Blog of the Week: West End Dumplings

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/10/2011 (5337 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s going to be a lavish Christmas in the Imrie household as 2011 is finishing off with a ‘bang’ for a number of large buildings. Here are a few of the goners, or soon to be goners, and a little information about each of them before they slip from our memories forever.

Former Orpheum Billiards

292 – 294 Fort Street

Built in 1921-22, Orpheum Billiards was an original tenant, though I am not sure if it was a direct relation to the Orpheum Billiards that was there a few years back when the building was shut down. There was also a cafe located on the premises that went by a number of names including Kit Kat Lunch and Orpheum Grill.

The Yellow Warehouse

764 Main Street

Also known as the Stuart Machinery Building. Its first owner was James Stuart who came here in 1883 and is considered one of the ‘fathers’ of electrification in Winnipeg. In the 1930s a wholesale king Joe Werier bought it. A division of his company rechristened it The Yellow Warehouse in 1971.

Empty since 1999, it is now being prepped for tear down, apparently for condition issues.

Former Fire Hall No. 5

354 Sherbrook Street

Demolition is underway on former Fire Hall No. 5 on Sherbrook Street.

Built in 1904, it served the city as a fire hall until 1919 when it became the City Hydro meter building. The city leased out the space and in the 1970s C.A. Killeen and Sons, a ca. 1918 window and door company, moved in. Killeen morphed into a Speedy Auto Glass and vacated it in 2007. The city then declared the building, which had an historic listing, surplus and Lion’s Seniors Housing purchased it.

Sir Sam Steele School

15 Chester Street

The site was purchased by Habitat for Humanity in 2007 who hived off the school fields for a housing project facing Narin. In 2008 they sold the building and 1.2 acres to the College of Immigrants Inc. but the building sat empty and unheated and it deteriorated badly.

Habitat repurchased the property and applied to have it de-listed as a heritage site. They will knock it down and continue with an extension of the adjacent housing project.

Clarendon Hotel

311 Portage Avenue

The Clarendon (also known as the former A & B Sound Building or MTS Exhibition Hall) is one of a trio of buildings that will be torn down to make way for Longboat Development’s entertainment hub across from the MTS Centre.

The Donalda Building

310 Donald Street

Long-time home to The Orchid Florists, as per the Clarendon Hotel, the Donalda Building is in the footprint of the proposed new hotel.

The Norlyn Building

309 Hargrave Street

A long-time dry cleaning plant, the Norlyn barely survived the Time Building fire, even losing a floor or two. Worse was that most tenants, including the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, lost everything in the blaze.

The Norlyn is going to be a multi-level parkade connected with the Longboat project. Yes, the Wagon Wheel will have to roll on to another home.

— Follow Christia Cassidy’s blog at westenddumplings.blogspot.com