Pacific Park

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• english speaking.. geesh... ive seen some posters and stuff like this from detroit in the 40's and 50's that even "stricter criteria" for its new residents.

• Shane, I've seen those as well, even deed restrictions from Detroit that specified the colour of one's skin... However this is the first time I came across anything similar for Windsor.

• For a compelling account of how this kind of stuff destroyed Detroit, check out Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit by Thomas J. Sugrue. The only sociological work I've ever read I couldn't put down.

• There was a neighborhood petition in the 1950s to try to keep my grandparents out of South Walkerville. Yellow Peril.

• I wonder if the language policy was aimed at local French Canadians rather than immigrants? Back then there were small communities in the county where you would hear mainly French spoken on main street or in the church. That led to anglo newcomers feeling unwelcome and tension between the groups. My elementary school was segregated into French and English wings and parents debating who got the most funding.

• I think rws is correct -- and Windsor had/has quite a big French Canadian population.

• wow this is a new one to me, I grew up in Sandwich east, lost most of my neighbourhood to the expressway, I thought I knew a lot of history of the area, but never heard of this one. wish my dad was still alive, he would have know what this is all about.

• Amazing that even in 1925, there was a fear of the automobile. Automobiles weren't nearly as ubiquitous back then, but apparently they had already taken over the roads to the point that they weren't safe for people.

• rws - No I don't think it was aimed at French Canadians as this ad below ran the next month:

  The ad above makes reference to living with English and French speaking people:

  It was one month after the one in today's post, so maybe there was an uproar and they needed to specify that it wasn't the French they were worried about...

  I am assuming the "new park" near their property is today's Memorial Park.

• From the City of Windsor website:
  OPTIMIST MEMORIAL PARK

  1075 Ypres Boulevard, between Elsmere and Gladstone Avenues

  Frank L. Mallory Optimist-Memorial Park provides more than 50 acres parkland.

  Originally named Senator Kennedy Park, Memorial Park was first established in 1925. The site boasts a magnificent stand of mature oak trees, as well as soft maple, white ash, walnut, red cedar, spruce, pine, basswood, wild cherry, witch hazel, thorn apple, elm, hickory, silver maple, and wild crab apple.

  Optimist Park was developed as an extension of Memorial Park in 1949. In 1974, the Optimist Community Centre was officially opened, and it quickly established itself as an integral part of both the South Walkerville community and the Memorial-Optimist Park Complex.

  Thus Memorial Park was not adjacent to this subdivision and the park in question is Remington Park (the Park) which has apparently shrunk considerably since this date. And as sometimes happens the park has given its name to the community