837 Felix – Return To The Crooked House

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• It looks like someone "borrowed" the plantings from the front and rear yard too.

• why are houses boarded up on felix? that shouldn't have anything to do with the bridge would it? also just about everything along the ETR on edison is boarded up too. Now those are nowhere near the bridge....i wonder if ETR is planning to double track their mainline?

  any ideas Andrew?

• Aaron--I may be wrong, but I'm not aware of any purchase activity by ETR/CP in that area as far as expanding their right-of-way. To the best of my knowledge any and all of the properties that are boarded up/vacant in the area west of the bridge and Huron Church Road have been bought by CTC (the bridge) and it's various entities. I believe they have a grand plan (that no one has laid eyes on) that envisions a large truck processing plaza, access roads, etc, that would carve up the west end--hence the seeming randomness of the properties they've purchased...would be interesting to plot the vacancies on a satellite map of the area to see if there is any discernable pattern.

• thanks JT - i thought it was really odd about the houses on edison especially. thanks CTC, nothing like tearing up the oldest continuously populated town west of montreal. i wouldn't think that ETR was busy enough to double track the main anyways. if they didn't need it thru the past 100 years when they were actually busy, they certainly don't need it now or any time soon!
  you can see all the houses on edison on streetview...so they've been that way for at least a year now. you might be able to make some kinda map out of it.

• oh and Andrew, since we're spending some time on Felix this week, my Mom was a westender going up on Wigle, she just recently told me of an old fire house which i found to be around at 1058 felix. she said it wasn't a fire house anymore even when she was a kid, but she could be remembering wrong. sure looks like one though and since ...as far as i know the city is lacking in old halls, i thought you might be interested in covering it.
  the only ones i know of are this one and the one in riverside on lauzon i beleive, next to the modern hall.

  i was taking her around the old hood on streetview the other day and it was really saddening to hear her stories about where they would hang out, stores like the "edison" at edison and brock, a triangle shaped building. or a store named "rosies" at 3576 bloomfeild..i guess that could have been the girls name behind the counter. all of these momentos of her past are boarded up or riddled with crack heads....it just makes me real sad is all :(

• Aaron: Not only are houses boarded up on Edison but there are some on Bloomfield near Prince Road. That is nearly a couple of kilometers from the bridge. The path is consistent with a truck route which would run from the bridge, parallel to Essex Terminal railway, to the E,C. Row Expressway. The city's border traffic study outlined this "CTC Parkway" starting on page 9 of this document http://www.citywindsor.ca/documents/Windsor_Summaryfinal_1.20.05.pdf
  It has never been approved and thus it is cheaper to snap up the land now

• thanks rws - now, if the city isn't going to let this happen why would the ctc continue to keep these boarded up? what an effing waste of perfectly good homes...in most cases that is.
  what a shame.

• Aaron: You are ahead of what is happening. The city has NOT decided this won't happen because there's been no truck route plan offically provided for approval to the city and province to rule upon. Meanwhile the truck route property continues to be acquired. What we have is a city election coming and likely the request for approval is waiting the outcome of the election. You are right about the loss of good homes, but, I believe, the issue is bigger. Don't overlook that these are homes affordable to low-income families, not to mention the Bloomfield public housing development in the path. Unlike the high-income South Windsor area where the city council rose up to block border-traffic on the expressway and demanded a green corridor, no one is worrying about where the displaced working-poor will find homes. They can't fund favoured municipal election candidates like the developers can.

• exactly rws. The only thing that matters in this entire border crossing issue is who has money, and who doesn't. Meanwhile, the city lets the oldest part of settlement in Essex County rot while we wait for idiotic bureaucrats and soulless real estate developers to make a move. If you are going to execute the West End with your stupid bridge or pointless truck inspection station, just do it already.

• i lived in the fire house that Aaron is talking about last year, 1055 Felix.