A few more just sent to me by John Stefani, from the Bernie Drouillard collection.
Many thanks to both of them for their work, in digitizing the collection and making it available for viewing.
This one from July 1975, shows SW&A bus 723
This one from February 1976, shows # 701
The next two are in my opinion are awesome. Look at how vibrant downtown Windsor once was. Ironically, each shot features a downtown building no longer with us.
This shot of bus # 358 dates to July 1967, and was shot in front of the orignial Palace Theatre. Built by architect C. Howard Crane who also designed the Walkerville Theatre locally. The orignial Palace was demolished around 1984, with the current turd Palace opening in 1986 on the same site.
This shot of # 603 from June of 1976, captures the front of the Price Edward Hotel. Opened in the early 20’s the Prince Edward came down in the mid 1970’s. The ugly Scotia Bank mini-tower stands on the site today.
Imagine what an intersting downtown we could have had, if we hadn’t been so quick to tear down everthing.
Sigh.
So, why was the Prince Edward demolished? Did they have a fire? Did it become structurally unsound? Property taxes too high? Was it the lack of parking? I can’t even begin to fathom why they’d let a building like that get demolished That’s a real gem. I bet it even had a really amazing lobby like one of those time period high rise hotels in Detroit. Any pictures of the inside?
From the early 1970’s, to the late 1980’s, I used to walk down Ouellette regularly. This particular block was so interesting – lots of little stores, with great window displays – very dynamic, particularly in the ’70’s. Although I didn’t realize it then, but a lot of the businesses had been there for decades.
I remember the hotel being demolished. I t was derilict – no other reason. Unfortunately adaptive reuse was not a known concept then….although it doesn’t seem to be much in the Windosr planners vocabulary now, either.
The windows of the Prince Edward are now on a privately owned building in LaSalle (I believe at the corner of Laurier and Matchette). The building houses old cars (somewhat of a museum) that a person sells from time to time.
There are some fascinating cars there.
Can someone refresh my memory here? Was the Palace completely knocked down or stripped to the girders and rebuilt, like the CAW Centre? I know this will make little difference to some, but I was out of town for that period, so the memory is weak.
Jim, I wasn’t here in Windsor yet, but from what I understand it was demolished, and started fresh.
i have some photos of the old palace i shot from the roof of the royal windsor terrace when i lived there in the early 80s. it just shows on the sign that their last show will take place at a certain date, i believe sometime in 1985. i’m not sure if i emailed them to you before. i’ll try to find your email to send them again.
Yes, it went right down to mother earth.
In the final days of the old Palace, I can’t recall it being the place to go to see new major releases either. Seems they were always showing stuff like The Wall, Tommy, Rocky Horror, etc., which was not necessarily “bad” but standards for movie theatres were changing by then. I’m not sure if they could have retrofitted that facility or not for the jumbo seats, bigger screens (without marks on them), etc. that people are now expecting for $10 admission. Oddly enough, my fondest memories of movie-going are from those crappy old theatres – not Silver City, et al. The reduced admission was nice too.
Funny, but I believe that most of those buses are still in Windsor Transit’s fleet.
Actually, none of those are still in the fleet.
The two 1960s ones are of course long gone.
Of the GM Fishbowls there are only two left (neither are pictured above). 912 and I forget the other fleet number, but both are nearing 30 years of service for Transit Windsor! 701, pictured above, was actually the first of the Fishbowls to join the fleet and of course is also long gone.
I’m not sure when downtown Windsor began its’ decline into decrepitude, but I’d have to guess it began in the late 70’s when Smith’s, Adelman’s, Metroplitan and Steinberg’s bit the dust. In the 80’s and 90’s we lost Kresge’s, Woolworth’s, Cole’s books, the Capitol and Vanity theatres and Sam the Record Man.Then came the kiddie bars and Casino Windsor and whatever life was left in the old downtown was sucked out forever.
The current Palace is nearly identical to the one in Kitchener — so Famous Players just repeated the design in various places.
andrew could you find pics of when devonshire mall was first built or what it looked like in the early years?
Funny enough… I was just at the food court at the Vaughan Mills mall today and a few paintings of the King Edward and a few other heritage buildings from Windsor are suspended from the ceiling.
Are you guys absolutely positive the old Palace was demolished?? I asked a friend who used to work for the Post Office this and this guy has a photographic memory of the city. I can give him any address of a historical building in the city and he can describe to me in great detail what the building looks like or what changes were made.. He said he never saw the building being demolished. He said all he remembers seeing was the front being redone. He said that if you were to remove the stucco, you’d see parts of the building still there.
Perhaps, someone checking with the city to see if a demolition permit was issued would clarify the issue.
David, 100% sure they are not the same building. The footprint was much smaller, as there was a 4 or 5 story building that was also demolished immediatley north of the palace. That was the Heintzman Building originally, and it was on the corner of University and Ouellette. Both structures were demolished to make way for the new palace.
Maybe your postie friend is thinking of Frankencleary. It was semi-torn apart and put back together using parts of the original as well as additions.
David I watched them demolish the old Palace The only thing that was left of the old Palace by early 1986 was a hole in the ground. The new Palace theater was built by Chuck Mady and opened with much fanfare in the fall of 1987.
The bus No 358 was actually a Faegol Twin Coach which actually had two engines!!! On in the rear and of course, one in the front. They were used exclusively on the Ottawa St route. The other older bus was a GM precursor to the ‘fishbowl’ models which only had a two speed automatic gearbox which made for a noisy ride. The GM buses for some odd reason were used only on Sundays. I reckon the faegols were from the early 50’s and the GM’s mid to late 50’s.
I can recall the Palace Theatre being damaged by the use of , ‘Sensurround’ sound system during a showing of The Battle of Midway in 1976. This system used huge loud speakers to simulate low frequency sounds like airplanes taking off. The extreme low-frequencies damaged the fabric of the building and things began to fall off the walls.
i love all the flags out front of the norton palmer something that isn’t present on the ouellette of today
correction Prince Edward