This oriental grocery store on Wyandotte St. W. between Bruce and Church is one of those buildings in town with a secret past.
As featured in the December 31, 1929 issue of the Windsor Star, the building began life as a Nash Dealership.
Other than some relatively small changes to the fenestration, the building looks remarkably similar to how it did when it was built in 1929.
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I loved seeing this picture. My grandfather was Charles Baum, of the Baum & Brody furniture store, which occupied this building for many years. I have fond memories of playing in the great old store when we came to visit. (My mother, Charlie's daughter, went to college in the US; I was born in the US, and grew up in Maryland). I particularly loved riding in the rickety, manually-operated elevator and playing with the ancient telephone switchboard, all cables and sockets.
Way back in the late 1960's this building was owned by Robert (Bob) Galt, who ran it as the Windsor Automobile Museum. It was hardly ever open in the front, but if you went around the back Bob was always doing something with the cars inside the back or outside at the fenced-in yard. There was a large grassy area behind him running the full block down the alley. He had antique cars and furniture and car parts in the front on display and tons of parts stocked in the back. It was not the Nash dealership then, although he was frequently seen driving his Nash metropolitan "Playboy" 2-tone roadster.
Is Bob Galt the guy that has that old car museum at the corner of Laurier & Matchette? (I think that's where it's at). It looked like it was inside an old grade school. I toured that facility once several years ago with a buddy of mine. The cars he has are incredible. Even a Cadillac V-12, from the late '20s, early '30s. Yet nobody even knows about this place.