Today’s photo is dated May 19, 1962.
Designed by Johnson – McWhinnie, The Cleary Auditorium that was built, was a much scaled down version of what was planned.
Great mid century design, unfortunately muddled behind an early 1990’s renovation.
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Happy Holidays to all my readers. Hope you all have a great weekend.
With Christmas/Boxing Day coming up, this will be the last post until December 28th.
See you Wednesday.
That was a good looking building. I never saw it in its glory, but it somewhat resembles the old Ford Auditorium in Detroit, which recently met face to face with the wrecking ball…
Ford Auditorium was horrible for its acoustics. The placement of that building was also not thought out well.
I remember when they did the remuddle and had to divert Riverside Dr around it. It is why Riverside has that slight bend there.
The city really screwed that up along with the Hilton and Radisson hotels. The sidewalks lead to no where and most of the time cars are parked so you can’t walk along Riverside Dr on the south side of the street. Why the city allows cars to be parked there is byond me. It is a pedestrian hazard imo.
I’ve heard about the acoustic problems at Ford Auditorium… Surely not the biggest loss that Detroit has suffered. I
agree with the poor planning around that area. Riverside really should be considered for a redesign… I would go so far to suggest returning it to a single lane with a centre turning lane and steet parking on the South side near downtown. This would revive the chance of retail returning to this strip. It would slow traffic to increase pedestrian safety … People drive 60 or 70kph though that area.. Traffing calming is a must if we want to revitalize the area with retail and resturants!!
What a fine looking building. I was never a fan of mid century design until recently. Sometimes you just have to wait and things start to look better with age (both the building and the perception of the person viewing it). Too bad it was all messed up with a “redesign”. I agree with Shane that Riverside Drive needs a rethink and redesign. It should reflect the beauty of the waterfront and not be a speedway.
Traffic engineers believe that the only purpose of streets/cities is to move cars through them… Until that attitude changes no one at city hall would even entertain the idea of removing lanes from a street like riverside drive. There are many places in this city that would benifit from lane reductions resulting in increased steet parking and slower traffic flow.. But who would want that if it ment we have to drive slightly slower…
But that’s the problem, this city is terrible when it comes to traffic, lights, and bottlenecks.
Something needs to change.
Back on topic though, I’m still not a fan of 1960s buildings!
speaking of traffic bottlenecks i wish the hell they would get rid of that dam light at ouellette and maiden lane what a pain in the ass that light is get rid of it or disable it on weekends
Honestly, I think this building is ugly. I don’t care for all the 60’s & 70’s designs.
The addition of the Hilton and Radisson hotels to this stretch of Riverside is a nightmare. As someone previously said, that stretch of Riverside is not pedestrian friendly at all, more like pedestrian suicide.
The drive is what it is now, and that can be considered a commuter road at this point, so I think the 2 lanes will stay. Let’s see what happens when the Riverside Vista Project gets underway. It will add a pedestrian promenade on the north side of the road.
I do think that the city has taken away too much on street parking along Oullette though and that hasn’t helped businesses.
I remember in the 50’s there wee 2 lanes of traffic plus on street parking on both sides of ouellette whats there now is pathetic i never cared for the cleary they always seemed to be having problems
About the time of the picture the Montreal Canadiens were in town to play the Hershey Bears in a pre season exhibition at the old Windsor Arena. The next day they came to the Cleary to sign autographs, I waited til the end of school day and hustled down here but sadly others hadn’t waited and the line was long. The team left before I got to the front of the line
Mid-century modern beats anything build today.