Historical Winnipeg discussion

[TimeFadesAway]

Originally Posted by esquire

The car rental agency was at NE Main and York, where Earls is now. Before that it may have been additional car lot space for Balkan/Inman.

You can see the lot in question in this photo from 1991.

https://digital.library.yorku.ca/yul...winnipeg-tower

[esquire]

^ Thanks for posting that. From what I can tell it appears that the lot on the corner was just parking by that point... I think the car rental agency closed sometime around January 1990, as that was when VIA service was cut back from two transcontinental trains a day in each direction (in addition to other regional trains) to just six a week.

[dmacc]

It's really too bad that the Empire Hotel was lost to history. I never knew that building existed.

[esquire]

^ It had an unusual metal (cast iron?) façade... parts of it were stored away somewhere but I don't know if they still exist.

It would have been a great building to still have around... it would have brought some character to that strip for sure. But a heritage reno was probably at least 20 years away from when it was demolished (1983).

[OTA in Winnipeg]

Originally Posted by esquire

A couple more:

Looks like there was an Esso north of where Earls is now, I forgot about that
https://www.flickr.com/photos/9513047@N05/23981388969/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/9513047@N05/24323016046/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/9513047@N05/23722373613/

That's them. Thanks!

Looked again. SE for the Empire is right.

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ It had an unusual metal (cast iron?) façade... parts of it were stored away somewhere but I don't know if they still exist.

It would have been a great building to still have around... it would have brought some character to that strip for sure. But a heritage reno was probably at least 20 years away from when it was demolished (1983).

Some of the facade was reassembled inside the Franco-Manitoban centre.

It was such a decrepit, depressing looking building in its later days. CN or VIA wanted the lot for parking. But it would certainly have been nice had it been restored.

[OTA in Winnipeg]

Originally Posted by OTA in Winnipeg

There used to be a couple businesses where Earl's is now. One was a steel shop of some sort. I got a strip of steel to reinforce a door in my home from there back in the early 80s. And the guy didn't charge me a cent. I was pretty impressed. The lots to the north was all car dealership IIRC.

And there they are!

Originally Posted by TimeFadesAway

You can see the lot in question in this photo from 1991.

https://digital.library.yorku.ca/yul...winnipeg-tower

Zoom into Main east side, north of car lot.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by TimeFadesAway

You can see the lot in question in this photo from 1991.

https://digital.library.yorku.ca/yul...winnipeg-tower

I wonder when the Lombard Nutty Club was painted white. I thought it was way before 1991. Didn’t it just get heritage designation?

Sad to see that big warehouse where the parking lot is now at the end of Portage East. At the rail line.

[Biff]

^^^ Its funny, I have no recollection of that building. It was big.

[esquire]

I remember that building, my mom's first job after coming to Canada in the early 70s was in a sewing factory in there so it was a bit of a landmark to me.

Seems to me that it came down at the end of the era where you could just demolish old Exchange District warehouses willy-nilly. It's too bad, if the building could have stuck it out another few years to the Glen Murray era when heritage protection improved and we started seeing a lot more redevelopment of Exchange District buildings, chances are it would still be going strong today.

Speaking of buildings around there, what's going on with the hotel development on Portage Ave. E?

[1ajs]

that building at the end of portage E was in bad shape the demolition crew tore down by hand could pick the brick by hand with out a hammer ive been told, why it was taken down


anyhow
logan and king SW corner

[Jeff]

you can get a sense of a building's history so easily by just looking at it from pictures like these. amazing.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by Biff

^^^ Its funny, I have no recollection of that building. It was big.

my memory of that building is that when it came down someone spray painted 'heritage lost' across the front...I remember being struck by that...it was the first time I really thought about heritage preservation. I can picture in my mind's eye being in a car driving by it....probably a wood panelled station wagon lying in the trunk part with no seatbelt.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by trueviking

I can picture in my mind's eye being in a car driving by it....probably a wood panelled station wagon lying in the trunk part with no seatbelt.

In the early 90s?!

[wardlow]

Originally Posted by trueviking

my memory of that building is that when it came down someone spray painted 'heritage lost' across the front...I remember being struck by that...it was the first time I really thought about heritage preservation. I can picture in my mind's eye being in a car driving by it....probably a wood panelled station wagon lying in the trunk part with no seatbelt.

There was some good colour images of that big warehouse on Westbrook at the U of M's Winnipeg Building Index, but that site appears to be down right now.

And I was definitely still sitting in the back of the station wagon with no seatbelt in the early '90s, though my parents were a little behind the times.

This has got me thinking... Around 1990 or 1991, my dad would volunteer at a drop-in trailer on Henry Avenue, just around the corner from Main and Higgins. One Saturday in the summer they put on a barbecue that dad brought us to. It was on some vacant lots behind the row of long skinny old buildings on the east side of Main, where the Thunderbird House is now. Super surreal, seeing all of that as a 9-10 year-old kid. That area, and its old built environment and functioning as a marginal, boozy commercial area, was hanging on by a thread back then, but has almost all disappeared.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by esquire

In the early 90s?!

late bloomer.

[1ajs]

in 90 i was living with my grandparents on a farm while my parents worked on the house in npd 91 i was living in wpg. i can remeber canoeing down the red river back when they launched them off the old rail bridge at the forks

[Kinguni]

Originally Posted by trueviking

Sad to see that big warehouse where the parking lot is now at the end of Portage East. At the rail line.

Was in that building a couple of times in my courier days. It was structurally in scary shape then. Only freight elevator that scared me.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by wardlow

This has got me thinking... Around 1990 or 1991, my dad would volunteer at a drop-in trailer on Henry Avenue, just around the corner from Main and Higgins. One Saturday in the summer they put on a barbecue that dad brought us to. It was on some vacant lots behind the row of long skinny old buildings on the east side of Main, where the Thunderbird House is now. Super surreal, seeing all of that as a 9-10 year-old kid. That area, and its old built environment and functioning as a marginal, boozy commercial area, was hanging on by a thread back then, but has almost all disappeared.

I remember that era, I was a couple of years older but I was always fascinated by that stretch. It was part of the route my parents would take to get downtown so I was pretty well acquainted with it from the backseat.

I remember nagging my dad to take me to have a look at the CPR station which at the time was still a CP office building despite no longer having any passenger trains coming through. As you said, that area was still kind of hanging on as a functional commercial area but it bottomed out later that decade when the buildings around Higgins were demolished.

[1ajs]

why the hell was the old coca cola building demolished that woulda been a true gem today for houses if we still had it

for those that dont know what building im talking about its tall dark brick above dead center was along banntyne