Burrard Dry Dock

The Seven Seas Restaurant

by Eve Lazarus on February 11, 2017

Do you remember the Seven Seas Restaurant? It was moored at the foot of Lonsdale from 1959 to 2002. The restaurant had a crazy 48-foot neon sign easily visible from East Vancouver, and it was the place where locals had their first drink, got engaged, and ate at the city’s biggest seafood buffet.

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

Before it was a restaurant, the Seven Seas was Ferry No. 5—the last of the North Vancouver ferries. No. 5 was built in 1941 to carry up to 600 people and 30 vehicles across Burrard Inlet. During the war, the ferries ran day and night, bringing thousands of shipyard workers to Burrard Dry Dock and North Vancouver Ship Repairs.

Ferry No. 5 in 1958. Photo courtesy Vancouver Archives 447.7232.1

After the war, people preferred to drive, and ridership went into steady decline. Ferry No. 5 made its final run across the Inlet on August 30, 1958, lasting eleven years longer than the streetcars that once carried the passengers up Lonsdale.

Jeanne Nielsen remembers taking the ferry from Vancouver with her grandmother when she was nine years old. “It was really an adventure I just loved going, it was a big deal,” she says.

When the ferry service ended, the City of North Vancouver sold No. 5 to restauranteur Harry Almas who owned the King Neptune Seafood Restaurant in New Westminster. Almas paid $12,000 which included a five-year lease for the waterfront lot. He then spent ten times the purchase price converting the car deck into two dining rooms and a kitchen. Almas kept the two wheelhouses on the upper deck and the ship’s funnel.

When Ferry No. 5 became the Seven Seas Restaurant, Jeanne went there with her friends. “We used to think it was fantastic. I remember us going there in our late teens and early 20s and having this incredible seafood buffet—they even had frog legs,” she says. “I thought that it was a shame when they closed it down.”

Ferry Line-up on Lonsdale Avenue i 1931. Photo courtesy Vancouver Archives Br P75.2 — Ferry Line-up on Lonsdale Avenue in 1931. Photo courtesy Vancouver Archives Br P75.2

The ship’s heritage significance was recognized on the City of North Vancouver’s Heritage Inventory in 1994. But the vessel was aging, and the cost of repairs became a court battle between the Almas family and the City. It ended in federal court in 2001. The following year the restaurant was dismantled, towed to Vancouver Pile Driving at the foot of Brooksbank Avenue, and demolished.

The neon sign, it seems, was lost to history.

Ferry terminal in North Vancouver, 1910. Photo courtesy Vancouver Archives

Tags Burrard Dry Dock, Ferry No. 5, Harry Almas, King Nepture Restaurant, North Vancouver Ship Repairs, Seven Seas Restaurant, Vancouver Pile Driving

Foncie’s North Vancouver Connection

by Eve Lazarus on May 28, 2016

When Foncie Pulice was 21 in 1934, he quit house painting and went to work for Joe Iaci and his street photography company Kandid Kamera.

Foncie, to my knowledge, never crossed the bridge or took the ferry to North Vancouver—at least not for his work. He did capture many of our most colourful citizens. A street photographer who worked mostly on Hastings and Granville Streets, he photographed people out shopping, going to a show, or on their way to work.

He created over 15 million images with his home made camera.

Janet Turner has curated a small exhibition at the Community History Centre in Lynn Valley from photos from the collection.

Foncie photos aren’t dated unless the recipient writes on the back, so the time period is mostly a good guess, but that’s part of the fun.

Gertie Wepsala:

Gertie Wepsala was a Canadian Olympic Ski Champion. She married Al Beaton, a Sports Hall of Famer for the Canadian Olympic Basketball team in 1940 and 1941. Al helped develop Grouse Mountain Resorts and built the world’s first double chairlift from the top of Skyline Drive. He later managed Grouse Mountain. Both he and Gertie qualified for the Olympics, but the games were cancelled during the war years.

The Fromme Sisters:

There’s a photo of the three Fromme sisters—Vera, Julia and Margaret—spending a day on the town; one of a young Walter Draycott, and another of his friend Tom Menzies, the curator at the Museum of Vancouver in the ‘40s.

Like the Fromme family, Draycott was a North Vancouver pioneer, he has a street named after him, and his statue sits in the little square at the corner of Lynn Valley Road and Mountain Highway.

Walter Draycott. Eve Lazarus photo, 2016

Marie Desimone:

Marie Desimone, a shipyard worker is captured on the way to catch the ferry to work at the Burrard Dry Dock.

Bette and Bob Booth:

Bette Booth is photographed with her husband Bob, an architect who built his own West Coast modern home near Capilano River. Bob worked on both the Burrard Dry Dock and Westminster Abbey in Mission.

Jack Cash, a prolific photographer himself, and son of the formidable Gwen Cash, who appears in Sensational Victoria, is shown in a photo with his oldest son and wife Aileen (Binns).

Jennie and Eva Conroy:

Eva and her sister Jennie Conroy are photographed shortly before Jennie’s murder in 1944.

When Foncie retired in November of 1979 he told a Province reporter that when he started as a 20-year-old back in 1934 there were six companies in Vancouver. Street photography, he said, really started to take off during the war. “At one time, I was taking 4,000 to 5,000 pictures every day,” he told the reporter.

Millions of photos were thrown out. “I’d keep them for a year, then throw them out. I realize now I should have saved them but it’s too late.”

Foncie Pulice died in 2003 at the age of 88.

The Story of 323 East 24th Street

by Eve Lazarus on September 1, 2013

323 East 24th Street, North Vancouver — One of the first houses near the terminus of the trolley that used to run up the mountain from the ferry terminal at the foot of Lonsdale Avenue

Almost 40 years ago, Rosemary Eng and her husband Alan Merridew moved to Vancouver from Chicago to take up a job at the Province. They bought the 100-year-old North Vancouver house, raised their son Peter now 38, and as Rosemary prepares to pack up and leave, she has written the story of her house.

By Rosemary Eng

When we looked at the house at 323 East 24^th Street in 1976 it felt like we were in a forest. The house was dwarfed by two big Douglas firs. Cedars and Douglas firs towered in the yards on either side. Ferns were everywhere.

We chose this house because the owner, Art Grice, a photographer had custom built a photo darkroom with sinks, counters for photochemical trays, drying racks and a ventilation system. We couldn’t believe we could own a professional photo darkroom in our own home.

Since then, the bigger of the Douglas firs was hit by lightning and had to be cut down, new neighbors did away with all their trees, and digital photography usurped photographic film.

While documenting heritage houses for the North Vancouver Archives, Suzanne Wilson, found a building permit for our house that was issued to D. B. Joy in 1913 for what looked like a small shack. A second permit was issued to the same Mr. Joy in 1920 for a house with one-and-a-half storeys and front veranda.

City directories show “Theo” Joy was a motion picture projectionist at the Royal Theatre at Columbia and Hastings and at various Vancouver theatres until he sold the house to George L. Watts, a branch manager of Maytag Co. in 1940.

George might have been the same man who came to the house some 15 or 20 years ago asking to have a look inside. He and his family lived here in the 40s, and he told us they hosted dances. He wondered what happened to the big Douglas fir where they hung a swing for their son, who would be about 70 now.

The war years were reflected by a number of occupants who worked at North Vancouver Ship Repairs and Burrard Dry Dock.

Thaddeus Halpert-Scanderbeg, a lecturer at University of British Columbia bought our house in 1949. He lived here with his wife Marie and two sons because he couldn’t return home during the war. After hunting high and low I found their grandson Richard living almost blocks away. He told us that his grandparents lived here with his father Tadeusz and his Uncle George. The family moved to another house in North Vancouver when Tadeusz married in 1953. Richard’s grandfather had been a diplomat in the Polish foreign service, and was forced to escape from Poland when the Communists took over after the war. Richard’s grandmother, Marie (Wielopolska), was a countess and the family’s home in Poland would have been impressive.

ca.1950 — Thaddeus and Marie Halpert-Scanderbeg with Tadeusz on the front porch

G.H. Littler, a carpenter, and his wife, Margaret, lived here during the ‘60s and sold to Art and Emily Grice’s in the ‘70s. We hope that the next family will love the house as much as we did.

Tags 323 East 24th Street, Alan Merridew, Art Grice, Burrard Dry Dock, Emily Grice, George L. Watts, Margaret Littler, Marie Halpert-Scanderbeg, Marie Wielopolska, Rosemary Eng, Royal Theatre, Suzanne Wilson, Tadeusz Halpert-Scanderbeg, Thaddeus Halpert-Scanderbeg, Theo Joy

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