From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
The Stuart Building was a landmark that sat at the southeast corner of Georgia and Chilco Streets, marking the border between the city and Stanley Park from 1909 until its demise in 1982.
Painted Sky Blue:
It didn’t have the elegance of the Birks Building, the grandeur of the second Hotel Vancouver or the presence of the Georgia Medical-Dental Building. It was simply a modest three-storey wood-frame building painted sky blue and capped with a turret.
There was a store that rented bikes and a craft shop on the ground floor and accommodation above, and I imagine it was this simplicity that appealed to the many people who petitioned so hard to try and save it.
Bought by Billionaire:
Macau billionaire Stanley Ho, aka “the King of Gambling” bought the Stuart building and its lot in 1974 for $275,000. Ho offered to upgrade the building and give the city a 30-year lease in exchange for zoning incentives on another property. But in 1982, council members Don Bellamy, Harry Rankin, Bruce Eriksen and Bruce Yorke decided to follow George Puil’s suggestion to “get rid of it once and for all” (Mayor Mike Harcourt, Marguerite Ford and May Brown voted to save it).
Bulldozed:
Angus photographed the building in the 1970s, and he was there to record its untimely end at dawn one July morning, the earliness of the hour chosen presumably to get there before the protestors. Angus says that, at the time, Chilco was a through Street from Beach Avenue. “The West End had no diverters or barriers or stop signs for that matter. There was a stop sign at Georgia, and it was a legal but dicey left turn to head to the Lion’s Gate Bridge. The cars on Chilco would back up all the way to Beach but were kept moving by a policeman. He also stopped all the traffic to let the trolleybuses turn into and out of Chilco and Georgia.”
Barb Wood painted the Stuart Building on the cover of a Vancouver centennial engagement calendar in 1986. After witnessing the demolition, she told Jason Vanderhill: “We were told it was too frail to stand, so it should come down. When they drove the first bulldozer through it, the results were like a Bugs Bunny cartoon—the structure was so sound, that the machine left a bulldozer shaped hole, side to side.”
For more stories like this: Our Missing Heritage and Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.
10 comments on “Our Missing Heritage: The Stuart Building”
I read of the old building & weep!
I used to frequently visit Stanley Park back in the day and would sometime pause just to gaze at the Stuart Building after it became controversial. I remember the talk around town at the time about how foreign investment is going to ruin the place, in my opinion it certainly wrecked a good thing here.
Yea, it utterly destroyed the place
You have featured this iconic building in earlier blogs. Stanley Park Bike Rentals sponsored the Little League team I played for. They also rented the Shwin Mustang Bicycle . We had to go there to pickup our uniforms every year and I was lucky enough that my parents bought me a green and white Mustang bike.
The councilors that voted to demolish that building have (had) to live with the guilt and shame
I miss The Gallery of BC Arts store on the corner of the old building, which showed top artists like Wayne Ngan and Walter Dexter.
Interesting how the replacement building tips its hat to the original, without the culture. When the replacement building stood alone (before the condos went in), it had a large mural on the blank east side that was the epitome of nouveau riche decoration.
Can you do a story on the roads of the West End, before and after the diversions? That anecdote about Chilco was fascinating.
I read a post from someone who lived in that building and was the caretaker for a while. He said it was so poorly built it had to be torn down. The foundation rested on the stumps of some old growth trees and were rotting away. It wasn’t greed that caused the building to be demolished, it was common sense. Not everything was built to last.
It was well built thats for sure. I think we want buildings to remain with us, because its a bit like loosing a lit of our own youth/past. Same goes for music, we long for ‘The Beatles’ in their prime, reminds us of our youth and dreams ahead. We just saved a 205 year old Cedar tree in NV, thank God for small miracles.
For quite a few years starting in 1956, I turned the corner at Chilco after departing Stanley Park. But I can’t remember the Stuart Building. I was probably paying more attention to the turn and avoiding a rear ender from too close traffic behind me. It’s strange but I have better memories of the marine oriented businesses occupying the buildings east of the Stuart up to Denman. The popular Sangster boats were built in that area.
My first home was above Capps Cycles. Was brought there as a baby.
[…] the lovely old Stuart Building (1909-1982) Bruce Stewart […]