Historical Winnipeg discussion

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by drew

I remember seeing an older Winnipeg map in this forum showing streetcar lines running up Lipton and down Ruby street in Wolesley. (I think between Westminster and Portage)

Anyone remember seeing this map, and whether the streetcar system ever went down these streets?

I live on Lipton, and there is a strip of asphalt/concrete along the centre of the whole street that looks suspiciously like an area where rail lines were removed and filled in...

One that I have shows the end of the Westminster bus route running up Lipton and Aubrey between Westminster and Portage (around 1940, I believe). If there was a streetcar it would have been short-lived since none of the World War I-era street maps shows it.

[flatlander]

Originally Posted by drew

I remember seeing an older Winnipeg map in this forum showing streetcar lines running up Lipton and down Ruby street in Wolesley. (I think between Westminster and Portage)

Anyone remember seeing this map, and whether the streetcar system ever went down these streets?

I live on Lipton, and there is a strip of asphalt/concrete along the centre of the whole street that looks suspiciously like an area where rail lines were removed and filled in...

Wasn't sprague the turnaround?

[rgalston]

That's an incredible find, Viking. By 1937, I doubt the Bijou was by any means the best theatre in the city--even the best theatre on Main Street, but they sure believed they were judging by that advert.

I don't think street railway ever ran down Westminster Avenue. Unless the Glenlivit is playing tricks on my mind, the first city bus diesel route ran down Westminster sometime in the 1920s.

Ellice Avenue was probably the most built up street in the city to never have car service, streetcars only crossed it in the West End at Sherbrook and Arlington.

Interesting how the West End was still labeled St. James on that and other maps of the time, even though St. James would have been incorporated as a town or city by 1910. Although I wouldn't expect it to have been on maps, I wonder if the term West End was used at this time.

[rgalston]

I found in the 1909 Henderson Directory, the Grand Opera House on Jarvis and Main (the building is still standing), which must have lived up to its name at the time, since they had a phone number as well as an "Up-town ticket office" at 228 Portage near Fort St.

This seems strange that at any time Portage and Fort would be called "uptown". If anything, Jarvis and Main would be.

Then there is Uptown Bowling Lanes on Academy Road, and the Midtown Bridge. So I wonder, where was/is Winnipeg's uptown, midtown, or were these terms ever even used regularly?

[thurmas]

I am just wondering does anyone have old arena proposal renderings for the jets when the arena debate raged in the 80's and 90's? I know there were several convention centre and forks proposals but I have never seen any renderings. It would be appreciated if anyone could post some.

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by rgalston

I found in the 1909 Henderson Directory, the Grand Opera House on Jarvis and Main (the building is still standing), which must have lived up to its name at the time, since they had a phone number as well as an "Up-town ticket office" at 228 Portage near Fort St.

This seems strange that at any time Portage and Fort would be called "uptown". If anything, Jarvis and Main would be.

Then there is Uptown Bowling Lanes on Academy Road, and the Midtown Bridge. So I wonder, where was/is Winnipeg's uptown, midtown, or were these terms ever even used regularly?

I don't really know. I assume from the Uptown Theatre that people must have thought that out along the Assiniboine was Uptown. Perhaps the North End didn't really count for much if the naming of things was done by the middle and upper classes. Our notions of geographical "up" and "down" clouded by the fact that today maps invariably put North at the top and that we no longer orient ourselves as pioneers did, by rivers (thus kids can't comprehend why Ontario, which is "lower" on the map than Quebec, was called "Upper Canada"). Many of the older Winnipeg maps I have put west at the top rather than north. If you think of a city expanding outward to the west, that use of Uptown might make some sense.

I guess midtown is the Midtown Bridge area, although that was named relatively recently (postwar, I guess). So perhaps our down-mid-up orientation is along the Assiniboine axis rather than the Red axis.

[JayM]

Originally Posted by thurmas

I am just wondering does anyone have old arena proposal renderings for the jets when the arena debate raged in the 80's and 90's? I know there were several convention centre and forks proposals but I have never seen any renderings. It would be appreciated if anyone could post some.

have you tried searching on youtube? they seem to have some old news footage of winnipeg stuff.

[thurmas]

all that's on youtube is an old discussion in 1989 of norie talking about an arena but no renders. Sadly classic winnipeg politicians talking out of their ass but getting nothing done!

[viperred88]

Originally Posted by thurmas

I am just wondering does anyone have old arena proposal renderings for the jets when the arena debate raged in the 80's and 90's? I know there were several convention centre and forks proposals but I have never seen any renderings. It would be appreciated if anyone could post some.

here is some

http://onemanitobaplace.homestead.com/recdntn.html

http://onemanitobaplace.homestead.com/thebuilding.html



http://www.members.shaw.ca/rbdyck/issues/Forum.html

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by thurmas

all that's on youtube is an old discussion in 1989 of norie talking about an arena but no renders. Sadly classic winnipeg politicians talking out of their ass but getting nothing done!

That was the Manitoba Gardens idea on the North American Life parking lot, I presume.

What would you rather have... a politician like Jean Drapeau in Montreal who "got the Olympic Stadium done" (except the tower, roof and the bits that fell off) despite the fact it was unaffordable, and crippled Montreal financially for 10-20 years as a result? The fact is that a sports arena is a very marginal proposition for a city as small as Winnipeg that has a lot of other priorities. Eventually something did get built, if not quite to NHL standards. Anything Winnipeg would have built in 1989 would be obsolete today anyway, and even if the Jets had survived there would be more threats about leaving if a new or expanded arena wasn't built again now. Pro sports is an extortion racket.

[thurmas]

I have to disagree with you andy6 an arena downtown would have brought 16000 people downtown 40-60 times a year for large gatherings and 5-10000 people say 20-40 times a year for smaller concerts. With a hockey crazed market, a strong canadian dollar now and a salary cap I beleive that nhl could still work today. A new arena would have reverted some of the dark days of 1990's downtown winnipeg. the arena would not have opened until probably 1993 even if proposed in 1989. With a small market like winnipeg you will always have hurdles to jump in keeping a pro sports team but the psychological impact has still not been healed to winnipegers. The pride in having a white out at the arena is worth more than dollars and cents.

[JayM]

Originally Posted by viperred88

here is some

http://onemanitobaplace.homestead.com/recdntn.html

http://onemanitobaplace.homestead.com/thebuilding.html



http://www.members.shaw.ca/rbdyck/issues/Forum.html

i don't know about anyone else but the eaton square would've been nice.

[rgalston]

Originally Posted by Andy6

I don't really know. I assume from the Uptown Theatre that people must have thought that out along the Assiniboine was Uptown. Perhaps the North End didn't really count for much if the naming of things was done by the middle and upper classes. Our notions of geographical "up" and "down" clouded by the fact that today maps invariably put North at the top and that we no longer orient ourselves as pioneers did, by rivers (thus kids can't comprehend why Ontario, which is "lower" on the map than Quebec, was called "Upper Canada"). Many of the older Winnipeg maps I have put west at the top rather than north. If you think of a city expanding outward to the west, that use of Uptown might make some sense.

I guess midtown is the Midtown Bridge area, although that was named relatively recently (postwar, I guess). So perhaps our down-mid-up orientation is along the Assiniboine axis rather than the Red axis.

You're right, there were many maps that showed west at the top. At the time, Winnipeg still had some sort of working waterfront on the Red between The Forks and Point Douglas, and the central business district still very much ran in a north-south axis on either side of Main Street, in what was the old nucleus of the settlement of the days of Bannatyne, McDermot, Drever, McKenney, etc. So "uptown" Winnipeg would have been west on Portage Avenue, which would have been what Hennepin was to Minneapolis, or Broadway was to Manhattan. I have never read anything about the North End or St. John's, or even Fort Rouge being Up or Mid-town.

[Andy6]

I recently acquired a set of 50 stereoviews featuring scenes from or related to Eaton's Winnipeg department store. While undated, they appear to me to date from either 1909 or 1910 (Eaton's had expanded from 5 to 7 floors at that time, with the eighth floor still to be added). Thus the store would have been only about 4 years old. Of particular interest are photos of the store's displays and of the behind the scenes departments, such as the printing department, jewelry manufacturing section, harness-making section and hundreds of people involved in processing orders for the mail-order division. Somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 people were working at Eaton's at the time. The interior shots (of the store; the factories were in what is now Cityplace) look familiar, with the pillars and the pressed-tin ceiling that endured to the bitter end. The sprinkler system, which looks like the system that remained in place, was a marvel of its time, being fed by a 150,000 gallon water tank on the roof.

Here are a few of the shots (stereoscopic of course):











There are also a number of street shots. This is from the roof of Eaton's looking east. Note the new, yet to be expanded Grain Exchange Building and the half-finished dome of the Bank of Nova Scotia.

[JayM]

I came across this interesting picture.. anyone have some info on it?

[fengshui]

JayM, that photo is from the Tribune archives and was posted by Jim Jaworski on a web page a while ago with some old planning reports for the city.

Andy, those photos are amazing. Are those trolley cars electric or horse drawn? I see some horses in front of the first car.

[rgalston]

By 1909, there were no longer horse-drawn streetcars in Winnipeg (I don't know when they were finally removed--I think 1904, so there would have been over a decade there, when Portage and Main had both tracks for horsecars and electric cars). It appears to just be a close encounter between a wagon and a streetcar. The streetcar would be travelling east, so it must have been stopped, and the wagon crossed right by it.

The two men in that photo are, if I'm correct, Bernie Wolfe and Earl Levin, who were top planners at the time when the neighborhood south of Portage Avenue was set to become a third-rate LeCorbusian "city of tomorrow".

Bernie Wolfe is still alive. I saw him at the Fort Garry Hotel not too long ago.

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by rgalston

By 1909, there were no longer horse-drawn streetcars in Winnipeg (I don't know when they were finally removed--I think 1904, so there would have been over a decade there, when Portage and Main had both tracks for horsecars and electric cars). It appears to just be a close encounter between a wagon and a streetcar. The streetcar would be travelling east, so it must have been stopped, and the wagon crossed right by it.

The two men in that photo are, if I'm correct, Bernie Wolfe and Earl Levin, who were top planners at the time when the neighborhood south of Portage Avenue was set to become a third-rate LeCorbusian "city of tomorrow".

Bernie Wolfe is still alive. I saw him at the Fort Garry Hotel not too long ago.

Yes, it's definitely Bernie Wolfe. He was the deputy mayor under Juba, I believe.

[cal-to-win]

Just stumbled across this thread, and have spent the past hour reading everything. Live in Calgary, grew up in Elmwood......we have a condo in Ashdown that we plan to live in when it is time to retire..still come there every year..family there.... But..the memories you have jigged!! Yes, the Capitol had two entrances - one on Portage, one on Donald..saw Dr. No/From Russia with Love there when they first came out. Pop machines were button operated - you could hit all the buttons at once and get a mixture of pop. Was on the Disraeli when the Queen opened it -- we walked from Lord Selkirk, stood at the centre of the bridge and froze. The Roxy Theatre was converted to the bowling alley like a few were. Also remember taking the streetcar as a young kid to Deer Lodge Hospital from Elmwood - this would have been early 50's - my Dad was sick a lot then and it was quite a trip to visit him.

Keep up the great work with pics etc......

[1ajs]

Originally Posted by cal-to-win

Just stumbled across this thread, and have spent the past hour reading everything. Live in Calgary, grew up in Elmwood......we have a condo in Ashdown that we plan to live in when it is time to retire..still come there every year..family there.... But..the memories you have jigged!! Yes, the Capitol had two entrances - one on Portage, one on Donald..saw Dr. No/From Russia with Love there when they first came out. Pop machines were button operated - you could hit all the buttons at once and get a mixture of pop. Was on the Disraeli when the Queen opened it -- we walked from Lord Selkirk, stood at the centre of the bridge and froze. The Roxy Theatre was converted to the bowling alley like a few were. Also remember taking the streetcar as a young kid to Deer Lodge Hospital from Elmwood - this would have been early 50's - my Dad was sick a lot then and it was quite a trip to visit him.

Keep up the great work with pics etc......

the queen opened the disrealie? :o