Centre for Cities at the University of Windsor has received $235,000 through the Government of Canada for the McDougall Street Corridor project.
Irek Kusmierczyk, Member of Parliament for Windsor-Tecumseh at Alton C. Parker Park, a park named after the first black officer on the Windsor Police Force and the first black detective in Canada.
With this funding, Centre of Cities along with their partner Parallel 42 Systems, will develop an augmented reality application that support education walking tours that will be held through the the heart of McDougall Street Corridor.
The Corridor is one of Canada's oldest and most historic Black settlements.
Dr. Anneke Smit, Director for Centre for Cities at the University of Windsor, says University of Windsor research student Willow Key has been speaking with former area residents and business owners in hopes of remapping what the neighbourhood was like before a City of Windsor redevelopment plan in the 1950s led to its breakdown.
She says why the Government of Canada has been granting funds for projects such as the McDougall Street Corridor.
"And it's two years of funding that they've provided, a two year competition to help enliven Canada's main streets after the pandemic to do some placemaking projects, both events and also installations to tell stories to help to push for economic development and recovery after the pandemic."
She says groups will be able to walk through for educational tours in the area. There will be a website for more information, as well as an app that can be used during the tours.
"The app will have QR codes that you can scan at various locations and that will give you a bit of background," she says. "It will probably give you some oral histories as well so you can actually hear either the real voices of some folks who come from this neighbourhood, or the dramatized version of their transcript, of their stories that they've told. It'll have maps, and photos and all that."
Smit says Centre of Cities wants the community to understand what many Black families, business owners, and community leaders went through.
"It's taken a long time to fully understand what the impacts of those dispossessions were, that most of the people who were removed from neighbourhoods in order to bring in new housing or something that was seen as cleaner, and newer and shinier, often did not have the opportunity to return."
The Government of Canada has delivered funding toward local placemaking projects in 61 communities across southern Ontario, including four in the Windsor-Essex region.
-with files from AM800's Rob Hindi