Missing Heritage

The Standard Life Insurance building has been at the corner of Howe and Dunsmuir in Vancouver since 1975. It was the third building on the site. In 1889, it was occupied by a hotel. For more stories like this one, check out Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History As 14-storey office blocks go,… Continue reading The Manor House on Howe Street

Most people are surprised to learn that from 1907 to 1939 there was a pier at English Bay, but it was only recently that I found out that English Bay actually had two piers. Local historian and collector Neil Whaley has kindly provided a guest blog about the second pier at English Bay, the one… Continue reading The Second English Bay Pier

We’ve been taking advantage of the lack of traffic on the roads to take Pickles, our Chiweenie on some new trails. This week we ended up in North Burnaby, parked at the bottom of Boundary and walked along the Trans Canada Trail to Willingdon. While I’m familiar with the squatters at Maplewood Flats and Cates… Continue reading Crabtown

Aaron Chapman’s latest book Vancouver After Dark: The Wild History of a City’s Nightlife is a delightful romp through the ghosts of nightclubs past. Aaron’s behind-the-scenes stories  are told in such a way, it’s like sitting down and having a beer with him. There are too many clubs to list here—everything from Chinatown’s Marco Polo to… Continue reading Vancouver After Dark: Richards on Richards

I was inspired to write this post after seeing this photo by Canadian Colour, that originally appeared in the Province, August 20, 1936. In 1911, Vancouver had a population of less than 150,000 and yet the city felt big enough to sustain a 10,000-seat arena with the first artificial ice in Canada. It was built… Continue reading The West End’s Denman Arena

Selwyn Pullan shot these photos of the Ritz Hotel in 1956, shortly after it had been renovated into this awesome mid-century modern look. But while it had a fancy name, the Ritz Hotel at 1040 West Georgia was originally designed as a YMCA in 1912 by Henry Sandham Griffith. Griffith had offices in Vancouver and… Continue reading Our Missing Heritage: The Ritz Hotel

Frits Jacobsen arrived in Vancouver in 1968 and drew many of Vancouver’s long since demolished heritage houses. By Jason Vanderhill I first heard about Frits Jacobsen, and saw his beautiful drawings in a post by Jason Vanderhill on his Illustrated Vancouver blog. Jason kindly allowed me to repost it here. 522 Shanghai Alley: Frits Jacobsen… Continue reading The Art of Frits Jacobsen

Occasionally, when I’m searching for photos using the baffling search engine at Vancouver Archives, I stumble across an interesting building or streetscape that I’ve never seen before. Often the information with the photos is quite detailed, but in the above photo all I had was a photo of the Royal Crown Soap Company building and… Continue reading The Royal Crown Soap Company

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History Last week, Michael Kluckner and I were over at Tom Carter’s studio looking out his seventh storey window onto the EasyPark—a cavernous concrete lot that fronts West Pender and takes up the entire city block from Cambie to Beatty Streets. In 2013, Michael had the dubious… Continue reading Our Missing Heritage: Vancouver’s First Hospital

There is a chapter in Sensational Vancouver called West Coast Modern which explains the connections between artists and architects and the West Coast Modern movement in Vancouver. Last week I wrote about Selwyn Pullan’s photography exhibition currently on display at the West Vancouver Museum. I focused on his shots of West Coast Modern houses now… Continue reading West Coast Modern Architecture

I finally got a chance to drop by the West Vancouver Museum yesterday to check out the latest exhibition on the photography of Selwyn Pullan. Assistant curator Kiriko Watanabe has done an amazing job, not only pulling out some of Selwyn’s most interesting work, but also displaying the cameras that he used to shoot them… Continue reading Selwyn Pullan Photography: What’s Lost

After I stumbled over a photo of the former Vancouver Police Headquarters on East Cordova Street, I asked my friend Tom Carter if he knew why it had been destroyed. Was it to make way for the uninspiring three-storey building that took its place? Tom didn’t know, but I thought his comment was interesting—that it… Continue reading Our Missing Heritage – Vancouver Police HQ

Originally from Edmonton, Raymond Biesinger is a Montreal-based illustrator whose work regularly appears in the New Yorker, Le Monde and the Guardian. In his spare time, he likes to draw lost buildings.  Biesinger uses geometric shapes to ‘build’ his building illustrations In his down-time, Biesinger is drawing his way through nine of Canada’s largest cities.… Continue reading Our Missing Heritage: 18 Lost Buildings of Vancouver

The thing about the Kingsgate Mall at Broadway and Kingsway is you either love it or you hate it. It’s weird or wonderful, strange or quaint, creepy or quirky, but it rarely goes unnoticed. From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History The cupola (a replica of the one that used to top King… Continue reading What was here before? The Kingsgate Mall

In the 1970s, the Scotia Tower and the hideous Vancouver Centre—currently home to London Drugs—obliterated a block of beautiful of heritage buildings at Granville and Georgia Streets. The development took out the Strand Theatre (built in 1920), and the iconic Birks building, an 11-storey Edwardian where generations of Vancouverites met at the clock. I was… Continue reading Our missing heritage: the forgotten buildings of Bruce Price (1845-1903)

On May 28, 1989, we blew up the Georgia Medical-Dental Centre, a building on West Georgia designed by McCarter & Nairne, the same architects behind the Marine and the Devonshire Apartments.* What were we thinking? The Devonshire was first, designed as an apartment building in 1924. Next came the 15-storey art deco medical building. The… Continue reading The Georgia Medical-Dental Building

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History My friend Angus McIntyre was a Vancouver bus driver for 40 years and often took photos of heritage buildings, neon signs, street lamps and everyday life on his various routes. His photos are always so vivid and interesting and when he sends me one, I stop… Continue reading They Paved Paradise and put up a Parking Lot: Larwill Park

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History Last week I wrote about the oldest house in Vancouver—well at least that’s what they called it when it burned to the ground in 1946. It was built in 1875, and until 1915, its address was Seaton Street. Unlike most of Vancouver’s streets that are named… Continue reading The Life and Death of Seaton Street

Do you remember the little house on Richards Street between Nelson and Helmcken in Yaletown? It was one of the last ones standing and for years had quite the garden and lots of funky birdhouses and wheelbarrows.

This is an occasional series that asks people who love history and heritage to tell us their favourite existing building and the one that never should have been torn down. Patrick Dunae: Patrick A. Dunae is a Victoria-born historian. A past member of the City of Victoria Heritage Advisory Panel, he is currently president of the Friends… Continue reading Heritage Streeters from Victoria (with Patrick Dunae, Tom Hawthorn and Eve Lazarus)