A few older postcard shots of the Cleary Auditorium. Designed in 1957 by Johnson and McWhinnie, the buidling that was built was a much scaled down version of what the architects had imagined.
Even back then the Mayor and Council meddled in the plans, and the auditorium was shrunken as was the convention space. Plans for a smaller second theatre in the basment were also scrapped. The basement theatre would have been able to share dressing area and technical areas with the larger theatre above.
Instead of a multi-purpose facility, we got the scaled down version that was recently sold to St. Clair College. Almost immediatley the short comings of the truncated facility became evident.
Johnson & McWhinnie were comissioned in 1963 to add a freight elevator (that was removed from the original plans) and a kitchen. In 1966 they were again called on to work on an addition to the building.
Built in 1929, the house at 2177 Victoria Avenue was originally numbered 1545 Victoria, pre…
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Above is a photo of the home of Mr & Mrs Oswald Janisse, located at…
in 1917 two Greek brothers Gus & Harry Lukos purchased a one story building on…
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An unremarkable end to a part of Windsor's history. The large vacant house at 841…
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When I look at the new cleary all I see is the great mouth of the ugly car drop off underneath. It's just a hulking beast now -- though the Ferry side is alright and somewhat ped friendly. Strike that -- it was good when the Norwich block balanced it out -- now that bit of road is like the service road between pet smart and costco (or whatever the big box is).
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I remember the stairwells of the original clearly (cleary) -- sweeping and curving stainless steel rails.
are those actual roses in the garden??? wow...imagine that...rose bushes in the city of roses :)
Speaking of -- does anybody know why Windsor is the City of Roses? Were roses just picked randomly, or is there a reason?
In Grade 6 (no word of a lie) our (catholic school) teacher told us it was so named because of all the abortions that happened in Windsor. Have not heard reference to that since, but I sure didn't forget it.
I heard it was because when the British arrived they found that the French settlers had lots of roses in front of all their buildings, so they renamed the area the City of Roses.
It's really sad how the city demolished the Guest House and gave the Cleary Centre away. They just pissed on civic minded private donors. I'm sure private donors will be lining up to build more civic buildings now. If Belle Isle belonged to Windsor, I'd bet they'd knock down the Scott fountain and replace it with a sandbox or some pointless wadding pool.
David, they would replace it with a parking lot. :)
I never heard abot the abortion thing nor the french/english settlements. As far as I knew it was due to Jackson Park...
The City of Roses seems to show up on more recent documents (ie. last 40-50 years). I doubt it has anything to do with anything that happened in the 17-1800s. I think ME is the closest so far - Sunken Gardens / QE II Gardens. I have a Chamber of Commerce travel brochure for Windsor from the '50s and there is no mention of the "Rose City" in there either.
I have read and heard several times over the years that the 'City of Roses' nickname came from the rose garden in Jackson Park.
I always liked Jackson Park, the sunken gardens. Parents had their wedding pictures taken there, etc.
But just a couple of beds to turn Windsor into "The City of Roses" seems ---- kind of like an artificial marketing ploy. Seems to have caught on. "Rose City Ford" and the like.
Still, it's nice when a nickname corresponds to something deeper or traditional in a city's history. Glad nobody else was told the abortion story though.
The guy who told me that it was named after French settlers was an older tour guide who was doing the free tours at the Downtown Business Association Office on Ouellette St. Perhaps, he meant it was named "Rose City" after the Americans occupied the Canadian side of the Detroit River and they didn't want a connection with British imperialism from the name Sandwich, which referred to the British Earl of Sandwich. Yet, I can't find anything on it in an Internet search. This is baffling.