Memories

Just before Christmas, I was thinking about my early experiences with Christmas shopping in Brantford. I remember going uptown and shopping in such stores as The Right House, Parsons, Elliott-Wedlake's, Kresge's, Zeller's, Woolworth's, Metropolitan Stores, Eaton's, Stedman's, United Cigar, Laura Secord's, Duncan's, Lockington's, the Hobby Shop, etc. In fact, there were a whole host of shops and businesses uptown then, including several bakeries, grocery stores, lunch counters and restaurants, pool halls, five shows, five hotels, shoes stores, clothing stores, drug stores, jewelery stores, butcher shops, the market, a fish store, and even a shoe shine parlour among others. Now, almost all of these businesses are gone. And, if the destruction of the south side of Colborne street goes through, so will the majority of the building that housed these businesses of those days. Form the L,E and N station at the corner of the Lorne Bridge next to what is now Icomm Dr. (appropriately named for a never existent facility) and the New Benwell Hotel opposite it, down to where Icomm Dr. reconnects (formerly Newport St.) where the City Ice Service and Purity Dairy were located, few buildings will remain on either side of the street. The only block that will still be intact is the north side from Queen St. to King St. The story is much the same for Dalhousie St. with about the only block intact the north side between George St. and Market St.

Millions and millions and millions of tax dollars have been spent on this area and it just continues to fade into the past.