Angus McIntyre

They Paved Paradise and put up a Parking Lot: Larwill Park

by Eve Lazarus on May 6, 2017

Bus Depot , 150 Dunsmuir Street in 1953. Photo Courtesy Vancouver Archives LP 205.4

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 (see his posts on Birks and elevator operators) and when he sends me one, I stop whatever I’m doing and nag him for the back story.

150 Dunsmuir Street — Inside the bus depot in 1979. Angus McIntyre photo.

Angus shot this photo of the old bus depot on Dunsmuir Street (Larwill Park) in 1979. He tells me: “This was just after Pacific Stage Lines had been dissolved, and Pacific Coach Lines had started the replacement service. The signs have tape covering the word ‘Stage’.” Angus says that on an earlier busy Sunday, employees conducted a mock funeral for Pacific Stage Lines. “Afterwards, there was a wake at the bus drivers’ booze can across the street on Dunsmuir. Seems Vancouver has this thing for mock funerals,” he says.

Seems we also have a thing for parking lots. Vancouver seems to revere parking lots as much as other cities value heritage buildings, public space, and art. (See Our Missing Second Hotel Vancouver).

Larwill Park is now the huge downtown parking lot that is bounded by Cambie, Dunsmuir, Beatty and Georgia Streets. It began life as the Cambie Street Grounds, a park and sports fields. And, being opposite the Beatty Street Drill Halls, at times operated as a military drill ground. The park was named after Al Larwill, who the story goes, was made “caretaker” after squatting in a shack on the land for many years. He was given a house on a corner of the land where he stored sports equipment and allowed team members to use his dining room to change.

In 1946, Charles Bentall of the Dominion Construction Company built the bus depot, and it opened the following year as the most modern in Canada. Pacific Stage Lines, Greyhound, Squamish Coach Lines and others operated out of the terminal, until car culture struck in the 1950s and ‘60s and some of the companies went under.

In 1979, when Angus took his photo, Pacific Stage Lines had just merged with Vancouver Island Coach lines to become Pacific Coach Lines. In 1993, the bus depot moved to Pacific Central Station and the land became a parking lot.

The Vancouver Art Gallery has its sights on the land and wants to turn it into a backdrop for its for its bizarre bento-box building.

For more posts see: Our Missing Heritage

Tags 150 Dunsmuir Street, Al Larwill, Angus McIntyre, Beatty Street Drill Hall, Birks Building, Cambie Street Grounds, Greyhound Bus, Larwill Park, Pacific Central Station, Pacific Coach Lines, Pacific Stage Lines, Squamish Coach Lines, Vancouver Art Gallery

Vancouver in the Seventies

by Eve Lazarus on February 18, 2017

Vancouver in the Seventies Fred Herzog, Foncie, Selwyn Pullan, Michael de Courcy, Bruce Stewart, and Angus McIntyre were just a few who took up a camera in the Vancouver of the ‘70s, and were documenting images of everything from buildings to the changing skyline, and from neighborhoods to neon. They also put a spotlight on people—the famous, the quirky, the strange and the ordinary.

At the same time, newspaper photography was coming of age. Cameras were more flexible, film was faster, and money was flowing.

An old home on Pacific Street near Thurlow with high-rise apartment building behind. December 28, 1979. George Diack/Vancouver Sun (79-2149)

Kate Bird, a recently retired photo librarian for the Vancouver Sun, has pulled together 149 black and white pictures, shot by Vancouver Sun photogs during that decade.

“We were trying to make it feel like a newspaper collection and show the access that photo journalists had in covering the news, whether that was accidents, crime, politics, business, entertainment or sports,” she says.

Kate moved to Vancouver from Montreal in the ‘70s, studied photography, and knows the city intimately. Many of the photos that she curated for Vancouver in the Seventies, reflect the Vancouver’s dark side.

Vancouver in the Seventies — Vancouver-born Playboy playmate Dorothy Stratten at the Bayshore Inn. July 12, 1979. Bill Keay/Vancouver Sun

There’s the heartbreaking photo of 20-year-old Playboy bunny Dorothy Stratten, taken just months before her murder. Poet Pat Lowther is shown sitting on a desk top shortly before having her head smashed in by her husband. And, there’s the picture of the underground Port Moody bunker that held 12-year-old Abby Drover for 181 days.

The underground bunker in Port Moody where twelve-year-old Abby Drover was held for 181 days after being abducted by her neighbour Donald Alexander Hay. September 7, 1976. Rob Straight/Vancouver Sun (76-2979)

It’s not all dark though. There are some wonderful photos that range from a line of airport telephone booths, to a five-year-old Justin Trudeau, Rod Stewart in his prime, and Muhammad Ali.

With electric trolley buses and neon signs as a backdrop, Granville Street glows at night. January 3, 1975. Ralph Bower/Vancouver Sun (75-0026)

“The city changed so much in the ‘70s,” says Kate. “There was so much building and an unbelievable level of infrastructure with the Pacific Centre, Granville Mall, Harbour Centre, the Bentall Centre, the Museum of Anthropology, and the CBC building. The numbers of new buildings radically changed the skyline by the end of the decade.”

Broadway Street, between Trafalgar Street and Blenheim. The Grin Bin posters and prints, Chris’ Billiards, The Hamburger Joint. October 5, 1972. Steve Bosch/Vancouver Sun (72-3291)

It’s both fascinating and frightening that four decades later, we’re still revisiting a lot of those same themes: demolition of heritage buildings and places (Birks, the Strand Theatre Hogan’s Alley—wiped out during the ‘70s), housing affordability, legalizing marijuana, worker’s rights, gender equity…

Students at Sir William Dawson elementary school in the West End. The 1913 school was demolished at the end of the school year. May 11, 1972. Peter Hulbert/Vancouver Sun (72-1526)

Kate’s currently working on a second photojournalism book called City on Edge: A rebellious century of Vancouver protests, riots and strikes. It will come out this September.

If you’re in Vancouver, I highly recommend the Vancouver in the ‘70s exhibit at the Museum of Vancouver. It runs until July.

The grand opening of Eaton’s department store at Georgia and Granville, anchoring the new Pacific Centre mall. February 8, 1973. Vladimir Keremidschieff/Vancouver Sun (73-0422)

Tags Angus McIntyre, Bill Keay, Bruce Stewart, Foncie, Fred Herzog, George Diack, Kate Bird, Peter Hulbert, Ralph Bower, Rob Straight, Selwyn Pullan, Steve Bosch, Vancouver in the Seventies, Vladimir Keremidschieff

Angus McIntyre

by Eve Lazarus on December 5, 2015

Angus McIntyre was a Vancouver bus driver for 40 years. He has a love for photography, street lighting and transportation systems. Last week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Angus for tea and a chat.

Angus McIntyre, 1973 — East Georgia from Campbell Avenue. Note the tram tracks and switches down East Georgia. Angus McIntyre photo, 1973

Angus was given his first camera at age eight—an Argus with the little window and the roll through numbers. By the time he moved to Vancouver ten years later, his skills and his equipment had markedly improved and his photos of Vancouver in the 1960s and ‘70s are outstanding.

Zion’s Grocery

Angus discovered Strathcona by accident one day in 1966 when he misread an address and wound up on East instead of West Georgia. He came back the next day with his camera and shot Zions Grocery. “You could see it was a beautiful house at one time and they’d converted it into a store. The old fashioned Pepsi Cola sign and 7 up were still on it,” he says. “It had closed and I wondered what happened and that was another reason just to document some of this.”

Angus McIntyre, 1969 — #8 DAVIE southbound, Howe and Pender, 1969. Angus McIntyre photo.

Angus had always wanted to be a bus driver. In 1969, at 21, he was hired on the afternoon shift, and many of his photos were taken in the early hours of the morning after he finished work.

Hawks Grocery:

In 1973 he photographed Hawks Grocery with his tripod. “I knew they were ripping out the tracks and taking out the street lights and destroying the character of Strathcona and I just wanted to document it,” he says. The building is still there, repurposed into one of several row houses.

East Georgia was originally known as Harris Street and the name was changed when the viaduct became a continuation of Georgia.

“Before they completely blitzed this neighbourhood all the sidewalks had Harris on them. They were all thrown away,” he says. “Strathcona had survived the urban renewal and it was this wonderful preserved piece of the city’s history and the city had no respect for that at all, they just went in and ripped out anything that was historic—they took out the rails, the street lights, the wood blocks and they never consulted the people.”

Angus McIntyre, 2015 — a house in Dunbar was still affordable in 1977 on a bus driver’s wages of $3.40 an hour. Angus McIntyre in front of his house December 2015

neon city:

Changes to the city were slow at first, says Angus. “In the early years the city had a small town feel, it wasn’t until the 1980s that the big changes really started happening,” he says.

Angus says that when he moved to Vancouver in 1965, 80 percent of the city had incandescent lighting.

Angus McIntyre, 1974 — Lotus Hotel on Abbott Street in 1974. Check out the street lights. Angus McIntyre photo.

“All the main trolley routes, all the major arterial streets had incandescent lighting and it was spectacular, this wonderful, warm, comfortable lighting with neon everywhere,” he says. “It was dazzling there was so much neon in the city. There were animated signs, there were things that moved, just colour everywhere and the light reflecting off the streets made for a magical time and place.”

Tags Alcazar Hotel, Angus McIntyre, Hawks Grocery, Lotus Hotel, Zions Grocery

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