33-45 Pitt Street East – Windsor Recreation Building – 1926

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• The first ten years of my life - 1941 to 1951 - I lived at the corner of Goyeau and London streets.My frame of reference may be a little older, but at this time the downtown core was fantastic. Within a four square block area of this pool hall were innumerable taverns and at least three other pool rooms. There was a pool hall located on Pitt just east of Goyeau where it was not uncommon to see a full blown craps game on the sidewalk, especially on payday Fridays.The life in this downtown neighborhood was unbelievably rich.The Police were tolerant of the simple pleasures of the working man, as long as no harm was done.The best way to think of this era is to look at it as a Bowery Boys film.I am happy to find your site and look forward to your future posts

• From what I remember, Windsor Rec burnt down about 1976. It had 5 pin and 10 bowling on various upper floors. Gans Chinese Restaurant was on the main floor. Adelman's Dept. Store was across the street, between the Ritz Hotel and Smith's Dept Store. Next to the Windsor Rec was Mossman's Deli (great cornbeef sandwiches)on oneside and Steve Paris Shoe Repair and Union Men's Shop on the west side.

• Yes that building did meet a fire was a massive one back in the 70's.

• real pin boys. duck pin bowling on one floor, five pin bowling on next floor and finally 10 pin bowling. the place was a step back in time even in late 60s and early 70s. it was cool. youre never see a multi bowling alley like that in windsor ever again. im delighted to have memories of the experience. you know if it was still there i would still patronize the place over all the other bowling alleys in windsor.

• I was raised in Windsor on Mercer and Assumption and went to Begley. My grandfather worked at Fords and I thought we were in a pretty good neighbourhood until one day at Begley when we used to have current events in class. One article said they were tearing down the slums of Windsor to make Windsor affordable Housing. I didn't know what a slum was, we had all different nationalities living in our neighbourhood and we all got along. From 378 Mercer Street we moved above Wyandotte to Goyeau and Erie to a different hood and school.
  What puzzles me that in todays generation with them building a new Bridge from Detroit, going through areas wereas the houses are probably worth at least $150,000.00 and are either boarded up or demolished. This does not make sense to me, to destroy beautiful neighbourhoods and leave nothing but eyesores or slums in there wake is preposterous. The new Bridge should have started East of Ouellette, then once its erected all the old houses would have been demolished , and there would have been no ghetto..shame on these planners.
  I loved the old Windsor of the Fifties, it was safe and elegant.

• Gary, You want the new bridge east of Ouellette? Where exactly? You want it to go over a densely populated area, over Belle Isle, and into the only part of Detroit where affluent people live? The best place for the bridge would have been right next to the current bridge IF Huron Church had been turned into a super highway, as it was promised in the '30s. But it wasn't. So where they ended up putting it, was the next best option. Brighton Beach never turned into the neighbourhood they intended it to be. It did disrupt some nice houses around Huron Church, but it was the best they could do. Do you remember what it was like when the US was building the Interstate system? It's progress. There's always a cost.

• So glad I found this picture on here. I have a picture of my Dad's (now 97) bowling team from this bowling alley. He couldn't remember the name until I found this and asked him if it was the one. He said yes ! Now I have the information to go with his team picture.