From the Evening Record – February, 1914:
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The first three-story building for the new business section on Pitt Street between Goyeau and Ouellette avenues, will be erected by Mr. Peter Osterhout. Plans have been prepared by Leybourne & Whitney, architects. Clay brick will be used in the construction.
Looks like this one sat where the parking garage is today, or possibly the Dean Martini’s site, although the dimensions don’t match. There were a lot of good looking buildings downtown at one time. I’m going to put this one into the realm of lost Windsor.
i love the density of the buildings in the core area back then too bad it’s still not that way these days
i noticed the ventilation building for the tunnel in the upper left corner of the photo where would the bus station in those days have been located
Was there a fire or something? What happened to all of the these wonderful buildings?
Apart from the tunnel ventilation building, what other buildings have survived?
No fire…just the city doing what is does best here…demo buildings for short term gain.
Now let me ask you all. Would you rather the parking garage we have or the fine looing buildings in the picture above? I will even throw in a few surface lots in case you like those too.
What I don’t get is all of the surface lots in downtown. There are way too many to be profitable (but land taxes are dirt cheap on these lots). So why doesn’t the city enact a by-law or two to make sure these surface lots are landscaped or at the very least lit up?
No wonder our downtown looks like a dog’s breakfast. Well, I think it is looking more like a gap-toothed whore and city hall is the pimp (at least some councillors are getting it, that leveling buildings ins’t the answer).
Sad that our downtown was more dense and even larger than it is today.
Ok, done my rant.
Dave.. This is why we need a land tax vs. a property tax in the city’s core neighbourhoods.
Check out this Strong Towns video… its GOLD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VhNGdb-fZE&feature=youtu.be
I’ll take the density any day of the week it makes me wish the mall would have never came along take the goyeau street corridor it’s practically parking lots from giles to the river except for a couple derelict buildings here and thereit seems like eddie and the herd are trying to shift the core to the west side of Ouellette bus station,, the glorified swimming pool
The corridor is now being hampered more by taking the tunnel plaza expansion, and changing it to usless north south route. northbound turn left or right at Wyandotte, southbound turn right at Park.Does this make sense? The tunnel use is going down now, and with another new crossing in the future why this now?
If the federal and provicial goverments want to spend money in Windsor, their are many road and sewer repairs that could be financed.
There are still some pretty neat buildings around. They have almost screwed up the old Pasadena building at 1442 Wyandotte St. E. Still a good looking bulding.
I wonder what percentage of 1920s and older downtown is left? 10% maybe?
Disgusting.
I wonder if this could have been the Windsor Recreational building. It had Gans Chinese restaurant on the main floor and the top two floors housed a bowling alley – five pin and ten pin.
yes it was located more closer too ouellette and pitt. and if i do remember correctly that building did meet a fire back in 70’s cause the old bowling alley on pitt did burn.
So, the Tunnel Ventilation building is still there. The Osterhout Building is definitely where the parking garage is now. It looks like the 3 buildings behind and to the left of that are still there (possibly). The Ouellette house is still there and in that picture, not all covered up in crap. One thing I noticed comparing this picture to old, is that The United Grill is build around an old house. The second floor and roof still survive to this day. The original house is in the old picture. Papa Chene’s is in the old and still standing.
Out of all of those, I think that’s all that’s left. Did I miss anything?