Historic part of waterfront ignored

Historical rail lifts The fate of historical lifts that once loaded rail cars onto tug boats to cross the Detroit River. CTV Windsor's Bob Bellacicco reports.

Many times a day, people walk, ride or bike by two rusted rail lifts in front of the Rotary Club of Windsor’s Centennial Plaza on Riverside Drive.

“There are some plaques down this waterway here but, yeah there's, I don't even know what that is,” said Tony Bellilssimo while enjoying the plaza in late October with his wife during a visit from Cambridge, Ont.

Did they consider the two lifts an eyesore infringing on their view of Detroit.

“It's history but they should have a plaque,” suggested Marie Bellissimo.

No one CTV reached out to could verify the age of the lifts, but onlookers had some guesses.

“I would say late 1800s,” said Kelly Eitel. His wife Patti guessed the 20th century. “I would say 1902.”

Brad Stobbs remembers activity around the lifts, “I remember when they used to use them so I guess I may be sympathetic to why they're still here.”

The waterfront looked very different a hundred years ago. “We think downtown is a social area. Downtown was an industrial area,” said Mary Lou Gelissen, a librarian at the Local History Branch of the Windsor Public Library.

She says rail was dominant along the riverfront and there were lifts, including the remaining two, that facilitated shipping things like salt, coal, and other industrial goods across the river.

“It was dependent on those railway lifts to take that item from the railway and then move it onto a ship,” said Gelissen, who noted Michigan Central Ferries handled over a thousand rail cars a day, the heaviest traffic outside of New York city. “So if you were shipping, say, a whole lot of coal and it was it from a boxcar, sometimes railway lifts, what they would do is they would take the actual physical boxcar and put it onto the ship itself.

The Windsor Model Train Club has a replica of the area circa the 1960s. “There was, I think two or three locations, two or three drop spots on both sides and that's how they would get the rail from one side to the other,” said Peter Bechard, president of the Windsor Model Train Club, who noted one of the drops was the site where the Renaissance Centre in Detroit stands.

“At one point, you know, it looked like a rail yard and very industrial and we're pretty lucky to have what's there now,” said Bechard. “It's really cool to remember what happened before.”

No one knows when the lifts were installed or why they are still in the water, but people seem to like having them there.

“I say keep them,” Stobbs said. “I remember what they were for so I think they're kind of cool.”

So does Coun. Renaldo Agostino, who agrees something should be done to honour the history of the lifts.

“Having even a QR code on the placard that maybe will link you to a video or possibly maybe even this story to explain what that structure is,” said Agostino, who will ask council a question on Dec. 5 to see what can be done to celebrate this history of the rail and the lifts.