Flack Block

Victory Square: What was there before?

by Eve Lazarus on January 15, 2022

Heritage Vancouver released their annual top 10 watch list last month (for 2021), and rather than look at endangered buildings, they have focused on space. I was interested to find Victory Square on the list—or rather not the square itself, but the buildings that surround it, some of which date back to the 1800s. The challenge, according to Heritage Vancouver, is to find the sweet spot between heritage retention and the need for low income housing.

This story is from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

The Arcade was a wooden building containing 13 shops (right of frame). It was replaced by the Dominion Building in 1909. Vancouver Archives, 1898

What a lot of people don’t know is that before Victory Square was Victory Square and home to the cenotaph, it was a happening part of the city known as Government Square, because it was the site of the first provincial courthouse.

Victory Square and the Flack Block, 1900. Vancouver Archives photo

The Original Vancouver Court House:

The impressive domed building was operational by 1890 and was the first major building outside of Gastown. It was quickly apparent that it was too small for our growing city, and within a few years it was given a large addition with a grand staircase and portico facing Hastings Street.

Vancouver’s original courthouse ca.1893. Vancouver Archives

Other buildings started to spring up around the Courthouse. In 1898, architect William Blackmore (Badminton Hotel, Strathcona Elementary) designed a building for Thomas Flack who had made his fortune in the Klondike and wanted to see an impressive building bear his name.

Military and Religion:

The original courthouse lasted just 20 years. It was demolished when the new law courts opened on West Georgia Street in 1912. The square, which is actually a triangle, is bounded by Hastings, Cambie, Pender and Hamilton Streets. It didn’t remain empty for long. By 1914, it was filled with a military tent, used to recruit soldiers to fight in the First World War. Then, in 1917, up went the Evangelistic Tabernacle.

The Evangelistic Tabernacle under construction, 1917. Vancouver Archives

The Cenotaph:

The church too was short lived. The Southams, owners of the Province Newspaper, which was housed across the street, donated funds to develop a park, which was then renamed Victory Square. By 1924, enough public money had been raised to build the cenotaph designed by G.L. Sharp. Sharp had the 30-foot cenotaph constructed from granite from Nelson Island.

The inscription facing Hastings Street reads: “Their name liveth for evermore. Facing Hamilton it says “Is it nothing to you.” And Facing Pender Street: “All ye that pass by.”

Heritage Vancouver Top 10 2021

Pandemic spaces
Food Hub near Joyce Station
False Creek South
Reconciliation and the Fairmont Building
Mount Pleasant
800 Block on Granville Street
Kingsway
555 West Cordova Street
Victory Square
Neighbourhood Businesses

Tags Badminton Hotel, Cenotaph, Dominion Building, Evangelistic Tabernacle, Flack Block, G.L. Sharp, Heritage Vancouver, Thomas Flack, William Blackmore

May 1, 1907: A Trip Across Vancouver

by Eve Lazarus on August 20, 2016

I’m writing a book about John F.C.B. Vance, the first forensic scientist in Vancouver, and this week I wrote about his first day of work as the new City Analyst. My book is non-fiction, but sometimes you need some creative license. My challenge was to get to get Vance from his house in Yaletown to Market Hall, a lovely long-gone gothic building on Westminster (Main Street) which doubled as City Hall.

You can read all about Inspector Vance, the murders that he helped to solve, and the history that he passed through in Blood, Sweat, and Fear.

Watch the book trailer here

Main and Hastings Street — Market Hall, 1928 CVA 1376.88

Vance takes the streetcar:

I decided that Vance would take the streetcar. I went to Vancouver Archives website, found a map of 1907, blew up the sections of downtown Vancouver, ran them off, taped them together and stuck them on my wall.

Map 191 1907

Next I played City Reflections. William Harbeck shot the earliest known surviving footage of Vancouver that year by mounting a hand-cranked camera to the front of a streetcar as it rattled through downtown and the West End. Just five years later poor William was dead, a victim of the Titanic, and the film disappeared for decades until it turned up in the home of an Australian film buff who thought he was looking at Hobart, Tasmania.

In 2007, the Vancouver Historical Society reshot the same route and put the two side by side.

You can watch the film here.

The CPR Station dominated the foot of Granville in this 1907 William Harbeck film

Missing heritage:

While it was fascinating to see what’s changed, I was surprised at how much has stayed the same. Back then, as now, construction was everywhere, on every block. The home of the new post office (Sinclair Centre) was going up at Hastings and Granville, as was Fire Hall No. 2 on East Cordova, and the recently defunct Pantages Theatre would soon open as a 1,200 seat vaudeville theatre. Slogans on banners shouted out the benefits of development. As today, Vancouver was attracting investment and visitors from around the world, and property prices were soaring.

Sinclair Centre — Post Office, 1910 CVA Str N117.1

The Vancouver Opera House and the second Hotel Vancouver are long gone, as is the CPR Station, a massive chateau-style building that dominated the foot of Granville Street. But Spencer’s Department store (now SFU) remains, as do several of the buildings between Richards and Homer. The former Royal Bank of Canada is now the film production campus of the Vancouver Film School, the Flack Block built in 1898 from proceeds from the Klondike is still east of Cambie, and what used to be the Central School, is now part of Vancouver Community College. Woods Hotel, just a year old when the film was shot, is now the Pennsylvania Hotel.

Hotel Pennsylvania, 412 Carrall Street, 1931 CVA 99-3895

Three daily newspapers:

In 1907, the Province was one of three daily newspapers. An ad that year boasted that it was read in 90 percent of Vancouver homes, and sold for five cents.

How those times have changed.

I’m not sure how long in real time it would have taken Vance to get to work that day, but it took me most of the week to get him there on paper.

Vancouver Opera House, 765 Granville Street — The Vancouver Opera House at Granville and Georgia in 1891. CVA Bu P509

Tags Central School, City Reflections, CPR Station, Daily Province, Fire Hall No. 2, Flack Block, john F.C.B. Vance, Market Hall, Pantages Theatre, Pennsylvania Hotel, Second Hotel Vancouver, Sinclair Centre, Vancouver City Hall, William Harbeck, Woods Hotel

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