Downtown Windsor – 1959

View Comments

• At the very least the Ren Cen is Detroit's signature building. See a pic of that and you think Detroit, like the TransAmerica building for SF or the Sears Tower for Chicago.

  What is the building at the lower left under construction?

  At least the riverfront is opened up, I can't imagine it full of factories and rail road tracks. I do recall the plywood palace, glad that is gone.

  Any word on the old riverside brewery buildings with the sand piles? Every time I go by I wonder why those are still standing. I don't like the sand piles either, though.

• Oops. I missed that the TD Bank building. What was there before it?

• Amazing. All that demolition and they stil haven't got it right!

• This is just pure insanity. I wonder how Windsor's demo rate compares to other cities?

• Kari....not even close. We have destroyed so much of our history and yet most people don't give a crap. Wonder why there isn't any ambiance downtown or anywhere else in this cookie-cutter city? The above shows that the city itself cares only for building permits to pay today what they can't pay for tomorow.

• I recall, the downtown core was vibrant and very active in the late 1950's. I clearly remember almost all the buildings and areas that are red hi-lighted in this photograph - although some are vague, especially around the old river front brewery near Bruce and Riverside and the Windsor Market area.

  On another note: Windsor also had newly built shopping centers in our 1950's/60's South Windsor 'hood' when I was a kid - Yorktown Square on Grand Marais, Gateway Plaza and Dorwin Plaza, both on Dougall.

  I ask this question... Was the design and building of the suburban shopping center with well lit and safe free parking, the first step toward the downfall of a city's downtown core? Or was it something else?

• very very cool

• Yikes. All the more reason to get going on that canal going instead of restoring the armouries or the old bus depot. We should probably tear down the bridge company's houses in Sandwich for good measure.

• Scott, I think "suburban shopping" was the beginning of the end for the downtown, and Devonshire Mall was the "Coupe de Grace"... If that top photo extended a little more to the bottom left, there would be even more demolished buildings; The old Monarch Tavern on the corner of Pelissier % Wyandotte W... a giant four plex of houses behind Coulter's Camera shop that stood at 560-566 Pelissier (in which I grew up in!) and another big four plex that stood next to the old Kilarney Tavern on Wyandotte ...

• wow...i knew we lost alot downtown but that photo really puts things into perspective