Comments on: Our Missing Heritage — What were we thinking? (Part 1)

By: Michael Kluckner

Michael Kluckner — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 16:41:00 +0000

The Dev had the quietest, best beer parlour in its basement; if you wanted to be part of a scene, you would choose the Ritz or the Cecil or the Alcazar (to be arty), but if you had a hot date, ha ha, at 25 cents a glass, you would choose the Dev. There was more of a UBC crowd next door in the Georgia, in its George V pub, also in the basement.

By: mitch

mitch — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 21:35:51 +0000

In reply to mitch.

found it:

“Terra-cotta panels near the base depict the history of transportation and the discovery of the Pacific Coast, and a frieze with waves, sea horses and marine fauna appears above the ground floor around both fronts of the building.”

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/the-marine-building/

By: mitch

mitch — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 21:26:11 +0000

hey folks. I was in the Bill Reid Gallery last week (on the site of the former of the Devonshire, I believe), where there is a large clay/terracotta frieze in the main exhibition space. I have a suspicion (unconfirmed by the gallery staff) that it was taken from the Burrard Medical-Dental Building, but would appreciate information that any of you might have.

By: Charles Keillor

Charles Keillor — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 18:56:05 +0000

I remember the parkade beside the wonderful Medical/Dental Building as well, and the wild ride the lot valet/attendant gave us driving our Mini Minor to it’s allocated parking spot way back in the mid 60’s. Cathedral Place is OK I guess, but this opinion comes from someone who generally dislikes post-modern architecture intensely. I prefer the real classics; both older and modernist.

By: kevin barker

kevin barker — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 21:34:01 +0000

I hate what the dirt pimps did to the old Medical Dental Building. It’s where my grandmother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1949.

By: Raymond Parker

Raymond Parker — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 23:03:43 +0000

In reply to Eve Lazarus.

Thanks Eve. I’ve spent the last year scanning those (medium format) negs, restoring where necessary, and now printing them with an updated “digital darkroom.” In most cases, I’m able to make more visually striking prints than I achieved with traditional silver gelatin materials.

I’ll soon have a shop on the site for those inclined to acquire prints.

Incidentally, Google Streetview and Earth has been a great help in identifying some of the locations where I hadn’t taken notes, though some proved very difficult as the whole area had been transformed.

By: Raymond Parker

Raymond Parker — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 21:49:10 +0000

That’s the very question I was asking, when I cruised the streets of Vancouver with my cameras, in the 1980’s, as the wrecking balls and bulldozers were unleashed and unrestricted.

My “Eighties Vancouver” archive (linked above), thirty years later, looks positively vintage (as I do). For me the images stand as a record of the Vancouver I loved ― a little rough around the edges, but full of character and community. I fled the scene of destruction in the early nineties.

By: Sean Orr

Sean Orr — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 06:55:55 +0000

I seem to remember those sisters ending up at a new building at UBC

By: John Belshaw

John Belshaw — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 02:42:53 +0000

I remember it quite well. The common belief (and I share this still) was that the gargoyles on the Hotel Vancouver opposite were aligned in such a way that they appeared to be leering at the nurses. It was one of those cases where one building was effectively talking to another. Now the new nurses are out of alignment and the gargoyles are leering into the middle-distance, poor sods.