So, today is Wednesday… And there was no post this morning… I know. 🙂 I was working on some posts over the weekend, and with Monday being a holiday for me, I totally lost track of the days… Once I got to work this morning, I realized that I forgot to put up a post for today. So seeing as it’s early evening, and also noticing Aaron’s comments in the last post, here is today’s post. A little late, but it’s still Wednesday, and not the one I was originally working on, that will be bumped to next week.
Also when looking for a current photo of the Bank, I realized the newest photo I have is from 2001, so I really need to get out and shoot some of those sites again.
So the CIBC building on Devonshire, built in 1906, by Detroit Architect Albert Kahn, will have to settle for a current view from Google Streetview.
AH HA! so i’m not going crazy then 🙂 better late than never Andrew!
i love this bank, becasue this is what a bank should look like. it represents something secure and permanent. and i’m also impressed that a bank in this city has managed to NOT play musical chairs with our buildings over the past 100+ years! i also love the globe lights on either side of the stairs.
now…what’s up with the bbq? i’m sure M.O.M would be able to answer that.
thanks for the post Andrew!
sorry, i also ment to ask when it’s expansion took place? it had at least the first floor expanded, but it doesn’t seem like it happened long after it was first built.
I don’t usually go in for neo-classical stuff, but that’s a fine lookin’ building.
I would love to see a picture of the apartment above the bank. As you know when the managers were transferred from one bank to another they simply changed apartments. Some of them wre very nice with panelled walls and fireplaces. The old Royal Bank in Walkerville had a nice apartment. There must be some photos and memories around.
i’m sure there were some interior shots taken from outside at some point in the summer 😉
To Tristan: You know why it’s a fine lookin’ building? Because it’s a Kahn.
Neat! I never knew that was a Kahn.
Thanks Andrew!
There’s a very interesting building directly behind it. It is being used as an apartment building, but does’nt look like it was one when first built. Does anyone have any information on it?
Phil – http://internationalmetropolis.com/?p=2791
i’m pretty interested in this place near the train station on walker
http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=windsor+ont&sll=49.891235,-97.15369&sspn=42.860344,78.837891&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Windsor,+Essex+County,+Ontario&ll=42.324619,-83.008854&spn=0,0.019248&t=h&z=16&layer=c&cbll=42.32452,-83.008789&panoid=VHsrDvW_P99zhZoqtfQSeQ&cbp=12,57.14,,0,-10.45
Beautiful post, Andrew. I worked “kitty-corner” from that classical bank building in the brick building on the north-east corner (see the green balloons in front of the store). It was the Canadian National Telegraph Company’s Walkerville branch. (Does everyone know what a “telegram” was?) I worked there as a young “wiz kid” telegraph operator at the tender age of 17; a manager, a telephone clerk, an operator and two delivery people, a teenage boy and girl — who were supplied by the company with “snazzy” uniforms, but had to supply their own bikes. Biggest customer was Hiram Walker’s, and we held off delivering them ’til noon or so, where we were guests of the company in their cafeteria, including small amounts of their product! Monday to Friday 9 to 5 open hours. Sending a telegram after that, you went to the downtown Windsor office, and, in the middle of the night, to the C.N.R./Wabash railway station at the foot of Goyeau.
Was the licence renwal office there when the telegraph office still in the building then?
The trlrphone booth is going the same way as the telegraph, thanks to cell phones.
I don’t mind paying $1.50 to use this CIBC teller (I am a BMO man) because I get to walk into a masterpiece. I also enjoy the fire stairs in the back that let you get a nice view.
@ Aaron…..that place on walker road used to be ritchie hawtin/plastikman’s recording studio. he is recognized as helping form the detroit house music sound in the early 90’s and quite a famous guy in the electronic music scene. i think he lives in berlin now.
ken i’m curious as to whether youstill remeber the code you used in your job as a telegrapher with the telegraph company i’m a ham radio operator and use 100% morse code people look at me like i’ama dinasour i would have gave anything to have a job like that when i was a kid
Hi Gary, the organization we belong to now is called “Morse Telegraph Club” and includes railway operators (land lines), ham operators (including ship-to-shore wireless people, vis. “Titanic”!), and railfans/ship fans in general. There were two types in domestic telegraphy: Morse code and Teletype (generic term was teleprinter). In the U.S.A. it was Western Union which was not affiliated with any railway (other than to have permission to use the railway r.o.w. for their pole lines–perhaps in exchange W.U. may have provided the U.S. railways with telecommunication services). Here, it was CN Telegraphs or CP Telegraphs. We were a division of the respective railway (just like CN or CP Hotels, Ships, etc.). We in land-line use(d) what was called “American” or Domestic code, all others, like yourself, use “International”; the “clicking sound” was more amenable for American. There were, I believe, 11 characters different. In 1950, one of the dozen main relay offices was in Toronto, and employed 350 teleprinter and about 50 Morse operators (Morse was declining…)
Windsor (office call “WR” for CNT) was unique for cities of that size in that we had a branch office in Walkerville (called “WV”), as described in my previous posting on Devonshire / Assumption opposite that gorgeous bank. With better and cheaper phone service and the p.o. “pulled up its socks” and by the sixties CN (not CP) got aggressive with passenger service and Windsor-Toronto was improved from about 8 or so hours to 5 or 6, so it spelled the end for telegraphy. Our club publishes “Dots&Dashes” quarterly. London Science Museum says the steam engine, the x-ray machine and telegraphy in top ten inventions in history. Call 1-888-822-3728 (free) to communicate by Morse to a “hub”, and http://www.morsetelegraphclub.org
Frequent demonstrations throughout U.S. and Canada, usually at museums. Jay Leno broadcast two operators competing with “texters” and won by speed. Check it out!
You’ll chuckle over old b&w Westerns on late-night tv when Morse is used — it usually doesn’t say anything, or maybe just the alphabet, instead of “Watch out! Geronimo is attacking the U.S. Calvery…” ha ha