Winnipeg | Historical discussion

[wardlow]

Originally Posted by thurmas

Does anyone have pictures of North portage before portage place was built? I was just an infant when portage place was being built so I don't know what it looked like prior to PP being built.

Not a lot of photos of that part of Portage Avenue because it wasn't really that remarkable, architecturally. It seems that even in downtown's greatest days the north side of Portage played second fiddle to the south side, where the department stores were and retail space was more desirable.

But that's the great loss of Portage Place was that three blocks of those smaller, un-spectacular types of buildings are easier to revitalize than the massive grand buildings that end up being an albatross (Eg, Eaton's, The Bay, and now Portage Place)

Here's part of what became Portage Place. You can see the Free Press building on Carlton Street in the background.

[esquire]

^ Yeah, online pictures of Portage Avenue tend to be either from 1910 or the digital photography era. Very little in between, especially after WWII.

Here's another picture that gives you just a taste of old North Portage.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/

[thurmas]

Thanks guys obviously retrospect north portage would have been more salvageable had PP not been built as smaller individual businesses.

[wardlow]

Here's another photo of signage on the north side of Portage, courtesy of that guy who shamelessly steals historical photos online.

I love how we look at this photo as peak urbanism, but meanwhile the photo was probably taken to be included in a city planning report about how overhanging signs need to be eradicated or something.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by thurmas

Thanks guys obviously retrospect north portage would have been more salvageable had PP not been built as smaller individual businesses.

Theoretically yes, but in practice... if North Portage hadn't been redeveloped, it would probably look a lot like the south side of Portage.

Even when I was a kid in the mid 80s though, I always found it interesting how North Portage and the southside were treated like two totally different things.

[wardlow]

Originally Posted by esquire

Theoretically yes, but in practice... if North Portage hadn't been redeveloped, it would probably look a lot like the south side of Portage.

Probably so. There'd probably be more than a few of vacant storefronts, storefront offices, and money marts. But at least we wouldn't have a 35 year-old megaproject that already needs to be saved with millions in public funds.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by wardlow

Probably so. There'd probably be more than a few of vacant storefronts, storefront offices, and money marts. But at least we wouldn't have a 35 year-old megaproject that already needs to be saved with millions in public funds.

Oh for sure, I'm not arguing that what we ended up with was materially better. In hindsight, no one would repeat that decision... the money spent on the entire Portage Place development could have been far better spent on something else. But at the time it was the thing to do, and most other downtown malls in big prairie cities (Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina) ended up working out to varying degrees.

Realistically, Portage Place simply delayed the decline of North Portage by 5 to 15 years, depending on how generous you're feeling.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by wardlow

Could be that it was Knox 1 that was expanded... I don't imagine they would have just demolished the older church buildings. They would often move older buildings elsewhere when they replaced them back then.

that's it for sure....it does say they moved Knox 1 to the back of the property. Your map looks like it is two buildings which would indicate an addition. Solved...moving on.

[trueviking]

not portage place but air canada park...there was one nice building near the free press building that was demolished for portage place....the rest were all little storefronts...of course better than portage place but not substantial buildings,..i have a good photo somewhere.

[drew]

The decline of vibrancy and urbanism of Portage Avenue (and greater downtown as a whole) is stunning and reminds me of my gardening skills. Killed by good intentions.

It would have been way better off had we just left it alone.

[trueviking]

Portage at Vaughan...so this is looking east from the median in front of the bay...so the western end of portage place today...the building was at the corner....i have a photo of one of the intersections mid way down with a nice building.

[trueviking]

streetscape in 1972

[esquire]

Here's a pic of one of the few modernist buildings on that stretch of North Portage, a TD Bank branch, under construction in the 60s...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/9513047@N05/31626705966/in/photostream/

Here's a really cool collage of North Portage from 1981 that gives you a clear idea of the block's vibe at the time. By the standards of the day this was considered run down, but we'd probably take this in a heartbeat today:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]

The block where Dollarama is now, circa 1964. Most of those buildings west of The Nut House stood into the 1990s.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/9513047@N05/52160132057/

North Portage in the 70s:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/9513047@N05/42638771424/

[thurmas]

North portage wasn't that bad just a typical working class neighborhood i was always under the impression pp was built because it was a desolate eyesore but it wasn't that bad.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by thurmas

North portage wasn't that bad just a typical working class neighborhood i was always under the impression pp was built because it was a desolate eyesore but it wasn't that bad.

Yeah, it's kind of funny... books and articles from the time make it sound like some utter trainwreck but it is better than anything that exists today in terms of downtown streetfront retail strips. We'd give anything for that kind of vitality now.

A couple of the cinemas on Portage resorted to 🞵🞵🞵🞵 movies in the 70s which probably made the area seem a little tawdry, but it didn't look fundamentally broken the way that, say, North Main past Logan does now.

[anthonyk]

All of this talk about churches got me thinking back to last winter when we were restoring the roof on the Calvary Temple steeple.

[WinCitySparky]

Man whenever I look at all those old pictures of Portage Ave I am massively depressed by the sense that so many bad decisions have broken its potential forever by removing the density of the old storefronts and all the activity it provided

[davequanbury]

Originally Posted by esquire

The block where Dollarama is now, circa 1964. Most of those buildings west of The Nut House stood into the 1990s.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/9513047@N05/52160132057/

By the end of their lives, the buildings west of Nut house were all hidden behind a metal facade similar to the one that used to cover the Scott Block. The conversion was commissioned by the Genser furniture store (which is visible in the photo Esquire linked to)

This document has some nice photos of the stretch before and after being reclad, as well as during demolition in 1991. See pages 50-52.
https://www.winnipeg.ca/ppd/Documents/Heritage/YearPast/The-Year-Past-1991.pdf

[thurmas]

To me the most destructive decade to downtown Winnipeg was 1979 to 1989. The closing of Portage and Main to pedestrians and creation of Winnipeg square, the creation of eaton place the destruction of the tribune building and paper, and finally the creation of portage place when in hindsight would have been better served as a new downtown arena that could have saved Jets 1.0 from relocating. I know people on here love the forks but to me it took way too much energy and activity away from portage ave and moved activity further away and spread our massive downtown out even further.

[TimeFadesAway]

Originally Posted by davequanbury

By the end of their lives, the buildings west of Nut house were all hidden behind a metal facade similar to the one that used to cover the Scott Block. The conversion was commissioned by the Genser furniture store (which is visible in the photo Esquire linked to)

This document has some nice photos of the stretch before and after being reclad, as well as during demolition in 1991. See pages 50-52.
https://www.winnipeg.ca/ppd/Documents/Heritage/YearPast/The-Year-Past-1991.pdf

Those 'Year Past' books are a goldmine of historical info.