Another recent arrival at the IM.com archives was a bunch of old Windsor promotional material from the mid to late 1970’s.
The “vintage” Devonshire Mall ad below graced the back cover of the 1976 “Guide to Windsor and district” brochure. I’ll post more from the brochure over the coming weeks.
YUCK!!! lol i remember that look, with them freaky statues up by the roof.
thanks andrew!
Where’s “Leisure World”?
Where’s the people? The Shopper’s Drug Mart next to the Food Court is normally packed on the evenings and weekends. I guess they were still flocking to downtown back then.
Where is that naked statue on the wheel? I wonder where it went?
I notice they make a point to mention that the mall has parking for “over 4500 cars”…….sprawl and development designed around life in cars……
And thus the cancerous tumour grows, feeding off the main streets and shops of cities and towns alike.
From the Star’s Yesterday’s Cryptoquote ” Drive-In banks were invented so that automobiles could visit their real owners”…and I add malls!
This is the look of Devonshire I remember as a kid, if only for the benches. I was prone to running around the sunken garden (my family referred to it as “the pit”) and having staff page my parents in Miracle Mart whenever I was “lost”. Spent many hours browsing books in the Coles on the right.
I hit Devonshire once a year and further expansions/renovations/shifting of stores make it feel alien to me.
It reminds me of the mall in the original “Dawn of the Dead”.
leisure world ruled….and the does anyone remember the creepy statue in front of Simpson’s. Very Dawn of the dead, for all of you horror fans.
leisure world ruled….and the does anyone remember the creepy statue in front of Simpson’s. Very Dawn of the dead indeed, Ken.
Besides Sears and Simpsons, what were the other two “major department stores” back then?
What about Dominion Playworld? That place was awesome!
It looks like pretty standard mid-sized indoor mall construction for its day. Basically what they did was build a double sided strip center and put a roof over it, giving it a bowling alley effect. It wasn’t until later in the decade that indoor malls began to have side halls and food courts. Build one like that today and it would look very dated……
Ahhh…we had Dominion Playworld back in Hamilton when I was a kid too–the best place to go pre Toys R Us.
As for department stores–the anchors at the time of this ad would’ve been Simpsons, Sears, Miracle Mart and Smith’s (ultimately Marks & Spencer). The two story “box” which was Smith’s is still visible from the EC Row, now housing GoodLife and SportChek…and the script “Simpsons” logo is still plainly visible as a “labelscar” on the outside of The Bay.
Oh man, those benches were there forever! Leisure World…I still have my Wonder Woman backpack from there! Do you remember the stop and go that served the best french fries? My mum didn’t like it much though as it wasn’t the cleanest place and we were pov in the 80s anyway. We had specific stops…Buster Brown, Sears, BiWay, ugh!
Wasn’t Sears called back then Simpson Sears?
At one point Sears Canada went by the name Simpson Sears–however, Devonshire had both a Simpson-Sears and a Simpson’s…the Simpson’s chain was swallowed up by the The Bay which now occupies the Devonshire Simpson’s location.
Indeed the benches were there for a long time–I moved to the area in 1993, and though the rest of the decor had changed–those benches remained–as Shoppers and Kinney remained in the locations shown in the photo until Shoppers move to the 2001 expansion and Kinney’s disappearance altogether. I see Elks in that photo–another mall stalwart of the 70s/80s.
The Simpson’s came later, in the first expansion, around 1974. At which point the Simpson-Sears became a Sears.
The Simpson’s came to the mall in the first expansion in 1974. Then the Simpson-Sears was renamed Sears, although you could see the marks of the Simpson-Sears sign behind the Sears one for many years. The Simpsons eventually became the Bay.
I might be wrong but I think the infamous tornado of 1974 that took the roof off of the old Curling Club delayed the completion of Simpson’s for a year or two. For some reason Simpson’s never caught on in Windsor and the store was renamed the Bay in the early 1980’s. Gas was still being sold by the imperial gallon at your local Sunoco in the 70’s.
For the Devonshire Mall’s grand opening they had a raffle. No purchase required. You only needed to fill out a ballot. My friends and I were all just hitting driving age and we filled hundreds of ballots out. A girl from our group ( Anne Stevenson ) won the the car.
It was believe it or not a 1970 yellow Toyota Corolla. It was a boxy ugly car. We figured the Japanese cars would never take off in North America. Time has proved us wrong.
Loved this photo. In my youth (born 1979) Devonshite Mall, University Mall and Tecumseh Mall all stand out in my memories – each was a unique version of the other; Devonshire being the mother-ship.
As a child I had a huge “cartoon Map” of the city of Windsor. (You still these around today for places such as Toronto, Vancouver etc) I was always fascinated that The Bay was called “Simpsons”. Speaking of the Bay, I was there recently and on the 2nd floor, the elevator and staircase brought back memories. Does anyone else remember “christmas Land” and the Talking Christmas Tree?
Also, my grandma always took me to eat at the restaurant which had a glass wall overlooking the sunken area. We would always ask for a window seat.
Today I RARELY go to the mall, in fact I avoid it at most costs. Recently when there the preserved Stairwell in the Bay made me wonder; why was the mall better back then? Updated and modern … far more services now, and yet it seems that the DairyQueen, the old Devonshire Cinema (Last film I saw there was Patch Adams in 1999) were so welcoming.
As a child, I LOVED the immense chandilier in the movie theatre lobby … in the early 90’s it vanished and my friend Joti and I used to always ponder where it went – does anyone know??
questions about devonshire mall
1. was the famous players double cinema dolby equiped, or was it just mono?
2. the mall opened on my birthday–august 12th, but not my birthyear–1989, didn’t know that.
3. the mall today has a big black sign that shows the stores at the new part, did they have something like that when it opened?
4. what was the chance of seeing a mono copy of the beatles “help!” (mas-2836) (us/canadian version) in the mall in 1970?
5. what kind of stores selled records, 8 tracks and audio cassettes?
6. was there an a&p in the mall, where did zellers come from?
7. when did other music stores (sam the record man, music world, dr.disc…) show up in the mall?
Some Answers for Elie:
3. they existed, but looked different.
6. The A&P was located where the Chapters/Globo shoes addition now stands. It was originally a “Miracle Food Mart” until the A&P took it over. (I would guess that happened late 1980’s to early 1990’s).
i dug up half a phone book from 1993 and it lists the a&p at devonshire mall., i also found some christmas ads from 86,7, and 88. the a&p is not at the mall, but the other mall which has zellers and sobeys.
A&P only existed in Devonshire Mall for about 4-5 years in the early 1990s. Prior to that it was Miracle Food Mart, and lasted until 95/96 when it closed down. A&P also existed in Tecumseh Mall until the early 90s, as this had been a previous Dominion location. This was the southern anchor to Tecumseh Mall where Marks Work Wearhouse and Shoppers Drug Mart are now.
A&P bought Miracle Mart (Steinbergs),then bought Dominion Stores, that how A&P got locations in Devonshire, and the westend mall,the Tecumseh Mall and Ambasador Mall next to Kmart where Dominion stores. Dominion stores name lived on in Toronto until the name change to Metro.
I was born in 1982 and remember those wooden planters and benches well. They were there a very long time! This picture was back when the hallways weren’t filled with kiosks.
I’m still kinda pissed that a few weeks ago Devonshire Mall’s website had a slide show of old photos (you couldn’t pause it, or anything) and now I can’t find the damn thing.