A new monument will provide a link to Windsor's educational past.
A groundbreaking took place Tuesday morning at the corner of Goyeau Avenue and Elliott Street East in downtown Windsor for a new monument to the city's first high school, J. Patterson Collegiate Institute.
Numerous alumni from the school gathered to watch as work got underway to mark the site with a new structure.
The previous monument, which stands in the corner of a grocery store parking lot, was built after the school was torn down, using bricks from the school building. It had since fallen into disrepair. The Patterson Collegiate Alumni Committee has arranged for engineer Norm Becker, a Patterson alum, to design and supervise construction for the monument. Becker has agreed to waive his design fees.
Dan Marcuz, president of the Patterson Collegiate Alumni Committee, said with fewer alumni still around, this may be a final chance to show the community the importance of the school. He said it's vital that people remember everyone who was a part of it.
"We're pretty proud," said Marcuz. "The reason why we're doing this today is to memorialize all those athletes, all those teachers, all those students. We want people to remember that there was a school here."
Phil Jacobs, who graduated in 1949 and is now 88, was part of the strong athletic tradition at PCI. He joked about how basketball players would travel to tournaments with the equipment they had at their disposal.
"It's great to come back and reminisce and see these younger people," said Jacobs.
He joked, "Of course when I left, it was '49, we'd play basketball, and the ball was square."
The original school building went up on the site in 1888 as a grammar school. It later became Windsor Collegiate, then Patterson. The school closed in 1973, according to the Greater Essex County District School Board.
A time capsule is expected to go inside the new monument, which is expected to be completed next month as part of an informal Patterson Collegiate reunion.
Alumni of the former J. Patterson Collegiate High School gather at the site of the school, on Goyeau Avenue and Elliott Street East in downtown Windsor, June 18, 2019. Photo by Mark Brown/Blackburn News.