Georgia Viaduct

Recognizing Black History: The Canada Post Stamps

by Eve Lazarus on February 1, 2014

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

In February 2014, Canada Post came out with two stamps in recognition of Black History Month. One shows Hogan’s Alley, the unofficial name for an area near Union and Main Streets and home to much of Vancouver’s early black community. The other is of Nora Hendrix and Fielding William Spotts.

The photo of Spotts was taken in 1935, and it shows the 75-year-old standing outside his home at 217 ½ Prior Street in Hogan’s Alley, which would be bulldozed out of existence our decades later to make way for the Georgia Viaduct.

On the stamp, Spotts stands next to a young Nora Hendrix, who lived to be 100, spent much of her life in Strathcona and become famous for her grandson, rocker Jimi Hendrix. According to the city directory of 1930, Spotts ran a shoe shine business at 724 Main Street.

Rosemary Brown was Canada’s first Black female member of a provincial legislature and the first woman to run for leadership of a federal political party. She received a stamp in 2009

This was the sixth year that Canada Post produced a stamp for Black History Month—Rosemary Brown was first up in 2009, and it was the first time the stamp focussed on a place instead of a person.

I was curious how Canada Post chose these images, so I called media relations. Turns out it’s quite a process. A committee of 12 selects the subject matter. Our one representative from Vancouver in 2014 was artist Ken Lum. He joined a panel of designers, philatelists (stamp collectors), curators, and curiously, Toronto economist David Foot who wrote Boom Bust & Echo.

Joe Fortes, legendary Vancouver lifeguard, received a stamp in his honour in 2013

I also wondered who buys stamps these days. Turns out while not many of us mail letters, there’s still a large worldwide demand for stamps. Canada Post churns out about 50 different stamps every year.

You can suggest your own stamp. It takes about two years from inception to find its way to an envelope.

Eleanor Collins, Canada’ first lady of jazz, 2022

Stamps for 2022 include Queen Elizabeth, Calla lilies, Vancouver’s Elsie McGill for the Canadian’s in flight series, and music legend Eleanor Collins who is 102 and lives in Surrey, BC.

Tags Black History Month, Canada Post, David Foot, Eleanor Collins, Elsie McGill, Fielding William Spotts, Georgia Viaduct, Hogan's Alley, Joe Fortes, Ken Lum, Nora Hendrix, Rosemary Brown

Hogan’s Alley and the Jimi Hendrix Connection

by Eve Lazarus on February 10, 2013

It may be long gone, but at least Hogan’s Alley is finally getting the recognition that it deserves. As part of the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s Places that Matter program, a plaque will be placed near the Hogan’s Alley Cafe at Gore and Union Streets at 2:00 Sunday February 24.

Once a black hang-out for after-hours clubs, gambling and bootlegging — Hogan’s Alley, Vancouver 1958

Hogan’s Alley Project:

The plaque and ceremony is part of the Hogan’s Alley Memorial Project, part Black History Month, and part B.C. Heritage Week.

When the Georgia Viaduct plowed through Vancouver in 1972, it knocked out Hogan’s Alley and with it a lot of black history. At one time Hogan’s Alley was a hang-out and home for Vancouver’s black community and filled with after-hours clubs, gambling and bootlegging joints. Just eight feet wide and a few blocks long, the Alley was really just a collection of horse stables, small cottages and shacks—a place where the west side crowd came to take a walk on the wild side.

Nora Hendrix lived in this Strathcona house from 1938 to 1952 — 827 East Georgia Street

I’ve written about Nora Hendrix and her Vancouver connection in At Home with History.

From 1938 to 1952, the grandmother of rock legend Jimi Hendrix, lived a few blocks from Hogan’s Alley. Nora, a feisty old lady who turned 100 in Vancouver, was born in Tennessee. She was a dancer in a vaudeville troupe, married Ross Hendrix and settled in Vancouver in 1911, raising three children. Al, the youngest moved to Seattle at 22, met 16-year-old Lucille, and their son Jimi was born in 1942.

Jimi was a frequent visitor to his grandmother’s house. After he left the army in 1962 he hitchhiked 2,000 miles to Vancouver and stayed several weeks. He picked up some cash sitting in with a groups at local clubs. Six years later when the Jimi Hendrix Experience played the Pacific Coliseum, Nora was in the audience.

Tags 207 Union Street, 406 Union Street, Al Hendrix, B.C. Heritage Week, Georgia Viaduct, Hogan's Alley, Hogan's Alley Cafe, Hogan's Alley Memorial Project, Jimi Hendrix, Nora Hendrix, Places that matter, Ross Hendrix, Vancouver Heritage Foundation, Vie's Chicken and Steak House, Vince Fodera

In the year of the dragon: the changing face of Chinatown

by Eve Lazarus on February 6, 2012

For more stories about Chinatown see: At Home with History: the secrets of Greater Vancouver’s Heritage Homes

Last October the Feds designated Vancouver’s Chinatown a National Historical Site. In November, the National Geographic named the Dr. Sun yat-sen Gardens one of the top 10 city gardens in the world. It’s long overdue recognition for one of the largest and oldest Chinatowns in North America.

I took a walk around Chinatown last week. On the surface, not a lot has changed in the last 20 years or so. There are the dim sum restaurants, herbal shops, tacky ornament shops and the in-your-face production of food—duck and pig carcasses, live bullfrogs in buckets on the sidewalk, tanks full of exotic fish and an array of fruit and vegetables still a long way from mainstream.

Built by Yip Sang in 1889 — The Wing Sang Company Building, 51 East Pender Street

Yet for all the traditional elements, Chinatown is an area in transition. Condos are going up, bars, coffee shops and trendy clothes stores are nudging up against traditional grocery stores, and new business is moving in.

Art exhibit by Martin Creed — The Wing Sang Building in 2011

Bob Rennie was one of the first to see the potential when he bought the Wing Sang Building for a million bucks in 2004. He spent another $10 million turning the back of the building, where Yip Sang’s three wives once raised their 23 children, into a private art space to house his massive collection. Past exhibits by Mona Hatoum and Richard Jackson are edgy and interesting, but my favourite was Martin Creed’s where you walked through an office filled with pink balloons, dodged runners on the main floor and sipped champagne while looking at broccoli. Creed is also behind the controversial “everything is going to be alright” neon sign on the building’s rooftop garden which is clearly visible from the Sun yat-sen Gardens, and a good chunk of Vancouver. Rennie regularly holds free public tours of the building and art gallery, but next year he turns into a satellite gallery for the Royal BC Museum with an exhibit of the young Emily Carr.

Built in 1889 it's the oldest building in Chinatown — The roof top of the Wing Sang Building

Boutique agencies like St. Bernadine Mission Communications are finding costs are cheaper in Chinatown. David Walker and Andrew Samuel bought a newish space at East Georgia and Main, a block away from the oddly garish Jimi Hendrix shrine. In keeping with the heritage—it was once a Chinese Laundry—the partners installed the Kee’s Laundry Gallery with photography and art displays from other agency creatives in the city.

It’s transforming yes, but there’s a strong sense of community. Residents of Strathcona and Chinatown were asked to vote on the kind of business they wanted to see open at 243 Union Street—what was once Hogan’s Alley—the black part of town before city planners replaced it with the Georgia Viaduct in the 1960s. Locals decided they wanted a local grocery store on Union and named it Harvest. They even got to choose the graphic designer who’d brand it—Naomi Macdougall from a list of six.

Tags 243 Union Street, 51 East Pender Street, Andrew Samuel, Bob Rennie, David Walker, Dr. Sun yat-sen Chinese gardens, emily carr, Georgia Viaduct, Hogan's Alley, Jimi Hendrix Shrine, Kee's Laundry Gallery, Martin Creed, Mona Hatoum, Richard Jackson, St. Bernadine Mission Communications, Wing Sang Building, Yip Sang

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