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.
Andrew, great story…I grew up on Bruce Ave, and passed this building a million times…., and hung out in the park behind it, I would have never have guessed it to be an auto dealership.
Windsor is full of little surprises…….and we appreciate your work discovering them!!
The Old Fish Market/Pogo’s/Loop Building started as a dealership as well.
Looks nice. Good to see a building live on. I am so used to giant dealerships, but back then they didn’t carry inventory, probably a couple of showroom cars, maybe a demo model, and you ordered one and waited. A small footprint. Of course, I haven’t seen too many 08 Nashes running around, so maybe they should have increased the dealership capacity.
It does show that a building can be reused for a different purpose, but likely the floorplan is pretty open, being a dealership with a service area in the rear, no doubt for inventory now. I like that the place is nice and clean, neat awnings, not a bunch of stuff tacked all over the place. They should get an award for preservation.
I have never noticed how styled that building is. Thanks for posting that! Shopped there too!
Great re-use for this beauty. Hopefully we see more of this but I haven’t seen much re-use in the last 5 or 6 years.
Hoa Viet is a great place to shop. Very good selection and great prices as well.
Top notch work.
This is a really nice older area of downtown with a lot of buildings with really nice classical architecture. My favourite is the old Essex Linen building, a couple blocks from there at Wyandotte and Caron which was turned into offices..
Walking through this neighbourhood feels a lot like walking through an older part of downtown Hamilton or Toronto. Doesn’t even seem like Windsor.
I noticed that tomorrow in downtown Detroit from 11-3pm is Doors Open Detroit. Anyone know if it’s similar to Doors Open Windsor. I can’t find any other info on it.
Would be very interested in seeing a sneak preview of the Book Cadillac if it’s on the list.
that’s a very cool building….i can’t beleive i’ve never taken a good look at that place. beautiful.
and look how BIG cars have gotten!!! that ’29 whateverthehell is only taking up half that window, i bet that malibu would hardly fit in the whole thing!
and as for NASH…..i think they started making skatboards in the end if i’m not mistaken LOL!
allenparkpete – are you sure about the loop? i was always told it started life as a place where they kept horses and their coaches….hence the name “the coach and horse”. and then maybe the upper floors would have been for the drivers or visitors who had parked their horses there.
Aaron – allenparkpete is right. The building that houses the Loop was bult around 1912, and was a Ford Dealership
wow that’s crazy. does that include the floor the loop occupies? probly offices,eh? there looks like there used to be an enormous skylight up there at some point.
as always, the info i find on here astounds me. thanks andrew!
Aaron, After the Ford dealership the LOop turned into Baum & Brody’s Furniture store…you can still see remains of the painted sign on the east side of the building.
Where was the parking lot for this former Ford dealership now known as the Loop?
Outstanding find. I too walked/rode by this building hundreds of times while growing up in the area – I believe it may have been a cleaners then – without noticing its unique character. Back then it was bikes and girls.
I recall a big open space directly behind, out-of sight of the streets, stretching all the way to the backyards of houses fronting on Elliott. This treeless expanse was dominated by a large down at-the-heels but still imposing structure. I remember a flagpole, balconies… We used to refer to the area as “the bowling green” without knowing why. Obviously it must have been a lawn bowling club at one time and the structure was the clubhouse. Anyone remember this place or know anything of its history?
The before and after is perfect example of what is wrong with our signage bylaws of today. And, like the Nash sign when things used to be better.
Just like the BMO building,(stil standing?) those huge backlit signs have no busines plastered to the face of the building. How many times and how big does a business name need to be repeated on the faced of buildings in the public realm? It degrades the area and streetscape as a whole! What does it take to get this bylaw change?
Back in the late 60’s this building was a car museum, an gentleman by the name of Bob Galt used it for a museum, he later moved to an building in LaSalle. I was in it once as I brought some parts from him for an 1940 Ford pickup I was restoring then. The place was packed with parts.
Back in the late 60’s this building was a car museum, an gentleman by the name of Bob Galt used it for a museum, he later moved to an building in LaSalle. I was in it once as I brought some parts from him for an 1940 Ford pickup I was restoring then. The place was packed with parts.
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.