From the Windsor Star – June 13, 1970
The area is about four miles of Tecumseh Rd. between Walker Rd. and Lauzon Rd. It has the flashing neon signs, the hangouts, the straight open road ideal for dragsters and motorcyclists.
It loses the authentic strip effect only because of its length which leaves the blinking, swirling, neon signs in isolated groups of three or four.
But it’s at these points – restaurants, doughnut shops, take-out counters, car washes, drive-in restaurants – that gangs of you people converge. Some on foot, others in convertibles or roadsters and some on motorcycles.
Many of the restaurants have uniformed, off-duty policemen on hand in case trouble breaks out. The police are hired through the police commission.
Detectives patrol the area regularly and often drop in to a doughnut shop for a coffee, doughnut and friendly chat with the staff.
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the first one was on Tecumseh rd @central
Oops! The Red barn was at the n/w not n/e corner of Central. Sorry.
Yeah, I thought the n/e corner at Central was always the Firestone?
I remember when the Red Barn on Tecumseh east of Lauzon Parkway was a Mr. Sub. Maybe it's because I was a kid but the inside seemed huge for what was a simple sandwich shop. I also remember when the area to the west was farm land owned by the St. Louis(?) family and the Windsor Police precinct was next to the McDonalds.
On the Southwest corner of E Twelve Mile Rd and Dequindre Rd there is and old Red Barn building, re-purposed of course, still in use. You can see the distinctive roof.
Just a guess here that the Croation Center was the Arcadia Bowl?
oops again. Arthur Treacher was a British actor and sidekick to Merv Griffin.
The Papa Peppino's sign at the top of the page jogs my memory. I remember having a good view of it looking west from my aunt's house in the 2000 block of Westminster. Good work by Mark R. to remember so many things accurately. We lived on Chandler in the 60's, and I recall very clearly, the Red Barn at Tecumseh/Central, and the A&W on Central, behind the Shell station. There was a Peerless Ice Cream store somewhere along the south side of Tecumseh Rd., and I'm a little vague on the precise location, but I seem to think it was in the Leonard/Tourangeau/George area. I remember my mother parking on a side street, and walking from there to Peerless. She always parked facing the side of a building with "Don's Meat Market" painted on it, and in my young mind, I thought she was getting the ice cream at Don's. This was mid to late 60's (the days when, weather permitting, you could actually leave your kids in the car, and nothing happened) I also remember a little gravel loop off the south side of Tecumseh Rd., just east of Jefferson where the SW&A bus would turn around and head back west, then the loop disappeared when Dingwall Ford (now Rose City) went up. Across the road was Ajax Lumber, which I believe was still in operation up to a few years ago.
John L., I think being able to leave kids in the car might have had more to do with people feeling safer, and leaving the windows down. And probably just quick trips. And it was more than a few years ago that Ajax Lumber, became The Floor Store. It has to be at least 15 years, I thinking. Probably more.
Ajax Lumber downsized, and the floor store took over the front building, and a lumber transfer company took over the yard east of CN rail tracks.
Ajax moved into smaller store on west side of CN tracks, and lasted there for quite a few years. I think they lasted to at least 2006, and celebrated their 50th anniversary then.