Today’s photo comes courtesy of regular reader Mark, it was taken by his grandfather William Rudkin around 1927 from the ferry to Detroit.
The quality and sharpness on those old photographs is simply outstanding. The detail can really take you back in time…
This detail crop of Ouellette and Riverside (sorry about the colour correction… 🙂 ) is interesting as it appears to show a traffic signal cop in the middle of the intersection with a streetcar behind him. The low-rise building behind the cigar sign is still there on Ouellette (home to Wooley Bully’s today), and along with a small part of the Manning House Hotel one block south are the only buildings in the entire photograph still standing.
In 80 years, without even a major catastrophe to blame, we have managed to completely wipe our built heritage from downtown Windsor. Sad.
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amazing how many buildings used to be in that block between the river and riverside drive. sad how they were all taken down. or burned down. not sure what happened to them all.
Darren, they were all demolished in the mid 1950's for Dieppe Park.
Thanks to Mark and Andrew. Outstanding photos!
I guess that was back when we had a downtown. It is too bad the various mayosr and councils have slowly but surely killed it.
With regards to Wolly Bolly's too bad they can't take off the stucco and retore the upper windows again...facade grant anyone?
As for the Manning House it too will be gone shortly once another bank decides to play new kid on the block and once again tears down our history and the entire block...whoopee for so called progress!
Question: Regarding the first two picks of the ferry dock- is the picture taken basically from the water and the first block being what now exists as the Dieppe space? If that's the case, was there an East to West road that ran along side the river or did Ouellette basically end at the river?
Colin there was a road that ran along the river. It was called Medbury Lane and it ran one block east before ending and turning north into Station St. That same configuration is still there today, with the second entrance to Dieppe just east of the fountain. To the west it ran to Ferry (1 block) where it jogged a 1/2 block north and ran basically as a dead end alley to Dougall.
Awestruck by this photo. It is very rare that we get to see a photo of the ferry dock vicinity from the north, at the river's edge. And even rarer we get to see such amazing detail of the original buildings that once stood where Dieppe Park is now.
I did a quick Google lookup of the "Home Bank of Canada" which we see on the n/w corner, and found this wiki entry which helps date the photo to possibly even a few years earlier, assuming of course the sign was removed promptly upon its failure in 1923-24.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Bank
Thanks to Mark and the Rudkin family for preserving this rare visual of 1920's Windsor!
If recent media coverage of developers intentions come true, what little there is left today will also be gone in a few years.
Thanks Andrew for the info. One more question about it- you said Medbury turned north into Station street which is the second driveway to Dieppe... I was wondering if the brick road is from that era or possibly even earlier?
I would imagine it's possible, or a worst it's a recreation. It has always seemed odd that that "street" was paved with brick.
The "wall" along the west side of that driveway (what was Station St.) is the foundation to the former Birtish American Hotel. The last building on the north side of Riverside Dr. to fall. It was demolished I think around 1974.
Looks like the Manning House will be demolished according to AM800...
I'm sure Andrew is on top of this. :)
Scooter - I am... I'll have more info on that next week. :)