Rivertown Revisited

I seen a picture of the Globe Trading Company from a few years back; the dingy dirty street is now a jogger-biking-casual relaxing reading paved trail with benches and trash receptacles.. The Globe building is being prepared for loft living, and is a hop skip and jump for Chene and Milliken park which is directly across the street. I remember driving through the area in the late nineties and seeing a Victorian? era home in immaculate condition, hope it was relocated.A mix of old and new, dingy and clean, grimy and upscale, Rivertown is on the rebound!

Rivertown was doing fine in the 80s and 90s until the ill-fated casino plan came along.

Anyone have any memories of the area in the sixties-eighties?

Yes.

Mostly good ones.

I had such good times I can't remember them.

yeah, that casino plan was sucky. Never understood the rationale behind wanting to put windowless buildings on the water. jeeze

I still think the place to have clustered all the casinos was around Grand Circus Park. Could have repurposed the Statler, the Tuller and United Artist properties ... maybe the Whitney or Broderick... sigh

Andrew's on the Corner. Good times.

What 19th century industrial fabric has been lost between Rivard and Iron Streets is a shame. This feature and these old brick structures define this district today and can and should play an important part in this neighborhood's revival. Considering a sense of place, none of us can argue that these old brick structures are not the building blocks of this district. We need to make sure random demolitions do not happen here for "the better good" of an empty lot or parking lot.

Some positive things are starting to trickle away from the Joseph Campau corridor toward and away from downtown. Adaptive reuse of these historic structures can really help revitalize this area, unlike any other place in the city.