WELCOME TO GEORGE SIAMANDAS’ WINNIPEG TIME MACHINE

WELCOME TO
THE WINNIPEG TIME MACHINE
This site features a collection of historical articles on Winnipeg and Manitoba History. Stories about people, places, events and institutions that have shaped Winnipeg’s and Manitoba’s history.

Many of these stories were presented on CBC Information Radio 1995-2000. Private individuals may use any of the written material on this site but must credit George Siamandas as the original author and source of the material. Others must obtain written permission.

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Please note that all photos marked with a copyright may not be used in whole or in part without the express permission of George Siamandas.

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ST. JOHN’S CATHEDRAL AND WINNIPEG’S OTHER OLDEST CHURCHES

ST. JOHN’S CATHEDRAL AND

WINNIPEG’S OTHER OLDEST CHURCHES

by George Siamandas

The 1834 cathedral replaced an earlier log church built in 1822 by John West. Construction for St. John’s Cathedral started in 1833. The limestone came from Stonewall and was quarried and hauled to the site during the preceding winter, by oxen pulling sleds. Much of this hard work was done by volunteers from the native and Red River settlement. Total cost was 900 pounds and the new cathedral could hold 500 people.

The site had been selected and put aside years earlier by Lord Selkirk himself. They were proud of their new church and Thomas Simpson called it “better than 90% of the Scotch country churches.” But their pride was premature. The new building deteriorated after just two years and for decades needed constant buttressing.

In 1862 it was replaced by a third church. But once again structural problems plagued the church. By the 1880s they desperately needed a new church. But it was a very long wait for the congregation. It was not until 1926 that the church was replaced by the present St. John’s Cathedral on Anderson Avenue. Andersen was named in honour of Anglican Bishop Anderson who came to red River in 1849.

The first church in Red River was built in St. Boniface in 1818 on the present site of St. Boniface Cathedral. This site has seen a succession of six churches: three were demolished to make way for larger churches, while two were lost in fires. Once again it was Lord Selkirk that had granted the land on the east side of the Red for the French community.

The oldest church is St. Andrew’s on the Red; it was consecrated in 1849. It is the oldest church in the west that has remained in continuous service. It has seen a major restoration of the stonework in the last few years. Its a testament to masonry techniques that old limestone buildings like St. Andrews have survived and can be restored. And all before pilings were commonly used.

One of the oldest churches is St. James Church. It’s located across Polo Park on Portage Ave and it was built in 1852. The oldest downtown church is Holy Trinity church just opposite Eatons which was built in 1882. It is the oldest building surviving on Graham Avenue.

Another interesting old church is St Peter’s on the east side of the Red in Selkirk. It is known as Peguis’ church because Salteaux Chief Peguis and his people helped build it in 1852. Peguis worshipped at St Peter’s till he died in 1864 and Peguis is buried in the church yard.

Nassau in Fort Rouge is a very ecumenical street with at least 7 churches. Starting on the north there is the Christian Science, then St. Luke’s Anglican, Crescent Fort Rouge United, Trinity Baptist, Evangelical Mennonite Conference and ST Francis De Sales Catholic Church for the Deaf.

The first synagogue was Sharrey Zedek originally located at the corner of Henry and King St. Virtually the entire Jewish community turned out on a September day in 1889 to witness the laying of the corner stone. That cornerstone is now incorporated in the Wellington crescent Sharrey Zedek which was completed in 1949.

MANITOBA BANS THE BOTTLE

MANITOBA BANS THE BOTTLE

For a Short Time Only

by George Siamandas

LIQUOR IN MANITOBA
After a long campaign for temperance, Manitoba voters took a hard line against the social costs of liquor and voted to introduce prohibition 83 years ago on March 13, 1916. In the days of the Hudson Bay Co, liquor had been imported from Britain for residents of the Hudson Bay posts. The first provincial Liquor Commission was established in 1878 and it allowed one bar for every 300 people. With a population of 7,000, 23 licenses were allowed.

THE IMPACT OF PROHIBITION
In 1916 there were 196 hotels in the province, with 76 of them in Winnipeg. There were 40 liquor wholesale liquor stores and 7 breweries. Put out of work were 1,975 bartenders. Most were expected to move to wet areas in the US or in Canada. For enforcement officials the job became one of dealing with people who went underground with bootlegging. Prohibition lasted for 7 years till Manitobans had second thoughts. In 1923 by a vote of 107,609 to 67,092 Manitobans reversed themselves and decided to allow liquor sales once again. This time a provincially run corporation the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission would regulate the sale of liquor to Manitobans.

THE 1924 LIQUOR ACT
The act was fairly restrictive. The price had to be the same everywhere. Stores were located in Winnipeg, Brandon, Portage La Prairie, The Pas and Dauphin. Advertising was very closely regulated and had to be approved by the Commission. Billboard ads were banned. There were quotas on sales. One could not buy more than 24 quarts a week or 72 quarts of beer per month. Liquor had to be consumed at home only. There was to be no barter of liquor and no transportation of liquor in Manitoba. Liability for a drunken person’s death was established by the act to whomever had supplied it to the individual. Ten ratepayers could stop the establishment of a licensed premise or a beer vendor. And in fact the Mennonite Bible belt was free of liquor for many years. Today Steinbach remains as dry as it ever was. People, could be banned from buying liquor on the authority of the police magistrate or two justices of the peace. They were termed interdicted persons.

RELIANCE ON LIQUOR REVENUE
As with lotteries today, the question of govt reliance on liquor sales and taxes for revenue has always been a dilemma. Government has walked the tightrope of valuing the revenue from liquor while at the same time trying to balance the social cost of drinking in society.

When the Liquor act was passed in 1924 the average Manitobans spent $20 a year on liquor. By 1930 it was $31 per year. During the depression it fell to $14 rising sharply to $62 in 1946 after the troops had returned home. In 1924 liquor revenues were $1.4 annually, declining to less than a million in 1934. But by 1947 revenues were $6 million comprising 27% of govt revenues that year.

THE BRACKEN COMMISSION
In 1954 a commission to study the Liquor Control Act was lead by ex Premier John Bracken. It conducted an exhaustive 750 page study that has the depth of social research you would expect if done today. In 1954 Manitobans had spent $43 million on liquor. At this time a good bottle of whisky cost $4-$5 and a 24 of beer were $3.27.

The research showed alcohol reduced inhibitions helped contribute to poverty and dependency. It struck a tone for scientific and objective reasons for temperance and not moralistic reasons. It surveyed liquor practises throughout the world and reported a s follows. China has a serious problem with opium. Columbia was suffering serious problems with beer made from corn. Mexico had the same problem with home brewed beer. Iceland had lived with prohibition for 40 years and seemed happy with this.

Russia was endemic with alcoholism. There was a liquor store for every 86 inhabitants: 8 times the norm. It was easier to buy liquor in Russia than to find a newspaper. Germany had once had a problem, but by this time it had gotten it under control. Holland was recognised as having the best policies for treatment of alcoholism, funded by the state but provided privately.

A new liquor act was passed in 1956, which is still in effect. It brought the consumption of liquor into the 20th century allowing a liquor vending system to be established. No liquor advertising was instituted. And it voted not to allow the sale of beer in grocery stores.

THE WINNIPEG FOUNDATION

THE WINNIPEG FOUNDATION

BUILDING THE CITY’S SOCIAL HEART

by George Siamandas

William Alloway came to Red River in 1870 at age 18. Winnipeg was not yet a city with about 12,000 people. Alloway worked his way up starting as a tobacconist, veterinarian and shipper. Within 9 years he founded Alloway and Champion which became one of the west’s largest private banks. Alloway’s fortunes grew with Winnipeg and he wanted to give something back. He felt he owed everything to Winnipeg and in 1921 he wrote a $100,000 cheque establishing the Winnipeg Foundation. Later, in 1930, Mrs. Elizabeth Alloway left an additional $2.5 million.

Kathleen Lightcap who was a founding member of the Junior League and a volunteer driver for the Meals on Wheels left $6.5 million in 1986-7. In the 1970s the James and Muriel Richardson Fund gave $1M and the George Hammill McKeag fund gave $1.2M. About 20 people have left more than $500,000. But much of the money is given by people from all walks of life who also want to give something back to their community. For example Joe McCann Transit Supervisor donated $200,000. Others like Janet Boucher who worked in the Holt Renfrew hat department gave $10,000.

In 1922 the first recipients were the Margaret Scott Nursing home set up by Miss Scott who was interested in providing the poor, the Knowles School for Boys, the VON, the Children’s Hospital and the Children’s Aid Society. They shared $6,000.

The Winnipeg Foundation helps a good idea get started and are willing to front end projects. In the Great Depression they helped out the Community Chest predecessor to the United Way. In 1935 they gave a grant to help set up the School for Social Work at the U of M. In 1953 they helped fight polio. In 1955 they helped establish the Age and Opportunity centre.

In 1958 they paid for the first computer that was installed at the Winnipeg General Hospital. In 1964 they helped Meals on Wheels and the VON’s Home Help program. In 1974 as part of centennial year they gave $100,00 for the Museum’s Urban Gallery. In 1976 they helped set up the Manitoba League for the With Disabilities. And in 1977 their annual grants exceeded $1,000,000.

Since then they have helped with Lion’s Manor senior’s housing, Fort Whyte Nature centre, and the Manitoba Childrens’ Museum. In 1994 they gave the largest grant ever, $750,000 to the Health Sciences and Children’s Research Centre.

It has about $92 million invested and has given $62 million to date. It gave out $4.25 Million in 1995. Last year they took in another 2.8 million in new donations. The principal is never touched.

People die leaving part or all of their estate to the Winnipeg Foundation.
Some of it is planned in advance and about half, the time people’s donation to the Winnipeg Foundation is a complete surprise. At least half the donors have no families to leave their estates to.

There is no set budget and the Foundation is able to react to issues and projects as they arise: it can be health, education, and family depending on the time. At times it has been proactive inner city and arts issues. They helped create Winnipeg Harvest. They like to help with projects or capital works.

There are about 60 across Canada, 14 in Manitoba. Some are general, while others are private one donor funds. For example the Thomas Sill Foundation was established by a Winnipeg accountant who was a partner in the firm Sill Streuber Fiske, a firm which exists today. He gave the largest single donation to charity ever in Manitoba leaving $19.2 million when he died in 1986.

FLIN FLON HISTORY

FLIN FLON HISTORY

Excerpted By George Siamandas

Flin Flon is the gateway to a nature-lover’s paradise. Located at the meeting point of three Canadian geological regions, the EDGE gives you access to an astounding variety of landscapes. The untouched, rock surfaces of the Canadian Shield to the north, polished smooth by the last glaciations, provide a dizzying array of lakes, swamps and muskegs. To the south, one can see the Precambrian-Paleozoic contact, an escarpment rising up to thirty metres above the southern country that boasts the even shored lakes of the Manitoba Lowlands. And, to the west, the Great Plains of Saskatchewan offer a breath-taking agrarian vastness that must experienced to be believed.

Besides taking in the beautiful sights, activities available in the include golf, swimming, fishing in both summer and winter, camping, and even scuba-diving.

The history of Flin Flon and the surrounding region is steeped in romantic adventure, as the entire area was settled by men and women in search of their fortunes in gold. In 1910, a group of prospectors found gold in quartz veins on the West Side of Amisk Lake. Members of this group were Jack and Dan Mosher, Thomas Creighton, and Leon and Isidor Dion – names that appear repeatedly in the history of the region. This deposit led to the development of the Prince Albert Mine that operated in 1937 and again from 1940 to 1942.

By 1913, people were coming from all over Canada to make their fortunes. This was the first major discovery of gold west of the Ontario border since the Klondike gold rush. More than a thousand men, and even two women, came to stake claims. The ‘town’, which sprang up, was called Beaver City, and consisted of a row of tents and log cabins, as well as two cookhouses capable of feeding two hundred men at a time. Commercial fishing was also started on Amisk Lake in 1913. Freight was hauled by York Boat in the summer and by sleigh in the winter.

World War 1 and a subsequent outbreak of Spanish influenza contributed to the demise of Beaver City. When war broke out in 1914, one man was left as caretaker of Beaver City. After three years of looking after a deserted town, Angus McDonald was given the town as payment. Roderick McDermott is the last known surviving resident of the Beaver City settlement. Mr. and Mrs. McDermott still reside in Denare Beach.

Gold prospecting continued through 1914 and 1915. In 1915, Creighton, the Moshers and the Dions discovered the massive Flin Flon copper-zinc orebody and prospecting shifted from gold to base metals. The complex mineralogy of the deposit inhibited its development until the Mandy Mine was established along Flin Flon Lake in 1915. Eventually, the Mandy Mine became profitable and busy enough that no one returned to the gold claims. The community of Flin Flon came into existence as Beaver City disappeared.

Fort Garry’s Park-Like Wildewood Subdivision

Fort Garry’s

Park-Like Wildewood Subdivision

by George Siamandas

The Fort Garry area which was incorporated as a municipality on April 16, 1912 and the Wildewood area is one of its distinctive residential areas. Fort Garry was initially part of St. Vital and was settled by Metis and Quebecois farmers. These early settlers were Metis boatmen who build their homes close to the river’s edge as it was their best choice in transportation. One of the most famous landowners in the area that later became Wildewood was Ambroise Lepine. But after the Riel incident, many French people left the area and were replaced by Anglophones. Over the years it has completely lost its French origins. Only in the south end at St. Norbert will you see what the early Fort Garry was like.

COLONEL THOMPSON’S PLAN FOR WILDEWOOD

But by 1900 virtually all traces of the Metis heritage of the area was gone. One developer after another tried to develop the land starting with Colonel RM Thompson who in 1908 first introduced the name Wildewood. Thompson’s plan was for a very exclusive area just like was developing then on Wellington Cres. They built roads and Col Thompson had a huge Victorian mansion built at the point of the Red River. Col Thompson went to fight in WW1 and never returned. His house was not fully completed and was not occupied for 17 years and was to be demolished in 1933 after suffering years of vandalism. Finally in 1934, it was bought by Ravenscourt School and renovated to become a boy’s school. But the land continued to bounce back and forth between the City of Winnipeg and the Fort Garry municipality. At one time during the 1930s the city was contemplating making it into a park just like Assiniboine Park. But lack of money saw the city give it back to Fort Garry.

HOW WILDEWOOD PARK CAME ABOUT

Enter Hubert Bird. Bird was the owner of Bird construction. Bird had built aerodromes during WW1 and after the war he started the Bird construction company and built Union Station in Regina, and the Swifts plant in Winnipeg during the 1930s. During WW2 he built half the airfields and barracks in western Canada. During WW2 while flying over Radburn New Jersey, Bird saw an example of a new garden suburb with cul de sacs all built around a central shared park. Bird had seen his model for Wildewood and purchased the land comprising Wildewood.

WW2 had given Bird experience in mass production techniques and he had seen the potential of applying these techniques to reduce housing costs in Wildewood. It had never been done before with housing.

The returning WW2 vets needed affordable housing and Bird gave them 5 house plans to choose from. Bird hired the firm GBR (Still active and building the Jewish Community campus) to design the project. They did market research to find preferences for house features like the preferred number of bedrooms. Almost half wanted storey and a half and most wanted forced air heating. Great West Life agreed to finance the project and scale model for the area was placed at Eatons, the hub of the city at the time.

MASS PRODUCTION OF HOUSING PIONEERED IN WILDEWOOD

Then construction began using assembly line techniques after materials had been procured en masse and brought to the site. Lumber had even been salvaged from grain bins. Panel forms were used for pouring basements, and the exterior walls were prefabed. Specialty crews worked on flooring, shingling, and insulation. A US newspaper featured a bungalow and a storey and a half built in just 58 minutes. The realty firm SS Stevensen handled the sales, and it took only 2 years to sell out. Mature trees were spared preserving the area’s main amenity: its heavily wooded quality. The neighbourhood had to do their own snow removal buy hiring a man and buying a horse drawn plough. Cost per resident was $.50 annually. They also bought their own mosquito fogger.

The area had one of the highest birth rates in the country and some dubbed it Childwood and Fertile Valley. Doug Henning the magician is one.

THE TALE OF THE WOLSELEY ELM

THE TALE OF THE WOLSELEY ELM

Just Elected Mayor Juba Does the Right Thing

by George Siamandas

In 1957, a giant triple-trunked elm stood in the centre of Wolseley Avenue and Greenwood St in Winnipeg. It had been planted by a woman resident a hundred years earlier, and as early as the turn of the century, it was considered a traffic hazard. The area’s residents had fought many battles to preserve it even though traffic planners had long wanted to cut it down. In the summer of 1957 the traffic department decided that the Wolseley Elm finally had to go. It was a traffic hazard. The residents thought that on the contrary it was a safety feature as it required traffic to slow down to go around it.

THE BATTLE TO SAVE THE ELM

The issue immediately became contentious. The Free Press wrote in an editorial titled “Lay That Buzz Saw Down,” that the “aldermen are asking for trouble, when they chop down city trees, and they invite a torrent of criticism when they eye the one that grows on Wolseley. They really should know better. They say it is a nuisance. The truth is the tree bothers some strange civic clique which abhors individuality and has a passion for unrelenting conformity.” Alderman Crawford retorted “Lets grow a big fat tree right in the middle of Portage and Main.” In response Wolseley residents Mrs Wolfram and Mrs McCord began a fight to save the tree.

Mayor Juba who had just been elected mayor responded to the people’s wishes. On September 19, 1957 the Free Press front page headline read “Wild Women Win-Juba Breaks Law to Save Tree” At nine that morning a convoy of civic vehicles arrived to cut it down. A group of women gathered around the tree with their arms folded in defiance. They are going to have to chop us down too if they want to chop our tree said the women. As the city employee approached the tree with his buzz saw, an old grandmother with an axe shouted out “We don’t think you should do this.” A crowd of three hundred had gathered to support the 12 women that were now guarding the tree. Juba then emerged from the crowd and was convinced by the women to find a way out of it. On the premise of public safety, Juba put an end to that day. Mrs Borrowman kissed the mayor on the cheek and invited him to her place for tea.

The issue immediately captured national TV coverage and McLeans magazine did a big feature on the Wolseley Elm and Mayor Juba. But a few days later vandals poured gasoline on the tree and set it ablaze. Grafts were performed by a University tree expert and the tree revived the following spring. But in June 1958 three university students attacked the tree with saws and a crowbar. They were caught and fined $150 each.

Finally on Halloween October 31, 1958 the Wolseley Elm has seen its last season. At three in the morning residents awakened to two loud explosions. It was like two canon blast said a resident. The street lights were blown out and the tree had been blown up. Police suspected dynamite, but despite an enquiry, the culprits were never found. It was thought to be a KKK like warning, because two months earlier the residents had found a rooster on the tree. A psychiatrist said that people who blow up trees a are not mad at trees but at society. By June of 1960 no signs of life were evident. A kind of death certificate was issued and even Mrs Borrowman agreed that the tree should now come down. She asked for a piece of the tree so that she could have an electric lamp made.

Mayor Juba had emerged a hero in the way he had handled his first controversial issue. He had gone with his instincts. It was the first of many public victories.

TUXEDO The Suburb Beautiful

TUXEDO

The Suburb Beautiful

by George Siamandas

DEVELOPER FREDERICK WILLIAM HEUBACH

In 1905 Heubach set up the Tuxedo Park Land Co. He found a collection of Minneapolis based investors who had built great wealth in the grain industry. Over the next year the Tuxedo Park Company bought 3,000 acres from Mary and Archibald Wright and other owners for $450,000. The first home in the area an old farmhouse still stands at the south-east corner of Academy and Wellington Cresc.

On January 24 1913 the town of Tuxedo was incorporated with FW Heubach its original developer becoming its first Mayor. But his plan did not immediately succeed due to competition from the Crescentwood development which was much closer to the city. The Minneapolis investors of the Tuxedo Park Co lost their money. Heubach died before any houses were built. Tuxedo was named after the famous New York suburb called Tuxedo. It had previously been the hunting grounds of the Algonquin Indians and was called Taugh Seeder or Duck Seeder which meant “Place of the Bear.”

MAYOR FINKELSTEIN

Heubach died the following year and was succeeded by FL Finkelstein as mayor. from 1911 Finkelstein with an accounting background became a partner with Heubach and Heubach’s son Claude. Finkelstein would serve as mayor and would go on to run the company successfully into the 1950s. The plan for the town had been designed by the famous Frederick Law Olmstead firm, and it became the city plan in 1911. It had combined residential areas, areas of work in the south including the Canada Cement Plant.

THE FIRST HOMES

The first house was built in 1915 by Raymond Carey on the north corner of Nanton and Park. The area was connected by a mud road that became Nanton Blvd. Carey was fairly isolated and had to get the plows out before he could traverse the mud road through the as yet undeveloped aspen wooded area east of his home. Carey married Heubach’s daughter Claire, Carey, a british architect, had come to Winnipeg in 1909 from Detroit and was well known for his Georgian style homes.

In 1923, Frederick Heubach’s son Claude, built a home at the south corner. Designed and built buy Northwood and Carey. Later Claude Heubach moved to Hosmer to one of the first homes south of Corydon Ave. In the 1920s a series of homes sprung up along the east side of Park Boulevard facing Assiniboine Park.

Many homes were owned by grain industry businessmen. In 1925 the first house was built on Lamont. The site originally reserved for the University became Tuxedo Golf Course. The four room Tuxedo Schoolhouse was built in 1926. Many area street names have changed since the original plan. Tuxedo Blvd was originally called Van Horne.

The plan reserved a strip of land just south of the Agricultural College. It eventually became the Youth centre, commercial and public housing and military land. By 1911 the new plan for Tuxedo was complete. It was anticipated that in time the University of Manitoba would be located at Tuxedo but after 1926 when it located in Fort Garry. There are many famous builders like Frank Lount and the Sparrow Brothers that built the area’s homes.

Winnipeg Planning Commission Announces New Plan for 1912

Winnipeg Planning Commission

Announces New Plan for 1912

by George Siamandas

Winnipeg’s Planning Commission had big plans for Winnipeg in 1912. The report of the planning commission recommended moving city hall to Broadway and creating a Mall along Osborne St. Winnipeg was the third largest city. And its leading citizens thought it would still become the biggest in the country.

There was concern that Winnipeg grow in the proper way and provide health, convenience and beauty for its citizens. Winnipeg saw itself as one of the leading cities in North America and wanted to do the right things with its future growth. The committee had some of the city’s leading citizens including distinguished architect John Atchison, the heads of civic departments representatives from the real estate industry, the builders, unions, and academics.

WINNIPEG’S PROBLEMS IN 1912

There was a lot of overcrowding. Very high cases of typhoid. Their 1912 studies showed it was twice as high in Winnipeg’s poor areas. There were not enough parks. Houses were being built on 25 foot lots. And what were once nice apartments were degenerating into tenements rapidly. There was concern that congestion near Portage and Notre Dame would get worse and that the system of roads, bridges and subways had to be improved. They also saw this as the last chance to acquire some riverbank land for public drives before it was all privatized. There was also concern that the health and building inspection department could not do their jobs because they were understaffed.

THE GRAND PROPOSAL OF RELOCATING CITY HALL TO MEMORIAL BOULEVARD AND CREATING A GRAND MALL

The new Manitoba legislature was about to be started on Broadway and would form the south end of a new mall. City hall was to go near Portage Ave. And between them was to be a new mall featuring a town square providing a place for a future art gallery, public library, post office, auditorium, exposition (convention centre) and other such structures such as a new Hudson Bay store. Running through the middle would be a roadway 160 feet across becoming a new north south highway.

NEW BUILDING CODES

To overcome slums they introduced new building standards. Houses were required to have one bedroom with at least 800 cubic feet of space and a window. No more 25 foot lots. At least one room would have to be 150 sq ft. They wanted to see the establishment of a Child Welfare Bureau and education about domestic hygiene and proper child care.

The legislature was built as planned but everything else had to wait for many decades. Of course city hall was not moved or rebuilt for another fifty years. The Bay built their store in 1926. During the depression they did build the auditorium as a relief project, and in the mid 1960s they built the art gallery. By 1962 city planners felt that city hall should stay put to help prevent further deterioration in the Main St. area.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THESE WELL LAID PLANS?

The voters turned a funding by-law for a new city hall shortly after 1912. The economy just did not support the grand vision that the planners had at the time. World War 1, then the doldrums of the 1920s when Winnipeg’s gateway role was supplanted by the new Panama Canal, then the doldrums of the 1930s and then WW2.

The problems of slums, and housing conditions and more recently of the erosion of the commercial base. But what seems to have changed dramatically is the level of optimism. In 1912 Winnipeg was coming off decades of unprecedented growth and progress. They dreamt big with full confidence their plans would be realized. Today we see continuing challenges to the future viability of downtown both in economic and social terms. The original vision of a health, convenience and beauty seems even more elusive in 1997 than it did 85 years ago.