This postcard is a neat view of Ouellette Avenue looking south from just south of Chatham Street. Both the buildings you see on the south side of University are no longer around. On the left hand side was the old Heintzman Building, demolished with the old Palace in 1986, on the right hand side is the Labelle Building, designed by J.C. Pennington & C. Howard Crane. It burned down in a spectacular fire in the 1950’s.
The two buildings on the right in the foreground are now home to the Chanosos’ complex, and look at all that on street parking on the left… 🙂
An antique shop in Erieau has a framed 8×10 of that fire in progress on the wall.
Spectacular indeed!
Too bad there isn’t more on street parking. If people want to know why some don’t come downtown, that is just another reason. Oh, I am sure some will say there is plenty of parking downtown which there is but compared to most other places in the city where you can park beside, in front or behind a business it just doesn’t compete. People are lazy and even though most parking downtown is closer than parking in the mall lot, people will perceive parking downtown to be a hassle.
I always thought even as a kid that the demolistion of the palace block was a stupid move by the city and I was only 13 years old at the time.