446 Union Street

It may not be the grandest house on the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s tour, but I bet 446 Union Street house is one of the most interesting, at least when it comes to its social history.

From: Sensational Vancouver

Adamo Piovesan built the brick house in 1930 for his wife Maria and their four daughters. Piovesan was a longshoreman when he could get work, but like dozens of Italian families in the area, the Piovesans bootlegged their way through the Depression. The family made beer and wine in the European tradition and bought rum from the government-run liquor store which they then resold in shots. Drinks sold for a dime, while a glass of bucaro, a wine usually made from raisins and the mash of a better wine, sold for a nickel.

Fines:

Once the Piovesan’s were raided and Maria had to pay a $300 fine—a massive amount of money that forced the family to bootleg more liquor to pay it.

Gilda, the oldest daughter remembers a colorful crowd of customers. There was Kitty the Bitch, Gumboot Annie, Shortie the Painter, Jimmy the Corker, and the Spaniard from the area, a stream of loggers from the camps, and railway workers arriving by taxi.

In 1944 the Piovesans moved out of the area to a bigger place on Franklin Street and sold their house to Wally “Blondie” Wallace and his wife Nellie.

Blondie Wallace:

While the Piovesans were small time bootleggers driven by need, Wally was one of the largest bootleggers in the area.

Wally was a neighbourhood hero, dodging the cops in his bootlegging operation by night and teaching the kids to box in the basement of his house during the day. He operated a thriving distribution centre from the garage just off a lane at the back of the house, and ran Wallace Transfer out of an old Union Street garage.

“That’s how he got caught,” says his niece Judy Maida. “He bought a whole fleet of moving and storage trucks and paid cash and they got him for income tax evasion because how does a guy who doesn’t make any money, all of a sudden put out $100,000 for a truck?”

When I visited the Union Street house in 2006 it was owned by Brian Dedora, a master gilder, who made his gilded picture frames in the garage where Wallace once stored his booze. Descendants of Adamo and Maria called around and left him with old photos and a great story. He told me that knowing something about the people who had lived there before him gave him a deeper connection to his house. “It’s sort of a custodial thing, like owning an antique or a painting,” he said. “I’m here to take care of it for my time.”

I’m told that the current owners are furniture makers and now use the garage for that purpose.

** I’ll be at the Marguerite house (#8) between 9:30 and 1:00 p.m. on Sunday. Please drop by and say hello!

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