Video: Take a tour of Oshawa in the 80s

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Published March 20, 2024 at 12:12 pm

This video depicts Oshawa as it stood in 1987.

A new video of Oshawa in the 1980s has gone viral in community groups.

The video was originally posted by the YouTube channel Hope You Stumble Upon This, which focuses on nostalgic videos from the 60s to the 90s. It wound up being shared in the Downtown Oshawa Facebook community.

“This video was taken with a video camera long before video stabilization was a thing in consumer cameras. My friend and I set up a tripod in the back of his truck, and drove through Oshawa, from the Townline, to the shopping center and back to the Hospital,” the description reads.

The 20-minute video depicts a drive around town including a trip down to and along Bond Street. While the city has built up greatly in the 40 years since the video was shot some landmarks remain distinct, including the former bus terminal, and buildings which are now home to businesses like the Stag’s Head, and the URBN Market (formerly RBC), Bollywood Tacos and Wilson’s Furniture.

The video continues down Bond Street to Stevenson Road. The area is now home to the Oshawa Centre and several strip malls, and even then was a shopping district. The truck rounds the turn on to King St. and heads back through the downtown core again.

The video passes by the current Dine’s Plaza, Brent Foley’s Real Estate (back when it was Pizza Pizza) and Burger King (which was Burger King even then). In fact, several of the King St. restaurants (such as Red Lobster and Wendy’s) were the same back then.

The truck keeps heading down King St. past the Michael Starr Building, and Lovell Drugs, what looks like a cinema now home to the Biltmore and right back out of the downtown again.

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