Riverside Drive – 1962

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• I think the situation with the Paul Martin building is not that it is not in disrepair. It is simply that the building is surplus to federal Government needs. There are many examples in Ottawa where the Federal Government has declared buildings to be surplus. Times have changed and government service delivery has been modernized. There is no longer a need for pools of clerks and stenographers. Similarly, the Sandwich post office is facing change. In the 'olden days', there was a heavy reliance on mail services by business concerns and the general public. The Internet has changed all of that. And due to computers with word processing capabilities, powerful printers and photo-copiers, business and government no longer rely on pools of stenographers with shorthand abilities, typewriters and gestetner machines. Times have changed! And this also applies to industry and manufacturing. Technology has eliminated much of the manual labour. Processes have changed and the labour force is under pressure from this and offshore influences. Who knows what the future will bring but one thing for sure, the old ways are gone. Sadly, this brings the preservation of historical sites and structures under pressure.

• A good use of the Paul Martin building woild be give it and a few million $$ to the univercity or St. Clair colllege. This would perserve the building, and repair the exterior,allso keep a downtown building occupied. This the goverment gets rid of surplus space, and more people will come downtown.
  The U could call it the Paul Martin School of Political Sciience.

• I deffs thing the U or St.Clair could do a fantastic job of taking care of the Paul Martin. About the post office, though there is a lesser reliance on print press and post we still need somewhere to keep offices for local news sites such as Windsorite and OurWindsor and they would be heroes if they took over the post offices and other small closed buildings. Sorry for the run on sentence to all.

• Apparently they are spending $150,000 just to do an investigation on how much a new city hall would cost.. You could have put that money towards renovating your current city hall instead of spending it on "investigating" how much a new one would cost. I can't believe this is what my tax dollars are going to. Disgraced.

• yes i was just being a smarta$$ with my comment... sometimes i need to let that side of me out! :-)

• I think King Eddie already has his mind made up that Windsor needs a new city hall and yes your right the $150.000 would have gone along way to help improve city hall i think a few years back they spend upwards of $100.ooo to improve the bathrooms i think i heard somewhere that a new City Hall would be in the $60 million range

• Back in the day,working at Hiram Walker came with many perks.I remember the company tennis courts located on the river side of the property just east of the silos.Also many Bowling and golf leagues.I recall being told that many years ago, there was a sport shooting ( small calibre pistol )range in the basement of one of the buildings but I never could confirm this. Christmas parties were the talk of the town.Walkers created a true cradle to grave work envirornment back then.You felt like you belonged to a family and it was a privledge to belong. Oh.. and the grounds were stunning !Sadly, like most ,those days are long gone

• It was a shame the flatiron building was demolished. Whoever owned Hiram Walker at the time should be ashamed.

  As for the Peabody Bridge, that thing was a nightmare. I came over it at speed on a motorcycle late one night and damned near killed myself on a chunk of asphalt that had come loose.

• Ted in Toronto... The Evening Record of Nov 25, 1907 indicated that a new bridge (Peabody) was under construction and would be completed by May of 1908. I am not sure about the exact demolition date.

• I think Detroit is setting a great example. Tear it all down and plant bean fields. Or, keep it all up and create ghost building tourism of all abandoned buildings. It could be quite the new industry. Really, the City has never encouraged ( by taxes, grants etc. )the salvation of old or underutilized buildings in this City. Even Walkers could have been encouraged with dialogue of some sort. WAKE UP !!