And, you shouldn't have this thread without understanding this song's significance.

• Video Link

This TV series is very much the way things were, but would never be able to exist today. Those from today's generation may never understand it. Have we really come a long way, baby?

That was the most convenient pic I could find, and one of my good friends knows Srombo well, butttt..... Master T was the best!

I get beer at my barbershop in Parkdale. Gotta pay for the beer but it's a pretty reasonable price for a cut.

I was there a few times in the late 1970's. I wouldn't say that the food (mostly steak and beer) was the best, but it was certainly the cheapest and that it why it was so popular.

I would have said that barber shops transcended class.

In Ontario, those separate entrances (men and ladies/escorts) led to separate rooms.

Probably true, but I was a starving medical student at the time (lots of mac & cheese), and steak of any kind was a treat - even better if it was cheap!!! :haha:

I hung around the Midtown intermittently from 1979-84. The other thing I liked about the place is how it was a meeting place for people from all walks of life - university students, downtown office workers and blue collar types from the waterfront.

a trip down memory lane, Winnipeg style




Warehouse district, 1920s

http://i.imgur.com/Um1mcaS.jpg
source


Winnipeg 1950s

http://i.imgur.com/wyZjNNH.jpg
source


Portage Ave (1960s)

http://i.imgur.com/glpt0vy.jpg
source


Gold Coach Lounge on Kennedy St

http://i.imgur.com/WgL3feu.jpg
source


Beachcomber at the Sheraton Carlton

http://i.imgur.com/yvqy7KN.jpg
source
http://i.imgur.com/UMV8u8c.jpg
source

Swizzle-sticks from old Winnipeg establishments

http://i.imgur.com/ehAAGh9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/bBHzhUI.jpg
source


Near Portage & Main (1960s)

http://i.imgur.com/x67o8ZH.jpg
source


Portage Ave (1960)

http://i.imgur.com/DkJPntN.jpg
source


Portage Ave (1960s)

http://i.imgur.com/sTC4YlD.jpg
source


Central Billiard Room, Main St (1960s)

http://i.imgur.com/3pQKkhs.jpg
source

Hunky Bill's Winnipeg Soul Food

http://i.imgur.com/GpK4aFL.jpg
source

Market Square (1961)

http://i.imgur.com/WptRAt0.jpg
source


Mcdermot Ave (1962)

http://i.imgur.com/4BKXKjv.jpg
source


Memorial Blvd, 1966

http://i.imgur.com/UCCeP3X.jpg
source


Mcintyre Block, 1959
http://i.imgur.com/i43sesR.jpg
source


Steinbach > Okotoks

http://i.imgur.com/ZmypAW6.jpg
source


Looking South from City Hall, 1965

http://i.imgur.com/2y2OZDi.jpg
source

I miss Simpson'! There was a great one in downtown London right at Dundas & Richmond in the heart of the city.

Back in the 60s & 70s the middle class was so much larger. Any household with 2 breadwinners were automatically middle class had a nice home and 2 cars in the garage even with 3 or 4 kids. They didn't both have to go to school for 5 years to enjoy the benefit of a one bedroom condo. Many younger people equate more gadgets with a higher standard of living but don't realize how much worse off they are than the people were in the 60s & 70s.

My dads old hangout.....good find.

I remember going to Rotate This in Toronto when it was located on Queen St on visits in the late 90s / early 2000s. Queen W got seriously sketchy once you got past Spadina. Lots of inexplicable "appliance stores" and way more down and out people than there are now. I first walked through Parkdale in 2005 and it was a different world than now, although still not really dangerous.

Great Winnipeg pics! Are most of these buildings still there...?

By the way, I'm nearly certain this pic is not from the 1960s. Mid-1950s at the latest, statistically, from the significant sample of cars visible. The odds of having every single vehicle in the pic being 5+ years old are extraordinarily slim, especially back then as cars were more affordable and people changed them way more often than now.

If I had to bet I would bet this pic was taken in 1953 or 1954.

P.S. Not to brag but my auto enthusiast skills have often proven useful over the years for correcting (or, of course, silently validating, in the vast majority of cases) old pictures' datations. For example,
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpo...&postcount=107

Reminds me of the beverage rooms at the Butte and Shaughnessy Hotels near where I grew up. Of course, no one really cared if you were underage then, it was easy to get in if you looked like you close to legal. 25 cents a glass for draft with the ALCB lines, cutoff at midnight when your table would order a hundred...

You're probably correct re: the dates. As far as the picture goes, some of the buildings are still there.

http://i.imgur.com/sTC4YlD.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/EnbkdPV.jpg

you can see the facade of that one building (bad with names) that was incorporated into the newer ALT Hotel

Wow, that's sad :yuck: I'm hoping the other streets in your bunch of '50s / '60s pics fared better than that. So bland, almost nothing old left. And that Dollarama is the icing on the cake...

Hair salons in Ontario can get liquor licences. A salon in Timmins now serves beer and wine: https://www.timminstoday.com/local-n...nd-wine-576531

Winnipeg's streetcar service ended in 1955, so chances are that you're either right on the money or very close.

Here's a better version. One that's probably more significant to most of us on here.

• Video Link

I miss flying with civility.

Flying use to be sooooo nice. It was something you looked forward to. No paying for basic baggage, a meal even on the shortest of trips as opposed to today where a micro bag of pretzels is considered an extravagence, actually having a pillow provided for the trip, and most of all none of these endless security checks.

For domestic flights you just got your ticket and walked on the plane arriving just 30 minutes before take-off and not 2 hours like crossing into the US was nothing more than a stop sign. Today even a short flight is one check-up line after another. A few years ago my 83 year old mom had to get out of her wheelchair, and get rid of all her personals to clear security for her trip from the terrorist hotbeds of Abbotsford & London Ontario.

You use to feel pampered when flying but it has become an excruciatingly painful experience.

Department stores:

https://lovebyaudrey.files.wordpress.../11/esw-51.jpg
https://lovebyaudrey.wordpress.com/2...tagechristmas/

https://i.cbc.ca/1.3903570.148217356...dson-s-bay.jpg
From CBC

http://evelazarus.com/canada/wp-cont...ardsbeacon.jpg
http://evelazarus.com/a-brief-histor...odwardsbeacon/

It may have been more civil, but you paid for it! I remember my first flight to Europe was about $800 in 1980. That was for a return ticket from Winnipeg to Amsterdam. I don't even want tp think how much that would be in 2017 dollars. Stayed for 6 months to make it worthwhile! Also flew with KLM on a 747. As far as security, it's a different world now.

I largely grew up in the nineties and the early oughts. In suburban Edmonton/Calgary. Nothing to really feel nostalgic about... in fact most things have improved.

A personal one I miss... Zone 216, the city's longest-running gay bar. I first went on my 16th birthday (shhh...).

http://i66.tinypic.com/16aqwcm.png

It was infamously unsafe (the bathrooms were below the dance floor and the ceiling would shake and drop dust constantly from all the footsteps above) but it had such a wonderful sense of community.

The entrance was on Water Street, and you had to go up two flights of stairs to where the coat check and bathrooms were. The coat check was staffed by a straight woman who looked like Mimi from the Drew Carey Show. There were a couple of couches here where the drag queens and jilted lovers would wait to shout to people coming in.

Up two more flights of stairs and you'd come inside with the dance floor/DJ booth to your right and seating areas and the bar to the left. At the edge of the dance floor were huge windows overlooking Water Street. And behind the bar was a separate room with couches and (that far up the hill) a ground-level exit into an alley. The alley went right to McMurdo's Lane stairs, or curved to the left up to an after-hours cocktail louge with leopard-print couches set into the walls. That back exit was guarded by a very overweight, cheerful guy who would give you a little grope as you went past but somehow there was nothing uncomfortable about it. I used to wear black leather pants and a burgundy crop top :haha: Jeez.

It had the same bartenders forever - hot twinky guy and a milfy lesbian. Oksana and Misha, two ripped Russian stowaways who somehow stayed here for years, would always be dancing half naked in tacky self-made rags. It was this interesting not-fully-globalized period in Newfoundland where you could instantly tell visually who was home from living away, who was from the city, and who was in town from out around the bay. Although there were cliques (twinks, leather daddies, lesbians, etc.) we all shared the same space. Somehow the DJ always managed to get a couple of songs per year many, many months before they spread elsewhere in North America.

At 3 a.m. when the straight bars were closed, the place would get packed to the rafters with excited straight girls and (back then) hilariously uncomfortable straight guys. The drag queens would actively get visiting sailors in - a lovely tribute to the gay-friendly bar here in the 60s, where the Portuguese fishermen would go if they struck out with the ladies, I guess.

There was just something special about it in its day. I always left in a wonderful mood - and people usually shared cabs with folks they only met for that purpose, often arranged by the drag queens. It felt like people looked out for each other somehow. :D

Oh, the 90s... :haha:

http://i.imgur.com/9N8MGYo.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/1T5CirO.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/szobakS.jpg

And right on cue ...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitche...quor-1.4216804

I remember my mother taking a trip to Hawaii back in the mid-70s (Wardair?). She not only bought a new dress for the flight, she was wearing white gloves at the airport! Admittedly, that was a tad over the top for the times, but flying was still a big deal for many. Today, my only defence is to fly business class only.

You're absolutely right because the last street car operating in Winnipeg was in '55.

It's been legal in Vancouver (BC) since January of this year. Since I haven't seen this inside of a barbershop in over 15 years, I can't say if any of them have a license or not.

That said, I'm not sure I would be crazy drinking in a place where there is a high likelihood of matter ending up in my beer. ;)

I had no idea, but that fact means whoever labeled that picture is even more incompetent than I thought.

Anyone who is in the business of dating old Winnipeg pictures shouldn't have missed such a dead giveaway as that.

This might not fit with the spirit of the thread, but I miss the time before I was 19. I know that'll sound ridiculous to those of you who know how old I am, but still.

That was when summers were summers and I didn't have to work over 60 hours a week in them. Passing a 40 around in the park by school, or pouring vodka into slurpees and just wander around town. Didn't matter what day or what time, you didn't have a single planned activity for days after that. Bars weren't an option so house parties were way more common and meeting people was way easier. You could spend an entire day smoking pot at Garry Point Park, and do the same the next. Go play tennis, or sit at home all day on SSP, or walk 30 minutes to Safeway just to get a bag of chips. Really it was just the sheer amount of time you had that there was no sense of being rushed to enjoy it, the same way you feel like you have to go outside when it's sunny. I don't even miss my high school years at all, but looking back with rose-coloured glasses, parts of them were pretty cool.

Why the fuck would you feel the need to work 60 hours a week?

Grab a bag of chips, a vodka slurpee, smoke a joint, wander around a park and ask yourself "Why am I working 60 hours a week?".

There's no age for that :P ;)

Nice post, actually! I can relate. I sometimes miss that sweet short window in a lifetime - mid teens - where you're old enough to be exploring your city, managing your own time and making your own decisions, yet young enough that you still live at your parents and don't have to work or think about any of the grown ups' responsibilities.

I recall that sometimes I would lose track of both which day of the week it was and which day numerically it was. All I'd know was that we were somewhere in the middle of July and that back to school was still far away.

Edit: I suppose total retirement can be the exact same thing... if one wishes. :)

^ Summers seemed so long back then... when school broke in June it felt like you had forever before you had to think about it again!

To be able to have a slight chance of managing to gather enough for a down payment on property in his city by the time he's 120 years old...? :P

Yes, that's why I don't understand the complaints. You can buy business/first class tickets and have the nearly same service as back then. And without any smoking.

Indeed. My first ventures into the bar scene (at the tender age of 14...that would have been 1983) were in these types of places. Namely, the erstwhile Cousineau's Tavern (off limits to women), and the Brasserie Bellevue (open to women, but basically a tavern), both in Sainte Anne de Bellevue (western end of Montreal Island). They usually didn't ask for ID (even though I looked about 11 when I was 14). When rules started to tighten up, I easily procured fake ID at a nearby shop that would laminate anything for a buck or two. Nobody cared.

There was generally only one beer on tap (Molson Export, or maybe Labatt 50 ["Cinquante!"]. Beer was often sold as cheap as 25 cents for 8oz. You could also buy "quarts" (large bottles of about 700ml, with non-twist caps that had to be opened by the bartender). Molson Export, O'Keefe Ale, Dow, Laurentide, Labatt 50, Brador, and sometimes, Black Label or Molson Old Stock or Labatt Porter were the only options. No fucking Budweiser or Coors light.

If you were hungry, you had a great selection of food items to choose from: Pickled eggs, Pickled pork tongues, bags of Yum-Yum chips, and peanuts. And salt. That's it.

Of course they also sold cigarettes (really helped my budding addiction which took me decades to finally conquer). Players (filtered and unfiltered). DuMaurier Regular and King size. Green Death (Export 'A' greens; filtered and unfiltered). Sweet Caporal. Rothman's. Maybe Cameo or Peter Jackson.

A shitty 14-inch black and white TV for hockey games. Sometimes some old newspapers and magazines. Ubiquitous Molson Export clock on the wall.

The places may have been shit holes, but I had a lot of good times there.

Over the years, almost all of the old-style bars and taverns in the West Island (Montreal) were burned down. Mostly on purpose (Mafia and their minions).

Anyone remember the rollerskating rinks of the 1970s?

^ Roller Heaven in Vernon BC. Closed in the mid 80's but I do remember it

years ago on this site, I had commented about the scene in Ste. Anne de Bellevue back in the 80s:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/newr...eply&p=6054554

....................................................car!!...........................................................

^street hockey?

That's the way I look at it, but most of the market seems determined to continue flying while paying as little as possible. We've seen how that turns out.

or The Boardwalk in Kelowna. Could slide the day away at Wild Waters and cross the parking lot for the blinking lights and tunes (Turn Me Loose my Loverboy) at night.

Reminds of other Okanagan tourist traps of the day... Wild N' Wet in Westbank, Flintstones Bedrock City, Old Macdonald's Farm

^ or the Alice in Wonderland between Oyama and Windfield with all those animatronic displays and the big slide...

We drove past the Enchanted Forest on our way through BC a few weeks ago and I joked that we should go in. It's one of the few tourist trappy places left in the area anymore. 3 Valley Gap is a mere shadow of what it used to be

Ahh yes..Late 70's anyways.

These were on the rink's playlist at the time.. Also yes to road hockey..Seemed like every block had a game going on, and each street challenged each other.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d02k10Bz6ro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10_QxxDT2KQ

I am a student, and am moving away for my master's degree this year. The degree (but more so living sans the comfort of my parent's house and food) is expensive. My parents would be willing to give me as much as I need there, but I'd feel guilty about working less and having them contribute more of their own resources just so I could drink vodka slurpees and smoke joints more often.

Haha there's a kernel of truth to this too ;)

Crikey, you sure had a different adolescence from what I had! My friends in high school were all first and second generation immigrants with strict, socially conservative parents, so there wasn't any hardcore partying or bar-hopping going on for us. Now and then we had furtive house parties when someone's parents went back to the old country for a few weeks, but they were always a bit awkward because we were self-consciously aware of our lack of debauchery. We'd just sit around nursing the same can of beer all night while watching MuchMusic.

Good times? Yeah, kind of. I didn't have my first hangover until I went off to university.

What else? Those were the days when kids played on the road and not on their IPhones.

Remember when you never locked your bike at school or even your house or car? I never even owned keys to our house until I was 17.

I volunteer for a youth centre and I can tell you that lots of kids these days still play outside until the streetlights come on and aren't tied to their phones the whole time (mostly because they can't afford phones, since we live in one of the province's poorest neighbourhoods). We actually just started a partnership with a phone repair shop to get phones without sim cards for them so they can at least call 911 or use WiFi apps to contact family when they're out in case something happens.

My mom is 50 and said that things were always locked up when she was a kid so ssiguy must be pretty old.

I guess it depends on where you lived. We never locked our doors in our house either growing up, and yeah, we didn't lock our bikes at school. None of us even had locks. And the area set aside for our bikes was always full because the only kids getting a ride to school in a car had legs in casts. It would have been freakishly weird for there to have been a line-up of cars waiting on the street to take kids home.

When did that change? Sometime in the 1990s? Ironically, people nowadays are right on the money about having to pick their kids up in the car due to safety concerns, as with that many cars coming and going around the schoolyard it really is dangerous.