parking building is still their only now its across the road from the courthouse.
  The Radio Tavern was agoing concern back in the fiffties

• Downtown Windsor has been dead loooongsince beforeEddie Francis, so don't be soo shortsighted as to blame him for it all, like someone else previously said Devonshire mall had a huge negative impact. The city has been trying to figure out how to undo this wrong ever since and many mayors have came and went.

  I really hope that in my lifetime I can see the downtown become lively again and I'm in my 30's, hopefully that can happen.

• I too remember Ouellette Ave very bustling in the fifties and sixties. Indeed it really was
  a proper "downtown" in those days a bit like Lo ndons' Oxford Street today but on a smaller scale. It was good to note the Radio Tavern sign in the photo. I used to go in there for a drink or six after coming back from a "window shopping" trip to Detroit. Although I was under age, like 18 or 19, they didn't seem to care....lucky me. They were good times back then!

• I like all of the store signs. Now they are grossly plain (ie: Rear illuminated boxes with no style); unless of course you are on the DWBIA board and then you will have some things done to your building complimants of the other members of the DWBIA financial contributions that they are focred to pay...we know who you are!

• Ken i'm not blaming it on eddie it's just that it's not the way that he's trying to sell it to the public your only in your 30's well it will never be the way it was back then if you were able to see it the way it is in the photos it would blow your mind the way it's been degraded hell! Ottawa st and Tecumseh road have more character and vibrancy than ouellette does

• I remember going downtown with my dad in the 60's and my job was to find a parking spot, yes parking on the street, even Ouellette, as you can see in the photos. Maybe in this car town that's a necessity. It added to the fun of going downtown, along with the great retail shopping we had back then.

• Robert,
  The misconception of no parking downtown is what still irks people. There is so much parking available downtown and most of it is free for the first hour (in the garages).

  The DWBIA has yet to dis-spell this rumour and I don't know why they don't start a campaign.

  Devonshire mall does have free parking but do people realize that once you park in the vast parking lot (with smaller and smaller spaces) you are futher from your destination (ie store in the mall) than if you were to park downtown and walk a small block?

  The problem is perception. People see the mall as one entity, not realizing that they are still walking to their store from where they parked. Whereas downtown you do not see your destination until you go around a corner or walk up to the store.

  It is closer to park downtown than it is to park as the mall!

  But I digress. I say bring back on street parking and on the side roads such as Chatham or Pitt, put angled parking so more cars can fit on the street.

• Dave.........THANK YOU!
  The mall covers 65 acres. Lay that over downtown and this is
  Basically what you're looking at:

  Northside along Riverside:
  Goyeau to Bruce
  Westside along Bruce:
  Riverside to just short of Wyandotte
  Southside:
  Bruce to Goyeau, give or take
  And then back to the drive.

  I took these rough measurements with the ruler tool on wikimapia,
  but you get the idea. It covers, with room to spare, anywhere you want
  to go downtown!

• Interesting the way they doctored the photo. I guess with low-resolution black-and-white print you could get away with blurring and highlighting by hand.

• Fond memories. I remember cruising down to the foot of ouellette where the big xmas tree stood with family. Loved shopping down there when I lived downtown in the 80s. Sad how Detroit's downtown and many others ended up like ours as people drifted more and more to the burbs. : (