Firehall #2 was designed by William Blackmore in 1888 at 724 Seymour but it would be another decade before the VFD started paying its firemen.
I’ve been having a lot of fun putting together my new book Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History over the last year or so. It’s given me the excuse to zero in on different streets particularly in Vancouver and the West End and show the changes that have occurred there over a hundred years or more.
I didn’t get to the 700-block Seymour Street, but I’ve always been intrigued by photos of the old firehall #2 that used to be at 754 Seymour Street.
Changing Vancouver:
A White Spot restaurant in a building designed by McCarter and Nairne in the mid-70s used to be on the corner of West Georgia, and for years I got my hair cut at Crimpers on the ground floor. Long before that, there was a row of three-story wooden rental houses stretched along Georgia.
Now the whole city block bounded by Georgia Street, Richards, Seymour and Robson is part of the massive Telus Garden development. But before Telus swallowed up the east side of Seymour Street it housed a couple of really interesting buildings and some pretty nice houses.
One of them was Firehall #2.
Second Firehall:
The early version of the Vancouver Fire Department opened in May 1886, just a couple of weeks before the city burned to the ground in the Great Fire. William Blackmore designed the first Firehall #2 at 724 Seymour in 1888, but it would be another decade before the VFD started paying its firemen—they started at $15 a month.
The second Firehall #2 went up in 1903 just a little up the block at 754 Seymour.
Judging by the photos a lot of training took place there.
The firehall sat next to BC Tel’s headquarters until 1950 when the building sold to BC Tel and became part of the telco.
The firehall is now located in a modernist structure at Main and Powell where it is apparently the busiest firehall in Western Canada, nestled as it is in the heart of the troubled DTES.
For more information on the 700-block Seymour Street please see:
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7 comments on “Missing Heritage: Firehall #2”
Very interesting, love the colour shot from 1923. It was the year, my Norwegian family moved here for a better life. Across from The Bay on West Georgia was a movie theatre called ‘The Strand’ I believe(1973).
Firehall No. 2 opened exactly 45 years ago today, 8 August 1975. It replaced the Vancouver Police Department garage (very old) and surface parking lot. I remember the old police garage because my bus route along Powell Street had a stop right in front. On the same day the new firehall No. 1 opened in Strathcona.
When the new No. 2 firehall opened it was directly across the street from a famous “peeler pub” called the No. 5 Orange, formerly the Melbourne Hotel. Bus drivers sat high enough that we could see in the windows of the bar, and often at just the right moment for viewing a performer’s total exposure. Bus passengers also got a look. When the new firehall opened, you would see a group of firemen standing on the low concrete wall of the firehall along Powell Street taking in the show. After several years the No. 5 Orange windows were covered with a large mural of . . . a fire engine. The windows are now completely covered in stucco.
I worked the evening of the infamous Gastown riots, and the police garage was a marshalling area prior to the event.
Posting on August 8 was a sheer fluke! Thanks for that Angus, and for giving me a big laugh. I can clearly visualize the reactions of everyone on the bus and the fire station to the antics at Number 5 Orange, and now I will have to see if there are any photos of the mural. We need to talk about the Gastown riots!
So interesting to see the transition of that block. I worked for BCTel/TELUS in thevarious phases of the buildings over +36 years.
Just after the 1913 picture of the newer hall 2 on Seymour Street street I assume you have the wrong address? Says just Just up the block at 724… should be 754?
I have quite a few pictures in old BC Tel – Telephone Talk employee magazines of the addition to the BC Tel complex south to the corner of Robson in 1947-48 and the addition north that took out the second hall 2 Building in late 50’s. Also, the two storey building to the immediate south of the original 768 Seymour BC Telephone building was the Pacific Communications building built in 1943 to support war time communications up and down the west coast as hostilities moved to the Pacific. During the war this windowless concrete building was a mystery to most people but after the war ended its purpose was finally made public. Then it was incorporated into the William Farrell building addition and is still technically there.
Thanks for the catch Terry! And, thanks for adding to the story, sounds like the BC Tel building has a really interesting history.
Thanks Eve. I enjoyed hearing your podcast. I remember hearing bits on the news at the time. As typically they hold back information, it is good to get the facts now, even though it was an untimely death for poor young Vivien. It is also a estimate to how deadly crack, cocaine, heroin and similar drugs impact society. People with such addictions will do absolutely anything, including murder, to get their next dose. It is a good argument to just give it to them so they don’t steal or hurt people to get drugs. It is sad.