Going through some old postcards, I came across this one showing the Manning House Hotel and on the right hand side, and bit of a glimpse of the old Post Office. This card dates to around 1910-1912 and shows a bustling downtown corner, complete with the streetcar rumbling past.
Hope everyone had a good weekend, and all the Moms out there had a nice mother’s day. Long weekend this weekend coming up (so no post next Monday), and finally, hopefully the arrival of summer. 
Now there’s something you hardly ever see anymore in Windsor a woman walking!! her bicyle on the sidewalk instead of riding it the old peanut vendor is cool also i wonder if the street car was heading north or south?
Nice picture. Gary, it looks like the streetcar s headed north.
If you go to google maps and look at the corner of pitt and ouellette where the fountain use to stand, there is a light fixture with 4 globes around it.
Are they the same light fixtures as the 2 globes on each side of the fountain in this picture?
Or perhaps they just represent a time of elegance and prosperity, unlike the giant light fixture beside it with a take-out box at the top?
If I’m not mistaken I read somewhere that the fountain in the picture that is attached to the post office was moved to Jackson park in or near the garden.Not sure but for some reason I’m remembering it from somewhere.
I believe that fountain was Windsor’s Boer War memorial designed by Walter Allward, who more famously designed the Vimy Ridge monument in France to Canada’s First World War dead and missing.
Indeed it is still at Jackson Park to this day.
I have some wedding pictures in front of it. It’s a great backdrop with the steps as well.
Ouelette Ave. used to end at a turn-around about 250′ on the south side of Tecumseh Rd. The Boer War monument was first moved there, then when they built the Ouelette overpass through Jackson Park, the monument was moved again to its present location in the Sunken Gardens.
Am I confused or is the Manning Hotel not the old Laing Bldg. which would have been on the northwest corner of Ouelette and Pitt?
Gordon Benjamin;
Yes, you are confused ! The two buildings were diagonally across from one another at Pitt & Ouellette – i.e. Manning on southeast and Laing on northwest.
I am amazed at the elegance of Windsor at the turn of the 20th century et seq.: stately Walkerville homes and downtown, multistory commercial buildings, hotels, banks with representational Doric pillars. From my own childhood I recall the Medical Arts Building, King Edward Hotel, the Norton Palmer, the SW&A Street Railway (no rails by my time but buses that ran on time, schools that were architectural gems (Kennedy, John Campbell, Paterson. Being born at the tail end of WW2 I only saw the remnants of the 1890- 1929 life of forward looking in the city but its life of optimism and joyous anticipation is written in the great buildings, many of which have sadly disappeared.
Doug i look at photograph’s of windsor even in the 50’s my childhood and it’s hard to believe it’s the same city very few remnants from Windsor’s past, i heard they are taking the muruls off the back of the old Windsor Star building to be stored and sadlythey might not ever be seen again what a shame
So…. Is this on the same side as the Paul Martin Building and the -gulp- Chrysler building?
It’s a damn shame that I am way to young to see any of this beautiful history for my own eyes… I hate being 19…. -_-“
Jesse Taylor-Vigneux, no not the Chrysler Building. This picture is looking east down Pitt St. The old Post Office and water fountain are where the Paul Martin Building are now, and the Manning House was all but wiped out for the new TD Bank. What was left of the Manning House was in shape when it was taken down. Andrew posted some pre-demolition pics on here somewhere. I think the dumpy little souvenir shop between the new bank and Shanfield-Meyer’s might be the last vestige of the Manning House. But it’s barely recognizable, from the exterior.