The Decibel - A developer, a beloved island and an old amusement park

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

Boblo Island is situated in the Detroit River, on the border of Canada and the U.S., just outside of Windsor. For almost a century, it was a beloved amusement park visited by both the Canadian and American public.But after a series of bankruptcies, the island wound up under the control of a developer. And now, the island is being marketed as an exclusive residential community, with restricted access to the public. Globe opinion editor Sarah Efron tells the story of Boblo Island and what happens when a space beloved by the public is lost.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

I had always heard about Boblo Island from my family when they lived around the Windsor area, about this magical place, this island you could go to, this great amusement park. Sarah Efron is an editor in the Globe's opinion section. In recent years, I started visiting Detroit and seeing all those cool old buildings and a lot of abandoned buildings, and then I started hearing about Boblo Island, this abandoned amusement park. It's an island of fun. It's an island of excitement. It's an island of natural beauty.

It's Bablo Island. The park changed a lot over the years. They had started with, you know, carousels and the more classic things. And over the years, they brought in big attractions from other parks, so roller coasters. Teenagers like thrilling roller coasters, and we've got three great ones. Teens also like the falling star and the pirate ship. Why they like all this, we're not sure, but they do. They had bumper cars, they had this sky tower that you could go up and get a view of the river.

One attraction everybody likes at Bablo is the Sky Tower, a relaxing air-conditioned trip 314 feet up with a fabulous view. Hey, what's that guy doing down there? They had a train, a food hall. They had antique cars for kids. There's the antique cars where kids show why they can't get a driver's license until they're 16. All kinds of attractions for families. And they also did a lot of group gatherings, work picnics and things like that there. Make your plans now for an island vacation between May and September on the island of fun, Boblo Island.

The island's name is actually a shortened version of its true name, which is Bois Blanc. It's 272 acres and sits on the Canadian side of the Detroit River in southern Ontario. The interesting part about Boblo, it was originally set up by a ferry company. So that was part of the journey, was to come from Detroit, get onto those steamships. Kind of like a cruise ship experience where people would be partying on the boat. There'd be bands, kids would be running around, and that was a big part of the Bablo experience. The steamships no longer run, but the lore of Boblo is still there.

And Sarah decided to go visit now to see what it's like. Okay, we're going on to the ferry, driving onto the ferry boat. Good morning. We're meeting on Mayor Michael Prude. Yeah, he should be on the list. Yeah, he said he was going to put us on the list. You'll have to wait over here on this side.

Okay, let me just pull over and let this guy back behind me. And what used to be a quick, easy ferry ride is now a tricky and restrictive affair. The boat left us behind. We're not authorized to go on. I guess we'll wait and try to get on the next one. So today, Sarah explains how this island that used to be a place of summertime fun became in essence a gated community of luxury homes and what it means to lose access to a place that was beloved by the public. I'm Rachel Levy-McLaughlin, and this is The Decibel, from The Globe and Mail. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to The Decibel.

Thanks for having me. So today you're going to tell us the story of Boblo Island. We're going to get to the history of the island and how it's changed. But before we do that, what's this story really about? Well, it is about this specific island that local people know and love and have a lot of emotions about. But I think for people who have not heard about Boblo Island, there's some really interesting issues here. This was a privately held place. It is a privately held place, largely. That is a lot of emotion for people and access has been cut off. So there's a lot of

themes in there about real estate development, what happens when a very beloved place kind of just becomes a regular old development and what communities can do to try to preserve their own history and their own special places. So let's get to know this island a little bit better. Where does the story of Boblo Island start? Well, there's a lot of history here. They showed me this indigenous circle there. So there's definitely been a lot of people over the islands over many, many years. Once the British took over, there was a lot of things happening there.

This was used as a fortress to defend during the rebellions of 1837. There was some activity there. The War of 1812. This was an important stop in the Underground Railroad with African-Americans fleeing slavery and coming to Canada to get their freedom. So there's a lot of history here. But most famously, the amusement park, which opened in 1898 and was open for around 100 years. So Sarah, what do we know about what the amusement park was like when it opened more than 100 years ago?

Yeah, they built a lot of very nice buildings in the early decades of the park. One of them was the amusement building, which had a carousel inside of it. Today, people call that the theater building. There's different names that have kind of taken hold over time. And then a few years later, they built the dance hall. The dance hall was, and still is, a very beautiful building, very tall glass facade, had these beautiful wooden polished floors, and thousands of people would be in there for, you know, live bands or music, dancing events. It was one of the biggest dance halls in the world when it opened around, I think, 1912, 1913. So there were some really stellar buildings. The theater

slash amusement building had a carousel inside. And then it became, they put in more seating there. I took a little peek in there. You could see the bottom of the seating that is in there. And there was, you know, all kinds of events that happened there. A very large and beautiful building, but it's definitely seen better days. And you said it was open for almost 100 years. So what happened to the park? Like, when did it close? What was the sort of end story of this park? Yeah, its last season was 1993. So it went through a lot of ownership changes, there was bankruptcies, insolvencies, various people took a run at running the park.

I think one of the main problems was the boats, which, you know, that's what created the park and connected the park. But also that it was very expensive to run those boats. They had big crews that made it hard for them to compete. Then Cedar Point and some of these newer amusement parks started coming into the region. They had more money to get newer attractions. And Boblo's lure faded away. The last group of owners, there's a documentary about this called Boblo Boats. There was a guy running it who was very passionate about it and had a car accident and was unable to continue with running the park and the other owners pulled the plug. And then it ended up in the hands of

American businessman who thought, hey, I could just build some beautiful homes on this island. And so what happened with this American businessman? On the one side of the island, he started building these very fancy homes, big monster homes, some of them on the waterfront. Beautiful Victorian style with turrets. They look like little castles. They're flashy, but very nice homes. And then he also built a condo building that you see when you come in on the ferry. There's a fairly kind of standard four-story-ish condo building that's on the ferry. There's a fairly kind of standard four story ish condo building that's

on the island. So how did we get to this sort of ownership that we see today? Well, that guy, he had his own bankruptcy and his main creditor, one of his main creditors was this company Amoco and their road construction company. They do some property development. So they basically got this. They didn't buy it or plan to own it, but they ended up with it. And they decided, okay, we'll try to make a run and do our own development here on this island. So they've had it for quite a while now. So this development company, Amoco, is now owner of the majority of the island? Right. So they've sold off some of the lots, and owner of the majority of the island? Right.

So they've sold off some of the lots and some of them were those homes I mentioned before that were already in private hands. And then they're trying to develop the other half of the island. They've sold off some of them and they have a plan to sell more than 100 or so other lots in the island. And so they're the ones who really call the shots. There are some bits of land that they don't own, but they're sort of the main ones who control the island. And so they're the ones who really call the shots. There are some bits of land that they don't own, but they're sort of the main ones who control the island today. And what was Amico's sort of vision for Boblo Island? I think their style is a little bit different. They're not as elaborate. I think they're trying

to bring down the price point. They have these duplex homes. I went in one of the model homes they're building and they're very nice and they're quite large, but they're not, you know, castle waterfront. No turrets. No turrets. Yes, definitely no turrets. Some of that, I think, is due to certain environmental restrictions around building right on the waterfront. But they're trying to make it a little more accessible. But when you look at their marketing materials, they are very much selling this as kind of an elite, exclusive community with nature, white sand beach, kind of appealing to the crowd that really wants some exclusivity and privacy in their lives. We'll be back in a minute so sarah you actually did manage to get on the ferry eventually to visit babel island

earlier this year can you describe what you saw and what it was like uh yeah we did make it on the island you need to have a contact a local person who will put you on the ferry list or you need to go in with the development company. So it's not the easiest place to get access to today unless you have your own boat, in which case you can still get there. You would not know until you go quite deep into the island that there was ever this amazing amusement park there. There's not much of a sign of it. You have on the one side those mansion, big houses, beautiful houses. And then when you go kind of to the left, the other side of the island, you'll see they've cleared a lot of the fields there to do development.

And then there is a lot of fencing there. There's certain snakes on the island that are endangered species. So there are some methods to preserve habitat. But then as you do go further into the island, you'll see the dance hall that's from the Amusement Park Days Beautiful building. And you'll see some other structures that are there as well as the historical things that are on the island still today. And speaking of that dance hall, you actually got to see it in person, right? What was that like? Yeah, that was really interesting. I mean, the outside of the structure is beautiful, but I was really hoping we could get access. And the person who had the key, it turned out, was not on the island. So they went to some great lengths to let us get in.

They had a couple of workers actually smash this metal plate off the door. It took them over half an hour. So they're trying to saw off the lock, essentially. That's what they're doing, yeah, because we don't have the keys handy. It is currently in a conservation mode, which means it's all closed in and protected, which is why we're having to get a little assistance to get inside the building. We are currently storing a lot of things, as we saw earlier.

The restaurant has been demolished, and we're waiting to build a new restaurant. We'll see lots of restaurant stuff stored in here, I imagine. Lots of construction equipment. It was beautiful, but also a little bit sad to see it as basically being used to store a lot of stuff construction stuff from the restaurant that used to be on the island old sales material there's water pooling in there's logs in there that beautiful dance hall floor has been largely cut up at a certain point they put some kind of indoor roller coaster in there in the last years

of the park. So a lot of people have kind of changed things over the years, but it was still quite a beautiful building. And you mentioned some of the other buildings that are around, but what else is left? How much of the amusement park is still there? There's only a handful of things that are still left. There's the old ferry dock is still there. There's this building that looked like a very cool little stone church, but it turned out there wasn't a church at all. It was the powerhouse. And there's these other cool stone buildings.

And I was like, oh, what are those? And those were the washrooms, it turns out. So given that this is audio maybe you can describe what is this building coming up here? This is another stone washroom building. Oh again the they really put a lot of effort into the washrooms when it was an amusement park and they're some of the most beautiful buildings you'll see you know of that small scale but really nice buildings. We think those can be repurposed to something quite cool that one is actually out of the natural environment area and so we'll probably be one of

the first ones to be repurposed what would you do with that one i don't know like maybe an artist studio or maybe a little cafe for the residents. We're open to proposals from the public. But they're beautiful, nice structures. And the theater, the amusement building, which is just a beautiful, massive building in very rough shape. Those are pretty well the only things that are left. And even people who lived on the island were like, oh, go and look at the bumper car track. It's still there. But it was gone. Things are disappearing. They're being

dismantled. And there's not a lot left from those days anymore. Right. Because it's now essentially a residential community. How big is it? How many people live there? How many houses? Yeah, there's around, I'd say, 300 300 350 ish people who live on the island today around 150 homes that would include the ones that are in the condo building so if the development goes as planned which is not a for sure thing i think it's not the easiest place to sell homes because of the the ferry issues then it could go up to maybe 900 or so population if everything goes as planned. And how does the community function? Like how do people get

groceries? What happens if there's a fire? How do people get there? There's a ferry. It runs 24 hours. It's run and controlled by Amoco, which is the company that controls the island. So you have to be a resident or a guest of a resident to get on the ferry. They pay a fee. It's around $5,000 a year to keep that ferry running. So it's a quick crossing. It's only like, say, around four minutes. They did have a problem in the fall where the ferry went out for a couple weeks, had to have some maintenance in the backup ferry. Something went wrong with that. You know, that was a struggle for a couple weeks. Had to have some maintenance in the backup ferry. Something went wrong with that. You know, that was a struggle for some of them. Were they just stuck on the island then?

They did run a passenger ferry back and forth. So people were able to get off and on, but they couldn't get off and on with their cars. So if their car was on the mainland or if it was on the island, it was kind of stuck there. So that was a bit of a painful experience for some of the residents. And that kind of got back into this discussion, well, should the town of Amherstburg get involved in the ferry, but there's not much interest for the town to be footing the bill for that either. So they're kind of left with the current situation where they're relying on Amoco to get on and off the island. So this development company Am Amoco, owns most of the island.

It's selling off these lots to people and sort of billing it as this exclusive community, as you said. And I imagine that's sort of part of the reason people are buying into this community. So why should it be considered a public space? I guess I'm wondering why it matters if the public can access it. Is there anything for the public on the island anymore? Yeah, I think that's a good question. Certainly, I can understand why residents value their privacy.

But at the same time, there are historic sites there. You've got the historic blockhouse from the rebellion of 1837. There's local people who rebuilt that, and now they can't even get to see it. There's a lighthouse that's on Parks Canada land. You've got a public beach. You have those remaining structures from the amusement park. Well, that's a recent history, but it's still people's memories. It would be nice if there was some way for people to at least see that, even if it wouldn't make sense to allow access inside. And it is part of

the town of Amherstburg. So the roads, at least, you know, in the more developed part are city roads, town roads. The sewer, the public services are provided by the town. So some people are saying, hey, this is part of my town. Why can't I go there? Right. And what has the local government said about sort of the concerns around access to the island? I think the main thing is they have not wanted to get involved in the ferry. They don't want to have to pay for that ferry, which is understandable. I think there's been different points of view from local government over the years. The current mayor, Michael Proulx, actually lives on Balboa Island. So he had an interesting perspective. He had actually been active in trying to scale back some of the new developments

for environmental reasons, preserve some of the snakes and other natural things on the island. So he was quite critical of previous governments saying that they had just wanted to increase the tax base and have a place for, you know, wealthy residents and perhaps hadn't had a vision of making this a publicly accessible place. And what about Amoco, the developer that owns sort of most of the island? What have they said about sort of the questions around access? Yeah, they're walking an interesting line here where, you know, they want to market this as an exclusive community, but they also, you know, want some goodwill in the community. People feel like they should have access to Bawu because they remember being there, but this is mostly privately controlled land. So they were telling me that, you know, you could get on the island

if you talk to the people in the ferry and paid a fee. But my experience, I didn't find that to be the case today. I think that has been the case in the past. The people on the ferry didn't seem to be, you know, allowing people on unless they were residents or approved by residents. But perhaps in the future, some kind of more formal deal could be worked out that would allow improved access for people to get to the island. Right, because they didn't let you on the ferry, even though you were a guest of someone. Yeah, I may have been missing from that list. But I think it was a good example that, you know, it is not that easy to get on there.

And what about the residents of Bablo Island? How do they feel about this whole thing? I do think there is some mixed opinion on the island. Some people are very happy to have their privacy and would really not like it if everybody could get on there. Some people are more open to that. So I think some of the people on the island feel that they don't really have much say in it that Amoco is calling the shots and whether they would want to or not, it doesn't really matter. And just to end here, Sarah, what could Bablo be? Like, what do you envision for that space? I do think more should be done to allow public access. I also heard from a gentleman who lives on the mainland who had spent years restoring that blockhouse and he can't get on there and he's very upset about it. It feels like

Bablo is a unique place. It needs some kind of unique coming together of Amoco, the residents, the mainland, the town government to find some way to allow access here. It may happen organically. Amoco says they're going to reopen the restaurant. Then they have more incentive to allow people back. That could happen. But it also could not happen. I think it might require some pressure from people who live in Amherstburg to be talking with the town and talking with the corporation. I know some people who contacted me said they want to get Parks Canada more involved. They could be taking ownership of the blockhouse.

I think that would give a more clear rationale for allowing people on the island. So yeah, hopefully there would be some local people who could take it up as a challenge and find some creative solutions to preserving those few buildings from the amusement park that are left and allowing people to come and see them. Sarah, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. That's it for today. I'm Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. Our producers are Madeline White and Michal Stein.

David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. Thanks so much for listening.