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 had actually survived longer than many of Vancouver’s other Edwardian buildings.
“This never ceases to amaze me,” said Tom. “The second Hotel Vancouver was just over 20 years in use, and the old CPR station was around 20 as well. There were so many incredible Victorian Romanesque granite-clad buildings that also saw just 20 to 40 years of service.”
When the building was completed in 1914, JFCB Vance (my hero from Blood, Sweat, and Fear) moved his lab into the top floor. When he walked in the front door and up the wide marble staircase he couldn’t help but notice the huge stained-glass window that let in the light. The stairs led to the second-floor courtrooms, chambers, and witness rooms. Prisoners were transported from the large jail upstairs to the courtrooms by a separate interior staircase. The building also had elevators, a gym, a tailor shop which churned out police uniforms, and a kitchen in which prisoners’ meals were prepared.
The Vancouver Police Headquarters was designed by William Alexander Doctor, an otherwise unnotable architect who arrived in Vancouver in 1908 and was gone nine years later. Doctor may not have designed many buildings, but this one was gorgeous—an imposing brick and steel building with a cream-coloured terra cotta façade.
It was built to last for centuries, instead it came down after just 42 years.
Top photo: 236 East Cordova Street on July 22, 1956. Photo by Ernie H. Reksten, courtesy CVA 2010-006.170
Sources: Don Luxton’s Building the West: The Early Architects of British Columbia, 2007 and the Statement of Significance for William Doctor’s house at 5903 Larch Street.
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