This is a cool one. This is that old train station right behind the Alberta Ballet building, the North entrance of Lindsay Park on 18th Ave (a couple meters SE of St. Mary Cathedral.)
Spoiler!
Here it is when it was in use (?). Anyone know where those tracks go to?
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on the stripper note, we used to go to the old Airliner Inn on edmonton trail and mcknight. Watching the 2nd season of Fargo and there is the old airliner being used in the series as a hotel. good times.
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This is a cool one. This is that old train station right behind the Alberta Ballet building, the North entrance of Lindsay Park on 18th Ave (a couple meters SE of St. Mary Cathedral.)
Spoiler!
Here it is when it was in use (?). Anyone know where those tracks go to?
Excellent series of pictures, thank you. Also excellent picture quality on them.
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Good god... comic book shops, record shops, arcades, downtown theatres...it sounds like downtown was a way more interesting place in the 80s.
I am too young to ever remember theatres at Esso Plaza but I thought there were theatres at Bankers Hall as well?
Stephen Avenue is just a decrepid mess of empty vacancies now with restaurant after restaurant posting notices that they couldn't come to a lease agreement with the landlord about a rent $ that made sense. The rents are just way too high to have anything interesting down there.
Yes Bankers Hall had some really nice theatres on the top floor. I used to watch movies there all the time because they were some of the more nicely maintained theatres in town. I was surprised they closed them because they were quite popular.
My friends and I would take the bus and LRT downtown on Saturdays. Have a meal at McD's/Subway/Dairy Queen/The Bay basement (and, IIRC, the cafeteria on one of the higher floors). Go to the sketchy arcades, visit the pawn shops, used bookstores, magazine stores (I'd pickup European Commodore 64 magazines from Billy's News). Eau Claire had a dump next to the smoke stack. Prince's Island Park was dead all the time, even on the nicest summer days. Only chicks sunbathing. Not even the bums went there, which I always found odd.
CSB: There used to be a sub shop near the arcade on 7th Ave. Just getting there was an experience. People would whisper "hash" to you as you walked by. So one day we were having lunch at the sub shop and the cops arrested some people in the upstairs area of the restaurant. We were eating at the counter by the window when a cop slammed some guy's face into the glass right in front of us.
Good times.
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I'm having trouble orienting myself on this... Obviously, I recognize the tower and the international hotel, and west, but I just don't recognize anything else.
Can someone landmark some of the bridges or something?
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I'm having trouble orienting myself on this... Obviously, I recognize the tower and the international hotel, and west, but I just don't recognize anything else.
Can someone landmark some of the bridges or something?
The island is the Zoo. The bridge just beyond the island is Reconciliation bridge.
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I'm having trouble orienting myself on this... Obviously, I recognize the tower and the international hotel, and west, but I just don't recognize anything else.
Can someone landmark some of the bridges or something?
I'm curious about the timeline of that one. The Tower is there so it has to be after the late-60s, but the flyovers aren't there, so it can't be too far into the 70s. Apparently, the 5th Ave flyover opened in 1972.
The Zoo on St George's Island is in the bottom left corner. The General Hospital in Bridgeland would have been just off the right side of the photo.
The bridge to the Zoo island is still there off of eastbound Memorial. Memorial Drive has been significantly expanded since then. It looks like it's only a two-lane road there.
You can see the Langevin Bridge crossing the Bow.
Comparing that photo to a current one, there isn't a lot in the photo that still exists today. The whole area around Fort Calgary (reclaimed by the city in 1974) and the East Village are completely different. Bridgeland is significantly different too.
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The first time I was in a strip club, I was underaged. I was with two buddies who were older than 18 so they did not end up carding me. I'm trying to remember the name of the club. I believe it was in the basement of the York Hotel. I think it was called the Spotlight Club? Can't find any evidence on the internet such a club by that name ever existed in the basement of the York Hotel but I remember they advertised in the Calgary Sun at the time. That's something else that seems to have disappeared -- advertisements for gentlemen's clubs in the mainstream media.
Some old black and white photos of Calgary. Unfortunately I have no idea the dates. But I am assuming they are 1950s or earlier.
Spoiler!
These guys are setting up on maybe the Stampede ground? Notice the old trolleys behind them.
More Stampede grounds
The Grandstand show
These last couple photos are from I'm guessing the 40s? Just going by the vehicles. Maybe 7th ave??
This is SAIT. My Grandfather graduated from SAIT in 1936, so perhaps this photo was taken sometime around that time...
Have you considered contacting the Glenbow about your collection? It seems like something they might like to preserve. The pics you've posted have been awesome.
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Here it is when it was in use (?). Anyone know where those tracks go to?
I believe the terminus was at the ballet building. If you look at the 1948 map here, it looks like there was a train yard where the Talisman is now with the tracks going over to Ogden - https://maps.calgary.ca/Crowchild/
Quote:
Originally Posted by Huntingwhale
Spoiler!
This is Stephen Ave facing westward (the photo is reversed) The building on the right, closest to camera is The Belvedere, then Original Joe's, Blink, Divino and so on
Quote:
Spoiler!
These last couple photos are from I'm guessing the 40s? Just going by the vehicles. Maybe 7th ave??
This is the same part of Stephen Ave except looking east (again photo is reversed) so that's Winners on the right, Patagonia on the immediate left, following by the little wooden building which is currently a souvenir store and is actually the oldest building in downtown Calgary (1885)
Trams ran down Stephen Ave back in the day. Here's a picture of the same stretch of Stephen Ave from the 20s. Again, Winners on the left (the immediate buildings on the left don't exist - they're now the Bank of Montreal building built in 1930 (now a gym I believe)
Thanks for the photos Huntingwhale. I appreciate what your grandad was doing. When I first came to Calgary, for a number of years, I wandered around taking a bunch of photos documenting buildings and streets in Calgary in the hope that they'd be interesting to look back on for future viewers. I haven't done it in years, but I need to go get myself a camera and get back to doing that. I love looking at the evolution of places.
Last edited by Swift; 12-03-2017 at 05:28 PM.
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Dug out a couple of reproduction prints I bought on ebay years ago. I just scanned them and they're not great quality scans but here they are anyway. The first is actually the same photo I just posted above but bigger.
Spoiler!
Catch and Hyatt on the left, the building on the right is gone and is now Milestones.
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Have you considered contacting the Glenbow about your collection? It seems like something they might like to preserve. The pics you've posted have been awesome.
Yes, yes, yes. Those photographs are amazing. I am trained as an archivist, and photos like that are really welcomed in collections.
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My friends and I would take the bus and LRT downtown on Saturdays. Have a meal at McD's/Subway/Dairy Queen/The Bay basement (and, IIRC, the cafeteria on one of the higher floors). Go to the sketchy arcades, visit the pawn shops, used bookstores, magazine stores (I'd pickup European Commodore 64 magazines from Billy's News). Eau Claire had a dump next to the smoke stack. Prince's Island Park was dead all the time, even on the nicest summer days. Only chicks sunbathing. Not even the bums went there, which I always found odd.
CSB: There used to be a sub shop near the arcade on 7th Ave. Just getting there was an experience. People would whisper "hash" to you as you walked by. So one day we were having lunch at the sub shop and the cops arrested some people in the upstairs area of the restaurant. We were eating at the counter by the window when a cop slammed some guy's face into the glass right in front of us.
Good times.
Typically Saturday with my buddies circa 1984-86:
C-Train downtown. Head to to Three Ring Circus or Illusions on Stephen Ave Mall and play a couple arcade games. Stop into Catch the Winds to buy the latest D&D module. Go the Lancaster Building and grab pizza at DJs and take it up into Devonian Gardens to eat. Browse records and CDs at Sam the Record Man. Cruise around the plus-15s checking out the punk chicks. Make our way to Esso Plaza for more arcade games. Back to Stephen Ave to check out shirts, pins, posters, etc, at Boodlum or Charisma. Go to the comic store at the end of mall and pick up a couple issues of the latest Daredevil or X-Men. Back on the train and home for dinner. Out of pocket maybe $15.
Quote:
Originally Posted by snootchiebootchies
The first time I was in a strip club, I was underaged. I was with two buddies who were older than 18 so they did not end up carding me. I'm trying to remember the name of the club. I believe it was in the basement of the York Hotel. I think it was called the Spotlight Club? Can't find any evidence on the internet such a club by that name ever existed in the basement of the York Hotel but I remember they advertised in the Calgary Sun at the time. That's something else that seems to have disappeared -- advertisements for gentlemen's clubs in the mainstream media.
The Spotlight was nasty.
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Last edited by CliffFletcher; 12-04-2017 at 11:47 AM.
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C-Train downtown. Head to to Three Ring Circus on Stephen Ave Mall and play a couple arcade games. Stop into Catch the Winds to buy the latest D&D module. Go the Lancaster Building and grab pizza at DJs and take it up into Devonian Gardens to eat. Browse records and CDs at various record stores. Cruise around the plus-15s checking out the punk chicks. Make our way to Esso Plaza for more arcade games. Back to Stephen Ave to check out shirts,, pins, etc, at the head shops. Go to the comic store at the end of mall and pick up a couple issues of the latest Daredevil or X-Men. Back on the train and home for dinner. Out of pocket maybe $15.
Yup, I'd ask my mom for $20. Usually had some money to give back to her.
I'm sure our cadre ran into your cadre, but we were snot-nosed 13 year olds in '86.
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