Bruce Stewart

The Evolution of Devonian Harbour Park

by Eve Lazarus on June 26, 2021

The name of the 11-acre green space at the entrance to Stanley Park known as Devonian Harbour Park has nothing to do with its indigenous history, the land’s connection to the Kanakas, the buildings that once dotted its landscape or Vancouver. The park was named after the Calgary-based Devonian Group of Charitable Foundations which forked over $600,000 to develop the site to its present look in 1983.

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

Note the lovely old Stuart Building (1909-1982) Bruce Stewart photos

Kanaka:

Kanaka was a term for indigenous Hawaiians who came to Canada in the early 1800s to work for the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur trade. Most went home, but some stayed, married Squamish women and settled in Coal Harbour.

By the early 1900s, the Kanakas had been chased out and moved to the Mission Reserve in North Vancouver. That left the land free to develop. And, in 1911, Vancouver’s population of nearly 150,000 felt big enough to sustain a 10,000-seat arena. It was built by a couple of young guys from Victoria: brothers Frank and Lester Patrick (aged 25 and 27 respectively) who needed a home for their new Pacific Coast Hockey Association. As a comparison, Rogers Arena, built in 1995, has a capacity of 18,910.

Denman Arena:

In 1915, the Denman Arena hosted Vancouver’s first and only Stanley Cup—when they beat the Ottawa Senators in three straight games. Rudolph Valentino judged a beauty contest, Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) gave a speech, and the arena was used for public skating, wrestling, military assemblies and musical performances.

Selwyn Pullan photographed the first proposed model in 1963

Then on August 20, 1936, just hours after 4,000 boxing fans watched Max Baer fight James Walsh, the building burned to the ground.

In 1927, the Patricks built the Denman Auditorium just to the south of the Denman Arena. The Auditorium survived the fire, went through a few different owners and names, hosted everything from political rallies to a strange assortment of revivalists and faith healers from the States.

Bruce Stewart took these photos of the ‘tribe’ in residence in November 1971. He had met with Rod Marining, later co-founder of Greenpeace and Rod was able to rally the tribe for this amazing ensemble shot of everyone on the big rock. “Later in the week, I ventured down to the small a-frame lean-to during a snowstorm to meet up with the gang and to present my photographs,” says Bruce.

Development:

The building was demolished in 1959 to make way for the opening of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

Now devoid of buildings, developers dreamed of hotels and condos. The first attempt came from New York in the early 1960s. The second, by a local outfit called Harbour Park Developments that proposed 15 towers soaring up to 31-storeys in height. The third was a plan by the Four Seasons Hotel chain. They wanted to build a 14-storey hotel, three 30-storey condos towers, and a bunch of townhouses.

A peace sign garden at All Seasons Park, the proposed site of a Four Seasons Hotel near the entrance to Stanley Park, on May 30, 1971. Gordon Sedawie photo, Province

Hippies:

On May 29, 1971 about a hundred hippie/activists took over the site. They planted maple trees and vegetables, dug a pond, and installed children’s playground equipment. They called it All Seasons Park. The hippies lasted just under a year. Mayor Tom Campbell brought in the backhoes and knocked all the shelters down. Campbell’s own development dream fell apart later that year when the Federal government refused to hand over a crucial piece of land. Instead, the land was annexed to Stanley Park and purchased by the City of Vancouver.

One of the most popular features of the park is the bronze sculpture of the woman sitting on the park bench. She’s searching through her bag looking for the glasses that she’s forgotten are on top of her head. One Valentine’s Day, the woman was joined by another bronze statue—that of North Vancouver pioneer Walter Draycott. No one is saying how Walter got all the way to Stanley Park from his Lynn Valley bench, but he was returned without incident and bolted into place to stop him from wandering off again. Eve Lazarus photo, 2020

Tags Bruce Stewart, Denman Arena, Denman Auditorium, Devonian Harbour Park, Kanakas, Mayor Tom Campbell, Stanley Park, Stuart Building, Vancouver Exposed

The Day the Bridge Fell Down

by Eve Lazarus on June 11, 2021

The Ironworkers Memorial Bridge collapsed June 17, 1958 killing 18 men, and one diver the following day. It is the worst industrial accident in Vancouver’s history. Thanks to Bruce Stewart for sending photos that his father Angus shot of the tragedy.

Taken from Bates Park, Vancouver at 4:47 pm June 17, 1958. Angus Stewart photo, courtesy Bruce Stewart

Bill Moore:

Bill Moore died on June 17, 1993—exactly 35 years after he survived the collapse of the Ironworker’s Memorial Bridge. His daughters Cheryl and Sandy were by his side. “He rarely spoke of the day the bridge came down, it had a profound effect on him for the rest of his life,” says Cheryl. “He passed away on June 17, 1993, after suffering a stroke a few days earlier and was unable to verbally communicate but he kept tapping his wristwatch. My sister Sandy figured out that Dad was asking for the date. That was June 16. He gave us the biggest smile and in the early hours of June 17 he squeezed our hands for the last time and passed away.”

Sandy adds: “Our Dad was an incredible person, and we miss him every day. The bridge collapse did have an everlasting impact on him. He never missed a single anniversary that took place at the memorial site at the base of the bridge.”

Angus Stewart photo, June 17, 1958. “By the time my dad arrived at the old tidal pool near the grain elevators (Wall Street) the twin rotor rescue helicopter was making its way to the scene. Curiously, the young man in the pool is still enjoying his swim,” says Bruce Stewart

Sounded like an explosion:

Some described the noise of the bridge collapsing into the Second Narrows as gunfire or an explosion, others as a rumble or a loud snapping sound. On June 17, 1958 at 3:40 p.m., people from all over Vancouver stopped to listen, as two spans collapsed, tossing 79 workers into Burrard Inlet and killing 18 of them.

“I heard a loud bang, then everything crashed around me,” Bill Moore told a Vancouver Sun reporter the day after the accident. “I thought Sam (Ruegg) was dead—then to my surprise found him alive, cuddled up close to me.” The two ironworkers had been standing on the concrete pier that stands between the two fallen sections.

Angus Stewart photo likely taken the morning of June 18, 1958. Courtesy Bruce Stewart

Rescue Operation:

The massive rescue operation that followed was modelled after a worst-case scenario plane crash at YVR. Some of the men were identified by the brand of cigarettes that they smoked.

Phil Nuytten, the North Vancouver entrepreneur, scientist and inventor of the Newtsuit, was only 17 at the time, and one of two divers sent to recover the bodies. The other diver, Len Mott, 27, became the nineteenth person to die on the job as a result of the bridge collapse.

“The two sections that fell can be seen clearly, with the southern section partially completed,” says Bruce Stewart. Photo Angus Stewart, taken three months before the collapse.

Twelve-year-old Gerry Parrott was walking home from Hollyburn Elementary in West Vancouver. “We were outside and we thought the 9:00 o’clockgun had gone off by accident. My grandmother would never travel over the bridge. She said: ”It has fallen down once, it could fall down again.”

Lasted a few seconds:

Robert Hall worked for the company that had the contract for the concrete work. “I was on East Hastings Street heading for the bridge which was about five minutes away. It was a deafening sound but it only lasted a few seconds as the whole thing went down,” he wrote in a comment on my blog June 17, 2017.

“To access the north side, it was necessary to cross the old bridge which was known as the ‘Bridge of Sighs’ as it was so often open for river traffic causing long delays to both road and rail traffic. I knew some of the men who perished, most of whom worked for Dominion Bridge and there were two who were painters and worked for Boshard. I also knew the resident engineer and his young Australian engineer who both went down with the bridge.”

Calculation Error:

Photo courtesy JMBCA LF.00977. This comment was left on my blog by Charles Sayle on June 17, 2019. “I was working at Swan Wooster when the Bridge Collapsed. Our Project Engineer in charge of the Bridge Design and Supervision, BillC told us that Dominion Bridge had refused to let him review their calculations for temporarily installed supports (also called False Work) and after the Collapse he found the Calculation error. In your included diagram, you show “False Bent N4 composed of Piles, Bottom Grillage, Top Grillage, and Bent Post. This is where the Calculation Fault Occurred. There would have been a pair of False Bents, one under the West Chord and the other under the East Chord. In the ‘50s Engineers used Slide Rules which didn’t give a Decimal Point so the Engineer had to do separate decimal calculations. BillC told us that the Dominion Bridge’s Assistant Engineer had calculated 9Kips for Lateral Displacement when it should have been 90Kips (a Kip is 1000 pounds). The error would have been in the “Grillage” in your diagram. Both Dominion Bridge’s Engineer and Assistant Engineer were killed in the Collapse.”

In 1994, the bridge’s name changed to the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing to honour those who died on the job that day. I’m sure that would have made Bill Moore very happy.

Tags Angus Stewart, Bill Moore, Bruce Stewart, Dominion Bridge, Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, Len Mott, Phil Nuytten, Sam Ruegg

Walks with Fred Herzog

by Eve Lazarus on May 21, 2021

The friendship between Bruce Stewart and Fred Herzog began because of a mutual love of photography and went onto span half-a-century.

Fred Herzog in a back Alley off Commercial Drive. Bruce Stewart photo

Bruce Stewart has been documenting Vancouver ever since his father gave him a reflex camera for his eleventh birthday. A few years later, he started an after-school job at the Department of Biomedical Communications at UBC working with legendary photographer Fred Herzog. He already had a love of photography, Fred just helped it along. Their friendship spanned half-a-century and much of it involved photos.

Fred Herzog at the PNE midway, ca.1970s. Bruce Stewart photo

Capturing Everyday life:

Bruce has thousands—photos of Easter Be-ins, the PNE midway, Kits Beach, the canneries of Steveston, Vancouver Island and Washington State. The ones I love the most are of everyday life—what Herzog called “pristine squalor.”

Fred Herzog chatting with Mrs. Fung outside her Strathcona grocery store. Bruce Stewart photo, ca.1970s

“Fred got me very interested in the sociological side of photography and things that never occurred to me to be photographed,” says Bruce. “I guess you might say Fred opened my eyes to the world through photography.”

Fred Herzog. Bruce Stewart photo, ca.1970s

While Bruce would pack a couple of cameras and several lenses, Fred often arrived with one camera and one lens. “Fred would say I’m just going to look at everything through a 55 mm lens today or an 85 portrait lens or a 24 mm wide angle lens. I want to see the world in a certain way today,” says Bruce. “And that taught me something as well. Prepare to see things in a certain way through a certain trajectory and a certain lens.”

Fred Herzog in a back alley near McLean Park. Bruce Stewart photo, 1970s

Perspective:

I asked Bruce to explain what he meant through one of his photos and he told me about a day back in the early ‘70s when he and Fred were wandering around the DTES. Bruce came across a rundown storefront with a man’s arm pulling back a curtain, his hand resting on a beat-up sofa. He took a black and white picture and then went in closer until he was about three feet from the man’s elbow. Fred saw what Bruce was doing and took a similar shot in colour. It became one of Fred’s best-selling photos.

An iconic Fred Herzog photo, early 1970s and Bruce Stewart’s taken in black and white from a different angle.

“Many times, Fred’s ideas would inform mine and sometimes my ideas would inform his.”

Fred Herzog posing with a US mail plane at Paine Field in Everett, ca.1975. Bruce Stewart photo

Bruce sent me several photos he’d taken of Fred while they were out on their walks.

Fred Herzog, West End. Bruce Stewart photo, 1972

One is a fabulous shot of Fred taking a photo of a gas pump at an abandoned garage in the West End. Bruce says he didn’t notice the Jesus Saved sign until he was developing the photo.

Bruce Stewart photo of Fred Herzog, 1970s

Unconscious art:

There’s the photo of Fred taking a photo of the soft drink labels on Powell Street.

“This was an amazing display of unconscious art,” says Bruce. “It’s also a dandy exploration of Fred’s shooting stances because it gives you a sense of how Fred took pictures, how he braced himself, the angle that he used, the kind of lens that he used, and it gave a sense of lighting.”

Fred Herzog in this Bruce Stewart photo, 1970s.

Often, they would take very different photos of the same person, place or event.

One is an antique store on East Hastings.

Tom Carter has identified the heritage building as the Boulder Hotel at Carrall and Cordova Streets. The building is still there (note Fred Herzog bottom left of frame. Bruce Stewart photo, 1970s

“Fred was always looking at antiques and the way people place things in store windows. He had a whole series on store windows and the whimsy and the innocent art that was created through the juxtaposition of odds and sods in a display window. And that’s where we both tried to outdo each other trying to get the whackiest combination of things.”

Fred Herzog at Hawks and East Georgia Street. Bruce Stewart photo, 1969

Unfinished business:

There’s a wonderful photo of Bruce taking a photo of Fred taking a photo of a group of laughing Asian kids at Hawks Grocery at East Georgia in 1969. Bruce’s photo sans Herzog was featured in an exhibit called Unfinished Business: Vancouver Street Photographers 1955 to 1985 at Presentation House Gallery in 2003. Karen Stanley recognized herself in the photo and wrote to Bruce to tell him she now has a teenage daughter.

The photo of Fred pointing to a boat on a mosaic was taken outside the Admiral Hotel on Hastings Street in Burnaby.

Fred Herzog outside the Admiral Hotel. Bruce Stewart photo, 1970s

My hope is that more of Bruce’s wonderful photos of a long-gone Vancouver and some of his 400 canvasses will make their way out of his Vancouver Island basement and into a book or books, or at the very least a website.

Tags Bruce Stewart, Fred Herzog

The Photography of Svend-Erik Eriksen

by Eve Lazarus on June 19, 2020

I’m a big fan of Svend-Erik Eriksen’s photography of Vancouver in the ’70s. Last week I called him up and asked how he got started.

Pantages Theatre on East Hastings Street, 1973 (demolished 2011)
Photo: Svend-Erik Eriksen

Erik, is an animator by trade, but his interest in photography goes back to the 1950s when he was a kid in Namu, BC. His parents had immigrated from Denmark and sponsored a Hungarian refugee family who lived with them for a year. “Mr. Frank had a dark room and when I saw pictures emerging in the developer tray, I was just gob smacked. I thought this was incredible.” When Erik was about 12 he moved to the Lower Mainland and saved up and bought a Nikon camera.

Erik’s studio was above Frank’s Cabaret on East Hastings in the 1970s. Photo: Svend-Erik Eriksen

Vancouver School of Art:

In 1969, Erik was a first-year student focusing on photography, painting and animation at the Vancouver School of Art. “In those days animation was very laborious and required a lot of technical skill, the technical end of photography came naturally,” he says.

East Hastings and Columbia from Erik’s studio. Svend-Erik Eriksen photo

After he graduated, an animation project he was working on needed backgrounds of city streets. Erik got up one early Sunday morning in July 1973 and walked from Main to Columbia taking photos.

“I walked all the way down to Woodwards turned and walked all the way back taking photos every ten feet or so,” he says. The NFB film was never aired and the negatives languished in Erik’s drawer for the next couple of decades until he found that someone was doing an analysis of the deterioration of Hastings Street and was looking for photos.

“I had to dig for them. They were all scratched up and full of dust and mildew because they were never meant to be art, they were meant to be utilitarian.”

East Hastings Street, 1973. Svend-Erik Eriksen photo

Unfinished Business:

Erik scanned the negatives, cleaned them up and started stitching them together. When Bill Jeffries, curator at Presentation House in North Vancouver heard about them he asked if he could include them in his upcoming group show: Unfinished Business: Vancouver Street Photographers 1955 to 1985.

Unfortunately, I missed the show in 2003, but I do have the book and it’s filled with some of my favourite photographers: Michael de Courcy, Greg Girard, Curt Lang, Jeff Wall, Paul Wong, Bruce Stewart, Tony Westman and Henri Robideau. Erik’s beautiful panoramas are prominently placed between Fred Herzog and Ian Wallace.

Woolworths on Hastings Street. Svend-Erik Eriksen photo

I asked Erik if he thought of himself as a street photographer.

“No, not really, I consider myself a very eclectic photographer. I work mostly by intuition, I walk around and I take pictures. I don’t actually analyze it too much. It’s very organic, I don’t try and make art.”

1970s Strathcona. Svend-Erik Eriksen photo

Street Photography

Tags Bill Jeffries, Bruce Stewart, Curt Lang, Fred Herzog, Greg Girard, Henri Robideau, Ian Wallace, Jeff Wall, Paul Wong, Presentation House, Svend-Erik Eriksen, Tony Westman

Meet Vancouver’s Newest Street Photographers

by Eve Lazarus on March 20, 2020

When I think of street photographers, the first names that usually spring to mind are Fred Herzog, Foncie Pullice, Greg Girard, Michael de Courcy, Curt Lang and Bruce Stewart. But there were so many other great photographers shooting Vancouver in the 1950s to 1980s—names like Paul Wong, Tony Westman, Angus McIntyre and Svend-Erik Eriksen (Where were the women?)

These days everybody has a cell phone, and while you might think that makes street photographers irrelevant, there’s a group called Vancouver Street Photography Collective that are doing some really interesting things.

I’d been following some of their work on Instagram and went to their first exhibition last September.

Trevor Wide, Chris McCann and Stuart Weir are the co-founders behind a Facebook and Instagram page that features the Collective’s works. In his day job, Trevor is a visual effects artist for the movies, and photography he says, is a nice way to get outside his room and work outside the lines.

Street photographers hashtag vanspc in their post and the best photos of the week are highlighted on the Instagram account. “We started getting more followers and we noticed that people were connecting with each other on Instagram chat and giving critique and something was happening,” he says. “The Exhibition was our catalyst to get us out there and get known and bring together a whole world of street photographers from Vancouver and beyond.”

Rollercoaster at the PNE. Kathryn Ford photo

The members are a multi-cultural group that range from a 14-year-old to people in their 70s and they are all in different stages of their photography.

“We’ve got junior amateur photographers to professional photographers, everybody is helping each other out,” says Trevor. “We’re just good friends, sharing our art and our love for Vancouver.”

Circling the Bay on Granville and Georgia. Craig Sheppard photo

So, what is a street photographer in 2020?

“There are a lot of different interpretations, but in general it’s being able to capture a decisive moment—capturing humanity or what humanity has touched or left behind. It could be anything from architecture to people in public spaces to candid street portraits,” says Trevor. “Camera gear doesn’t matter—you could have an iPhone. You’ve got no lights, no tripod, you are just using the world around you to get your shot and there’s something exhilarating about going out there and not knowing what you are going to take and just trying to capture that moment or that mood.”

To step it up to the next level, Trevor says the Collective plans to publish a magazine this year. “There are a lot of people interested. It’s a good way to get people to physically look and touch our work because it’s a lot different when you see a print rather than a photo through the small screen on your phone.”

Tags Angus McIntyre, Bruce Stewart, Craig Sheppard, Curt Lang, Derek Rodgers, Foncie Pullice, Fred Herzog, Greg Girard, Liann Huang, Michael de Courcy, Paul Wong, Steve Attard, Svend-Erik Eriksen, Tony Westman, Trevor Wide, Vancouver Street Photography Collective

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

The Evolution of Devonian Harbour Park

Kanaka:

Denman Arena:

Development:

Hippies:

The Day the Bridge Fell Down

Bill Moore:

Sounded like an explosion:

Rescue Operation:

Lasted a few seconds:

Calculation Error:

Related:

Walks with Fred Herzog

Capturing Everyday life:

Perspective:

Unconscious art:

Unfinished business:

related:

The Photography of Svend-Erik Eriksen

Vancouver School of Art:

Unfinished Business:

Related:

Meet Vancouver’s Newest Street Photographers

Vancouver in the Seventies

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Kanaka:

Denman Arena:

Development:

Hippies:

Bill Moore:

Sounded like an explosion:

Rescue Operation:

Lasted a few seconds:

Calculation Error:

Related:

Capturing Everyday life:

Perspective:

Unconscious art:

Unfinished business:

related:

Vancouver School of Art:

Unfinished Business:

Related:

Click to read posts about:

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