Main Street 1920s and 1930s and Goodbye to Bank of Montreal

There wasn't much colour in cars. They were pretty much all black in 1920s. The wide roads made Winnipeg tailor-made for cars. Although that same argument cold be made for mass transit. As clearly shown, streetcars ride up and down very wide Main Street just fine.

This picture taken at the corner of Portage and Main shows angle parking along the street. One street in the downtown has brought back reverse angle back in parking.

Despite the wide roads, it is hard to find parking along Main Street now. Rush hours means clearing all the streets for diamond lanes

Banker's Row doesn't exist anymore. Some buildings have been re-purposed. Other's denied other uses like the Canadian Bank of Commerce when Cowboys from Calgary wanted to turn it into a nightclub. Saviours came to stop it and the building mostly stays locked save for the sometime event.

We have a lot of good people trying to save the past and sometimes it is worth it, especially when we see decades long surface parking lots where the owner cry when they are told they can't use them or have to pave them and put trees in. However, we also deny a true re-purposing that can bring a vitality to the street instead of demolition.

Show an old picture of Winnipeg and have people coo about the good old days. It can easy forget the bad old days of blood on the street from the Strike. Or the Depression which had the city taking over property after property for unpaid taxes. Two world wars took some of our best people. The Spanish Flu and Polio kicked our asses. The Red River Flood reminded us we live in a flood plain.

Still, Winnipeg has survived and grown. Sometimes our growth has been very slow but in recent years it has been steady. We don't lack for head offices but they are spread out like much of everything in the city. Population is spread out as well which increasingly stretches infrastructure and and services.

The Bank of Montreal has indicated they are abandoning their old building at Portage and Main. They have faithfully kept it running and beautiful all this time. However, all of the rest of the banks have moved to the towers on the corner or even further afield.

I don't think we have reply on Cowboys to come to rescue. Nor do we need saviours who will turn it into a locked museum with fewer events than a Bomber season. The building has been in place since 1913 and truly is the last of Banker's Row. But it is orphaned. It is surrounded by a wall, connected to a failing Concourse and damned hard to get to.

The hotel on Portage Avenue East is still planned for 2020 but that doesn't really help Bank of Montreal re-purpose itself. Meeting be called soon to do hear proposals.

I do have one proposal. Move Explore Manitoba and Manitoba Tourism's 8000 square feet of space into the bank building. The Forks space is valuable enough that it could be re-purposed to a restaurant or retail.

Still...orphaned building isolated on an island. Tourism probably doesn't want to move from high profile Forks either. The city has stepped in in the past. The Bank of Hamilton building down the street is an example. But it has more true office space. The Bank of Montreal building is more of a cathedral.

The sad thing is that while people will say it is a beautiful building they are likely to veto any private or public use for it.