Carnegie Library

Doors Open Vancouver

by Eve Lazarus on October 2, 2014

The second Doors Open Vancouver is coming up this Saturday October 3, and will give you a behind-the-scenes look at 18 city-owned buildings. Since you won’t have time to see all of them – here’s my top six:

1. Vancouver Fire and Rescue Training Centre:

Go see the city’s only burn building (meaning one that’s lit on fire), find out about the heavy urban search and rescue team, and of course, check out the hot firefighters.

Tactical

2. Vancouver Police Department’s Tactical Training Centre:

Where cops go to fire guns and learn other skills (Waterboarding 101 anyone?)

Photo courtesy greenbuildingaudiotours.com

3. Stanley Park Train

The Stanley Park Miniature Train Yard—It has been around since 1947, and should be on the must-do list of any visit to Vancouver (with or without kids). It may even have its Halloween clothes on.

Stanley Park Train

4. Carnegie Community Centre:

Built in 1903 as the Carnegie Library, now operating as the Carnegie Community Centre at Main and Hastings. Right next door are some of the cleanest washrooms I’ve ever seen. You could eat off the floor.

CVA Bu P116.1

5. The Orpheum Theatre:

For all the different architectural influences, and because it wasn’t demolished

Dan Rickard photo. www.danrickard.ca

5. Vancouver City Hall

Go just to see our Mayor’s ceremonial office and council chambers. Who knows you may even have a strange encounter with the mayor himself.

Vancouver City Hall from Yukon, 1937, Leonard Frank photo CVA City P21

Sharp eyed-readers will notice that this post was written last year for the first Doors Open Vancouver. I’ve updated a little, but overall, I stand by my choices. If you got to these ones last year check out the other 12 on display at Doors Open Vancouver 2015

Tags Carnegie Community Centre, Carnegie Library, Open Doors Vancouver, Orpheum Theatre, Stanley Park Train, Tactical Training Centre, Vancouver City Hall, Vancouver Fire and Rescue Training Centre

A brief history of Vancouver’s City Halls

by Eve Lazarus on July 26, 2014

Vancouver City Hall designed by Fred Townley — Vancouver City Hall in 1945 CVA City P45

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

Before Vancouver settled on its current City Hall on West 12^th, it had been housed in a number of really interesting buildings.

The Vancouver Police Department outside City Hall in 1886 VPL #1090

The first council started out in a tent shortly after the Great Fire wiped out most of the city in 1886. The tent was on the CPR pier at the foot of Main Street. Chief Constable John Stewart is pictured second from left.

149-151 Powell Street, finished in October 1886

Three months later, the Sentell Brothers were contracted to build the first city hall at 149-151 Powell Street–a two-storey wooden structure. It took just a month to build and came in at under $1,300. But the city couldn’t afford the tab, and the Sentell Brothers took the unusual step of shutting them out until they came up with the cash.

Powell and Columbia Streets Oppenheimer Bros Wholesale Grocers building 1898

The building quickly became too small for the growing city, and when David Oppenheimer was elected mayor in 1888, City Hall into his warehouse on Powell and Columbia. The building is remarkably still there, in a sketchy part of Gastown, rehabilitated and now owned by rock star Bryan Adams.

Oppenheimer was replaced by Frederick Cope as Mayor in 1892 and City Hall moved to the old Market Hall on Main Street (Westminster Avenue until 1910) in 1898 just south of the Carnegie Library at East Hastings and remained there for the next three decades. The building with its wonderful turrets was demolished in 1958.

Holden Block. Leonard Frank photo, 1936 CVA BuP56

In 1929 City Hall moved to the Holden Block at 16 East Hastings designed in 1911 by William T. Whiteway—the same architect who designed the Sun Tower and Kathryn Maynard’s Alexander Street brothel.

Since 1937 our art deco City Hall designed by Fred Townley has stayed at its current location on West 12^th. You can thank (or blame) Mayor Gerry McGeer for the look and the location, the first time a major Canadian city had built its city hall outside of the city.

Tags 149-151 Powell Street, Bryan Adams, Carnegie Library, Chief Constable John Stewart, David Oppenheimer, Fred Townley, Gerry McGeer, Holden Block, Kathryn Maynard, Old Market Hall, Opppenheimer Bros, Sentell, Sun Tower, Vancouver City Hall, William T. Whiteway

Vancouver’s Regent Hotel

by Eve Lazarus on May 17, 2014

I was standing on the 7^th floor of the Regent Hotel a few weeks back when a rat the size of my miniature schnauzer blew past. I just managed to stop myself from vaulting on top of John Atkin’s shoulders (the tallest structure in the hallway). John, it turns out, doesn’t just know buildings and neighbourhoods, he also knows rats. As he explained, because they are near blind, rats don’t run around things (like people), they stick to the wall and let their whiskers help them navigate.

At the Regent Hotel with John Atkin, Tom Carter and Judy Graves. Eve Lazarus photo, 2014

These days the Regent Hotel is a step up from living on the street, but only barely—residents fight a losing daily battle with rats, mice, cockroaches and bed bugs.

Just before the rat dashed by, we’d been discussing how the Regent Hotel was quite a ritzy place back when it opened in 1913, situated as it was in the heart of the theatre district. You can still see remnants—the wood floors and the marble staircase, which in the old days would have swept patrons down to the lobby where they could wait for their show to start.

Regent Hotel brochure courtesy Glen Mofford

As the Regent’s first brochure boasts, the hotel was five minutes walking distance of all theatres, a half block from the Carnegie Library and one block from the City Hall. It had a café that offered the “choicest that the management can procure,” 160 rooms “all light and airy,” 75 with a private bath and a telephone in every room.

The Regent Hotel, 1923 courtesy Vancouver Archives

The eight-storey hotel at 162 East Hastings Street, was designed by Emil Guenther and built for Arthur Clemes, who also owned the Pantages Theatre next door.

For more about our tour of the DTES:

The Main Street Barber Shop

The Smilin Buddha Cabaret

Tags 162 East Hastings Street, Art Clemes, Carnegie Library, Emil Guenther, John Atkin, Pantages Theatre, Regent Hotel

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