A neat old view looking north along Ouellette from the intersection of Wyandotte.
So many lost buildings and lost signs. The street was jammed and commerce was bustling.
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You wouldn’t think that was the same intersection. I can hardly believe it myself actually… Though I have only been alive for about 20 years so…
Wow. Is there even a single thing here that is the same as the present?
Well, the Penobscot Building is still across the river in Detroit.
The Canada Building is clearly visible in the photo. Also, I’d bet the shops on the east side of the street, from Slices ‘n Squares, to The Manchester are in the photo, but you really can’t make them out. Same goes for the old shops across the street from them.
None the less, if someone from 1940 time traveled to now they wouldn’t really recognize anything. That’s not the way it should be. Modern mixes are fine, but revamping everything and knocking most down is tyrannical.
What a nice looking city it was. No bars. No bullshit. Just a nice downtown where people could go and spend an afternoon. We will never get that back ….
Well really you can still spend an afternoon downtown. Just… differently.
the road was wider back then too not like the bullshit we have today city council and their affinity for islands seeing this photo brings back memories and angers me when I see what we have downtown today….nothing!!
just past Meretskyies we had Antonelli’s Radio Tavern and on the west side of the street something not seen in Windsor anymore awnings on store fronts Ah! the memories
Ok, I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. Every time I see one these on postcard shots of Windsor, especially downtown, I expect and see the usual knee jerk comments of how everything in the past was good and everything in the present is bad. Spare me. People post comments of the good ‘ol days in 1940 or other early eras, a time before they were probably even born. It was a different time and is it really fair to compare downtown now to the way it was 73 years ago? I would love to see the downtown I grew up with in the ‘70’s with a thriving retail area and without drunks running around at night especially on weekends. But I don’t see how just mooning about the past will move the city forward.
Amen brother
Left center in the picture is the back side of a large sign. Is that the old “Stop, Stay, Save, Play” neon that used to entice me from the Detroit side?
Actually, Doug, that’s the front side of a sign that reads something to the effect of “Pascoe’s Clothes for Men and Boys(?)” The sign you’re thinking of is obscured by the Prince Edward Hotel – which is that really nice red brick building at the right hand side of the street. That sign was located on top of a building that still stands, the Tunnel Ventilation Building, on University Avenue.
Duncan, in many ways I agree with you. I sometimes find it painfully annoying how shiny and happy and idealized people make the past, when it had its own host of problems and idiots and drunks, and assholes, like we do today. It’s human nature, though. People tend to idealize the past because they were kids and they were happy then, so it happens. Look at that picture. It looks like something out of a movie. Throw in some streetcars, a light dusting of snow and some people walking down the street in overcoats and you’ve got one gorgeous mid-sized city right out of a novel.
I think one of the things that hurt Windsor’s downtown (arguably as much as Devonshire Mall) was the Great Depression. Have a look through the archives here at the “Unbuilt Windsor” buildings, and just imagine what this city could have looked like. We’d live in an art deco wonderland with TWO major industries – steel and cars – had it not been for that depression. The cynic in me tells me that the short-sighted people who ran this city in the 1970s and 80s would have simply torn everything down when it needed a simple refurbishment and replaced it with surface parking because it was “too old” but who knows?
All I know for sure is that if I have to hear one more time how awesome the Hi Ho was, or how good those potato chips that came in a can tasted compared to modern potato chips I’m gonna plotz.
The Bettermade chips in the cans taste better, and so did all the other chips, they where cooked in fat, not low calorie oil like today. Food did taste better because burgers where made fresh with seasoning, not thawed cooked.
If we had food like the good old days the fat police would be over it. Buy a box of frozen preformed burgers, less prep time, less taste.
Hooray for memories.
Duncan i’m not mooning about the old days the point i’m trying to make is back then there were things to do downtown on the weekend these days other than the casino there’s nothing to do unless you want to bar hop
Less prep time, less work goes into meals. The foods are full of salt and chemicals to make them not taste as if they were made a couple of years ago and freeze dried. As long as the food is fresh and without newfangled chemicals to replace natural ingredients (eg. HFCS, etc) the food wil taste just as good as it did, then. The problem is finding that. Nostalgia has a powerful effect on the mind.
Doug i think the sign your referring to was ounted on the Hiram walker silos
The sign on the Walker building was to promote Walker brands when it was still owned by the Hatch family. The sign about shopping was as mentioned downtown.
The optimist in me would like to think that downtown could be what it was in it’s heyday but the realist thinks that’s unlikely. I give credit to those who are sincerely trying to help the core. I know it can be a frustrating and uphill battle. If I had any brilliant ideas to help I would, but I don’t. We can certainly learn from the past but whether we apply those lessons is another story all together. Don’t even get me going on the Norwich block fiasco. Good points Brendan, thanks and believe me Gary, I understand what you’re saying.
Despite the Depression, Ouellette Ave was bustling during the 40s and 50s when I was growing up in Windsor and attending Assumption College. From Park, just out of focus in this photo, Outlette was a busy place. I bought shoes at a big store there (name started with a W), worked at Jo-Ann’s dress shop while in HS, bought my wedding china at Birk’s, got many silver antiques from the Old Gold Shop for wedding gifts, had my wedding dinner at the Prince Edward Hotel, went to movies at the Capito, ate at the Tunnell Bar B Que, and generally lived downtown all during WWII, except when I sneaked across the river to shop illegally in Detroit. It was Devonshire Mall that killed downtown.
Gary, That is the Canadian Club sign you are referring to. Doug is correct about the sign he remembers. It used to be on the top of the tunnel air exchange building.
I would love to have city hall bring back on street parking…and free parking on Saturdays. That would definitely help downtown. Why they got rid of the on street parking is beyond me.
I remember as a pre-teen going downtown and just wandering the Ouellette Ave. corridor, taking in a show going to the Nut house, and not having a worry, this was in the late fifties and into the sixties, it was a world to explore, Then comes the later sixties and someone gets a car and your whole world changes, no more bus trips downtown, dances football games and growing up. Carefree until responsibilities start creeping in, but the carefreeness of the fifties still brings a smile to my face. Loved it downtown and always will.
I think I would take the street in 1920 over 1940. East side of Ouellette was a beautiful garden owned by St.Mary’s Academy. The grand old Academy was on the corner of Park Street. North of that was a park later occupied by the Prince Edward Hotel. The Tunnel may have been the worst thing to happen to downtown.