Today’s picture shows the construction of the tunnel on the Windsor side, this is looking north towards Detroit, Park Street crosses right there. Note the big old house on the left hand side behind the armouries. That house is today a parking lot. Windsor at one time had an amazing amount of architecture.
It’s too bad the city doesn’t appreciate all the architecture we’ve had over the years,it would have been grand to see some of these old buildings growing up in Windsor in the 50″s and thinking back to how Ouellette was then and how it has changed is mind boggling,i see what appears to be sunlite on the north side of the excavation I’m curious how far north they went before they actually went completely under ground??
Agreed Andrew with regards to the amount of architecture Windsor USED to have..
I had the pleasure of growing up in Windsor during the 1950’s and ’60’s. We were downtown shopping a few times a week and Saturdays was the day to spend time at the city market. My dad worked at the Windsor Armouries and many Saturdays, us kids would play there on the buses, trucks and jeeps. We also had the pleasure of sitting up on the balcony at the Armouries, listening to the pipe band as they practised for an upcoming parade on Ouellette. My memories are of ‘big, dark, fancy buildings’, all over the place. … They seemed to be imposing and grand, which made me feel that Windsor was an important city that I was proud to call my home.
What a great photo, the detail is incredible. The construction actually looks kind of simple and straight forward compared to today’s standards.
Would the building that we can just see on the right side be the old St Mary’s Academy?
Freeman, I don’t think so. I believe it was on the left. According to Richard McIntyre (in the comments of the link below), that’s where Moran Volskwan was. But I never did ask what that was. I guess the name of the owner of that house. I thought it was the St. Alphonsus Rectory, but it wasn’t.
http://internationalmetropolis.com/2007/05/10/st-alphonsus-rectory/
The house on right side of tunnel was St. alehouses rectory, next to the church at the corner of Park and Goyeau St. around the corner on Goyeau St. was Moran Volkswagen dealer ship next to tunnel entrance. Now duty free site. St. Mary’s was on Park and Ouellette Av. would have been torn down when picture taken.
Error ? 1929 ?
Videos on Youtube show tunnel at the top Dated 1909 and that date is there on both sides of tunnel.
Martin, I believe what you are seeing on Youtube is referring to the railway tunnel. This posting refers to the downtown automobile tunnel.
Error may be mine for I’m regarding to the Rail Road tunnel which was built in 1909.