I recently had the pleasure of leading a walk in the West End for the Vancouver Heritage Foundation as part of their Sunday coffee series at JJ Bean. Their newest location on Bidwell is behind the preserved facade of Maxine’s Beauty School. The most oft asked question about that location is the tunnel that supposedly… Continue reading Who was Maxine Anyway
We forget sometimes what Vancouver used to look like before we got down to some serious city building. The overall impression of the downtown was that it was a sea of parking lots and garages. Here’s a shot from the Archives (CVA 515-25) looking south along Richards, Homer and Hamilton streets from Georgia.
“lower floors of Haddington Island stone, the upper floors in pressed brick trimmed with ornamental terra-cotta. the main entrance trimmed with Bancroft Cipolino marble, the stairs finished in the same material…” “designed to be as fireproof as possible” The building was equipped with high speed elevators that ran on DC electricity, from the same source… Continue reading Proposed Building for the World Newspaper
North Vancouver once ran a fleet of ferries across Burrard Inlet delivering passengers and cars to the city. On the Vancouver side the vessels jockeyed for space between a variety of vessels to off load their cargo. Foot passengers and cars had to cross the very busy CPR tracks that ran along the south shore, so… Continue reading A Tunnel in Gastown…
From the January 1931 Vancouver Sun and Google Street View
I finally got myself organized and have posted my Jane’s Walk: Scrap Metal, False Creek, and Taxi Cabs: a walk on Vernon Drive It will be a walk the length of Vernon Drive south of Venables. We’re meeting on the south east corner of Venables and George Street, 7:00 pm. As usual, rain or shine.
Poking around the back alleys of the city and had to capture the Louvre Hotel wall sign again. As it ages the layers are revealed.
If you’ve walked through Mount Pleasant, you’ve probably seen and read many of these history plaques set around the neighbourhood. It’s interesting how short the corporate memory can be. A while back the City’s engineering department was busy digging up Alberta Street and lifted the bricks, carefully stacked them on pallets and carted them away.… Continue reading Where Did The All The Bricks Go?
We’re looking west on Pender towards Main and these guys are working on the new decorative sidewalks in Chinatown.
Looking north on Columbia Street in the early 1980s. Con’s now has an extra storey on top and the Ho Ho restaurant sign, long gone, is just visible on the right. The new sidewalks, part of the beautification scheme have been laid but the overhead wires are still in place, and the Ginkgo trees have… Continue reading Pender & Columbia, Chinatown, Vancouver
What Floats to the Top of My Desk 