© 2022, Christian Cassidy
Google Street View, 2021
Place: Former Crescentwood Pharmacy
Address: 1103 Corydon Avenue (Map)
Constructed: 1946 (expanded 1955)
From: 1948 - 49 Kelvin High School yearbook
The building permit for 1103 Corydon Avenue was issued in 1946.
According to The History of Pharmacy in Manitoba, it was first home to Crescent Pharmacy owned by J. W. Gawne. Within a year, he sold it to Benjamin Kitzes and Sidney Jack Miller who renamed it Crescentwood Pharmacy. Kitzes had been a clerk at Broadway Pharmacy on Broadway and Miller was a druggist at Manitoba Drug Store on Selkirk Avenue.
At the time, this would have been the outer reaches of urban development along Corydon Avenue. The streetcar line ended at Wilton Street and it wasn’t until 1949 that Corydon was widened and paved to Cambridge Street allowing bus and trolley car service to continue further west.
From: Brown and Gold (U of M) yearbook, 1938
Ben Kitzes moved to Winnipeg from Inwood, Manitoba, where his family ran a general store, in the 1930s and graduated from the University of Manitoba's College of Pharmacy in 1938. He enlisted with the RCAF during World War II and was likely stationed at No. 4 Service Flying Training School in Saskatoon for the duration.
After the war, Kitzes returned to Winnipeg and moved in with his family who now operated St. Matthews Grocery a store at 657 St. Matthews Avenue and lived in the house behind. He worked at Broadway Pharmacy until he purchased 1103 Corydon Avenue.
From: Fort Rouge Through the Years souvenir booklet, 1974
Crescentwood Pharmacy became a hub of the community. Not only was it a pharmacy, it had a store that sold beauty and hygiene supplies, pens and personal shavers, a soda fountain, and a postal outlet. (The latter is likely what the 1955 rear extension was for.)
Kitzes wife, Mary (or Marie), was a long-time clerk behind the counter.
Miller left in 1958 to work at Murphy's Drug Store on St. Mary's Road.
Image from 1976 by Jim Walker
Winnipeg Tribune Collection, University of Manitoba Digital Collections
Kitzes was an avid baseball player and soon became involved in the Crescentwood Community Club, established in 1944, as a baseball player and coach. He was also a long-time member of the General Monash Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion.
In 1976, Kitzes announced that he and Mary were retiring. He told a Winnipeg Tribune reporter: "I've always wanted to be involved in a community-type business where you get to know everybody. It's the type of life I wanted, the type of life I love."
A community celebration was held for them at the Crescenwood Community Club and in 1977 he was awarded the Manitoba Pharmaceutical Association's "Bowl of Hygeia" Award for outstanding community service.
Ben Kitzes died on October 26, 1992, after what his obituary described as a lengthy illness, and is buried in the Hebrew Sick Benefit Cemetery. His obituary concludes: “The world is a better place because Ben Kitzes passed this way”.
The store's long run as a pharmacy ended with Kitzes.
By April 1977, it was home to a Black and Armstrong Real Estate office and in September was Cambridge Insulation. From about 1978 to at least 1990 it was the Good Wool Shop, a knitting supply and sweater store.
It was home to Barks 'n' Bubbles Pet Spa from 2006 to 2016 and now is The Pawsh Dog.
Ben Kitzes' obituary (two parts):
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