It may be long gone, but at least Hogan’s Alley is finally getting the recognition that it deserves. As part of the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s Places that Matter program, a plaque will be placed near the Hogan’s Alley Cafe at Gore and Union Streets at 2:00 Sunday February 24.
Hogan’s Alley Project:
The plaque and ceremony is part of the Hogan’s Alley Memorial Project, part Black History Month, and part B.C. Heritage Week.
When the Georgia Viaduct plowed through Vancouver in 1972, it knocked out Hogan’s Alley and with it a lot of black history. At one time Hogan’s Alley was a hang-out and home for Vancouver’s black community and filled with after-hours clubs, gambling and bootlegging joints. Just eight feet wide and a few blocks long, the Alley was really just a collection of horse stables, small cottages and shacks—a place where the west side crowd came to take a walk on the wild side.
I’ve written about Nora Hendrix and her Vancouver connection in At Home with History.
From 1938 to 1952, the grandmother of rock legend Jimi Hendrix, lived a few blocks from Hogan’s Alley. Nora, a feisty old lady who turned 100 in Vancouver, was born in Tennessee. She was a dancer in a vaudeville troupe, married Ross Hendrix and settled in Vancouver in 1911, raising three children. Al, the youngest moved to Seattle at 22, met 16-year-old Lucille, and their son Jimi was born in 1942.
Jimi was a frequent visitor to his grandmother’s house. After he left the army in 1962 he hitchhiked 2,000 miles to Vancouver and stayed several weeks. He picked up some cash sitting in with a groups at local clubs. Six years later when the Jimi Hendrix Experience played the Pacific Coliseum, Nora was in the audience.
© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.
7 comments on “Hogan’s Alley and the Jimi Hendrix Connection”
Thanks for this. I was there last Sunday too and shared my photos on FB. It was a long past due recognition of this long gone African Canadian neighbourhood. I missed it altogether, as I moved to the Lower Mainland in 1978.
I’m sorry I missed it. So glad that it finally got recognition. Eve
Wasn’t it the Dunsmuir Viacduct that connected Prior st in 1972?
The Georgia Street viaduct had been there since 1915 and was originally built to go over False Creek and the train yards underneath, now but a fading memory.
The Georgia Viaduct was originally a two-way link to downtown Vancouver. I recall it had a huge water tower south of it, which was probably torn down in the late ’50s or early ’60s. The water towr, I believe, was used to refill the old locomotive steam engines.
I was friends with a guy who went to our high school — one of the few black kids at our school — whose mother worked at Vi’s Chicken & Steaks on Union (where the Jimi Hendrix memorial is now); his grandmother owned the place. I believe she was also the grandmother of Jimi Hendrix, who came to live in Vancouver with his grandma for a time. Back then, Jimi called himself Jimi Jones and was trying to get a steady gig playing guitar.
I stumbled across your blog while I was looking for some information on old beer labels, that my Grandfather happened to have left me. Then decided to look up the Wigwam Inn that I have not seen since the 1970’s when the “Hippies” had trashed it LOL and here I am. Wonderful! I lived on Pacific Ave in 1981 when the Englesea burned down and I cannot tell you how many people I have tried to convince over the years that there was at one time buildings on the beach side and that the Englesea was one of them. Thank you very much for some very interesting articles, I will keep reading! Now I am curious about the house on Harris road as well, my Aunt and cousins had a small farm there in the 60’s 70’s.
Hi Kelly, I think old beer labels is about the only thing I haven’t written about (unless they’re on someone’s ceiling). Glad you like my blog, thanks for taking the time to comment. Eve
I arrived in Vancouver with my family in 1939 just as an infant and lived at Main and Hastings St.
I wondered if you new about any other books on the East End at that time.
Thank you for all the enjoyment I had reading about that area in that era.
Sincerely Rachel
I arrived in Vancouver with my family as an infant, I had a brother and two sisters. As I got older when they were in school mother took me many times to that Museum kitty corner to where we lived I went to kindergarden in the same area. It was a happy home but because we were poor the childrens aid took us kids away. So I wanted you to know I am fascinated with your bookd and have books about the East End and I just devour them, I wondered if you cpuld tell me of books about that end of town so I could try to find them to purchase. You are a wonderful writer and your pictures I treasure, Thank you
Rachel Overland Kent
Thank you so much for dropping by my blog and for your kind words. One of my favourite books is “Opening Doors: Vancouver’s East End.” I still have one I found in a second hand book store, but it was reprinted a couple of years ago and has a wonderful forward by James Johnstone: http://www.harbourpublishing.com/title/openingdoors. Other favourites are John Atkins book: Strathcona: Vancouver’s First Neighbourhood (1994); Wayson Choy’s The Jade Peony, 1995 and Paper Shadows A Chinatown Childhood (1999); and (blush) my first book At Home with History: The secrets of Greater Vancouver’s Heritage Houses has quite a lot on the East End.