From the Windsor Daily Star August 26, 1949:
- One of the city’s familiar landmarks has disappeared with the demolition of the tower of the former Bruce Avenue Baptist Church to make way for the new Bethel Pentecostal Church at London Street West and Bruce Avenue. On the new foundation a basement church already in use. The superstructure of the new building, when it is completed, will be another important adornment for the site which has been devoted to church work since the early 1880’s. Above is a view of the tower during the last days of its demolition this month (Star Staff Photo)
Bruce Avenue Baptist Church moved to Victoria, and built the Temple Baptist Church in the mid 1920’s. That is today the Downtown Mission. The Bethel Pentecostal group rented the Bruce Avenue site for many years before buying it from the Baptists. They then demolished the old Church and built the new one in 1949. Along came arena expropriation, and the site is today a parking lot.
i wonder if that tree on the map is the tree in the picture…..
look at that housing stock in the background! i always find it interesting that in just about any old photo, there is someone, somewhere completly unassociated with the photo, posing for that camera no matter how far they are from it. at least that’s what i assume those two folks to the left are doing.
thanks for the post Andrew!
by the way……how is it that little patch of green at Caron and Chatham hasn’t been included in the display at the City Center West Parkatorium? hmmmm….that little block kinda demonstrates the stages of housing in Windsor’s core if you quarter it and go counter clockwise. first it’s residential, then the house has a buisness move in, then it gets levelled and either left as a grssey patch or turned into a parking lot.
….and parking lot and parking lot and parking lot and parking lot!
They will still be parking lots for another 20 years and downtown will continue to lose it’s neighbourhoods unless we focus on attracting residents/families downtown. In order to do that we need to have a reason for these people to move to the downtown area.
If you can find any more shots of the area it would be greatly appreciated. Interesting to see so many houses there (and some nice ones too!).
Aaron, unfortunately no. The trees were almost all removed save a few on Chatham.
“Along came arena expropriation, and the site is today a parking lot.” A downtown arena?? What were they thinking???!!!! Actually attracting people to the downtown area??? Had they followed through with this we would not have the magnificent downtown we have today. And there would be no room for that visionary canal…
And downtown infrastructure would have been in much better shape. Instead, heavy investment was made in extending infrastructure to the fringes.
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.
That’s something I’d also love to see, ME. Shots of what used to be there before the “progress” started.
Looking at your site and passing over the Google map reminded me that Windsor Street View is now Up. I moved over Ottawa St and Ouellete (downtown). There are no people! I don’t know what time they took the pictures but the city looks almost deserted.
I seem to recall, as a kid, that the church had a Jesus Saves sign in the shape of a cross over the front entrance facing University . London Street is maybe in my memory banks?
VP – thanks for the tip! and that’s not just windsor…it’s just about every highway in ontario!
Robert, was it a blue cross? Because I remember a blue cross that was lit up at night.
Yes, it was neon possibly with red, blue letters. do a google search for images – “Jesus Saves” . You’ll see some photos of similar signs.
i think this idea the mayor has wanting to put a canal in this western area is the dumbest thing i’ve ever heard does he really expect this to fly??
This church was torn down to build University Gospel Temple. My great-grandfather was one of the people who turned the sod in a ceremony before UGT was built. Eventually, the congregation grew very large and Parkwood Gospel Temple was build off of Central in the late 80s. My mom’s side of my family has been involved in that church since the 1920s, when it began in a private home of a pastor.
UGT was the first church I ever went to and I have very good memories there, and of my great grandmother who was one of the most brilliant and amazing people I’ve ever met and who passed away in 1990. I have an interior photo of this church that was taken during the early 40s. You can tell it was the early 40s because there were no young men in the congregation – just old folks, women and kids.
It’s really belated, but thanks for posting this Andrew, it really brought back a lot of good memories for me.
Also – I believe it was torn down to suit the very large congregation. In the photo I have the place is packed, and that’s not even counting all the young men who were fighting in WWII. Beautiful building, but thats the way they did it back then, to them it was progress…
To poster me yes it was a blue cross now that you mentioned it as i do remember there was some building there of some type before the parking lot came along an now using it for pool crap. wonder how long it will stay up when done before torn down.