[Andy6]

Never occurred to me that it would be unsafe to go downtown as we all did on the bus when we were 13 or so. There were definitely some characters down there, but they were vastly outnumbered by respectable people. It was a busy place in 1975, probably not much different in many respects than in 1925. It was probably looking fairly run-down in some ways. It certainly wasn't trying to be beautiful or a tourist attraction, other than Eaton's and the Bay. Main Street was already seedy but ordinary people were still there all the time and wouldn't feel threatened during daylight hours. Winnipeg escaped downtown decline for awhile because we only had one serious mall until about 1980 when St. Vital and Kildonan Place opened simultaneously. That and the closing of the Winnipeg Tribune the same year are what I tend to think of as a major turning point for downtown. There was also a bad recession in 1981-82 that didn't help. I remember working in the Union Tower in 1983 and some of the problems on Main Street were starting to get a bit out of hand. It was worse around there then than it is now. I remember looking across at the empty Confederation Building, which was a giant pigeon roost. And through the 70s there was a decline on the north side of Portage that was hard not to notice, as the longstanding family businesses mostly moved out to be replaced by dodgy shops like O Calcutta and the porn movie theatre that took over the Gaiety (where Investors Group is now).

Sorry, I'm rambling like Grampa Simpson here.