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03/30/2005: "Fall from Grace: Windsor Ontario"
This past Easter weekend I was back in Windsor, first time since Christmas. The city keeps taking metaphorical sucker punches that leave physical holes in Windsor's urban fabric. I went on a few walks this weekend, but mostly I drove the Red Rocket around and around. If I walk in Windsor, I can only feel conspicuous for so long - after a while I need to get back into the safety of the car. That I was listening to Morrissey's Viva Hate on the Rocket's tape deck didn't help my mood. It's fun to sing "Angel, don't take your life, tonight" really loud with the windows up. Mostly I listened to "Last night, Maudlin Street" over and over though.
The last night on Maudlin Street
Goodbye house, goodbye stairs
I was born here
And I was raised here, and
...I took some stick here
A big chunk of familiar Windsor was laying on the ground this weekend.
This big E used to be on top of the "Eastown Plaza" sign at Lauzon and Tecumseh Roads. It's where we went grocery shopping for years, at the N&D supermarket, owned by local Serbians. I forget when it closed but it couldn't compete with the giant supercentre-Zehrs-A&P places. There was this British cashier my dad would go to each time. They made nice Coronation Street small talk. The N&D had turrets on it, which were lit from the inside, making the building look like a low, spread out castle. I used to think people lived in there. Today it's a big green Food Basics, with all the vernacular bits removed. It was those bits, and the name "Eastown" that made this 1960s sprawling thing a place. Probably not worthy of the sort of treatment Robert Venturi gave vernacular signage in his book "Learning from Las Vegas", but I quite liked it. The smaller Eastown signs at the entrance to the plaza still give an indication of what it was like. It was extra-maudlin to walk up to the broken Eastown E and look at something that was so much a part of Windsor's public wallpaper up close. Some horrible vulture pigeon flew out at me when I went near it. Inside it looked like years of nests had accumulated. I suppose the E will be removed soon enough, and the scene of it's fall from grace, a fromer Woolco-turned-Walmart, redeveloped into some new big box.
The Walmart abandoned the old Woolco store a few years ago to move into a brand new location just down the street. I don't know why they left the old location. The need for bigger aisles for bigger customers? The old store had neat bricks that were sort of like real stones. Not great architecture, but better than the new building, and certainly lonely and unappreciated.
What's most striking about this area now, are the vast empty spaces, spaces I used to think were full of life, or at least, something. 
