Harry Almas

Fritz Autzen and the West End’s Hippocampus

by Eve Lazarus on January 11, 2019

1076 Denman Street

When Fritz Autzen, a baker from Neukölln, Germany moved his family to British Columbia in 1954, his first job was a cook at Zaro’s of America, a deli on Robson Street. Five years later he moved his family to the West End and established the Hippocampus, a fish & chip shop on Denman and Comox Streets.

Zaro’s of America, ca.1955. Fritz Autzen photo

When he wasn’t working, Fritz loved to take photos in and around Vancouver, and his daughter Chris Stiles recently sent me some of her favourites.

Story from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

1076 Denman Street

Hippocampus

One of them is of a business card with the opening hours 11 am to 10 pm Tuesday to Sunday. “I remember the first few years my dad had the business he never closed for holidays because he was afraid that somebody else would come and take his customers,” she says.

Fritz invented the torpedo sandwich and garlic vinegar to put on your fish and chips.

Fritz Autzen invented the Torpedo Sandwich, a forerunner to the Subway.

Chris and her older brother Michael went to Lord Roberts Elementary. The house and business are still there—one of a row of four along Denman near Davie, and some of Vancouver’s few remaining “buried houses.”

In this photo of the 1000 block Denman you can see the early construction of Denman Place Mall on the left of the frame. Fritz Autzen photo, ca.1965

The West End:

The houses were built in the early 1900s, but a look through the city directories shows the storefronts weren’t added until the 1940s. By the end of that decade, Harry Almas, who owned the King Neptune Seafood Restaurant in New Westminster, and in 1959, North Vancouver’s Seven Seas Restaurant at the foot of Lonsdale Avenue, bought the house and added three apartments. The Hippocampus opened in 1953. Fritz and Herta moved into Harry and Eva Almas’s apartment and managed the other two apartments in return for a break in the rent.

Fritz Autzen at work in the Hippocampus ca.1960. Courtesy Chris Stiles

Because Monday was the only day the store closed, Fritz would grab his camera and take the kids out of school and hit Stanley Park, pick huckleberries at Lost Lagoon, and eat at the Marco Polo in Chinatown. In summer, the kids would wait for the diving barge and slide to come in at English Bay.

Chris still has Fritz’s immigration papers when Fritz entered Canada a few months ahead of his family in 1954. His net worth was $226 and included his clothes (valued at $160), a pair of binoculars and his Teco camera.

The family lived above the store from 1959 to 1968. That year they moved to Richmond and Fritz opened the Seahorse Café.

When Fritz died in 1981, he left over one thousand slides.

Top photo: The Hippocampus at 1076 Denman Street, ca.1960. Fritz Autzen photo

Tags 1076 Denman Street, Fritz Autzen, Harry Almas, Hippocampus, King Neptune Seafood Restaurant, Seven Seas Restaurant, Surrey Drive-in

The North Shore’s Spirit Trail – Lonsdale Quay (part 3)

by Eve Lazarus on October 6, 2018

There’s so much history at Lonsdale Quay, that I thought we’d stay here and let it roll over us while we caffeinate at the Bean around the World (now the Shipyards)

A Ranch:

If we time travelled back to the late 1880s, we’d be sitting on Tom Turner “ranch.” It stretched from Chesterfield to Rogers Avenue and sloped down from Esplanade to the water. The farm house sat roughly in the middle—where ICBC is today. Turner’s farm supplied vegetables to Moodyville residents, and because he had the only grass field in North Vancouver, his farm became a picnic destination for the locals. Turner later sold the property to J.C. Keith (namesake of Keith Road) and returned to England.

North Vancouver Hotel ca.1905. CVA OUT P575.1

A Hotel:

In those days, Esplanade was a wide tree-lined promenade that extended west along the shoreline from Lonsdale to just past Chesterfield. The Hotel North Vancouver and its Pavilion were on the north side of the street, where the Shoppers Drug Mart is today. The hotel, owned by Pete Larson, attracted people from all over Vancouver who took the ferry and stayed for $2 a day or $10 a week, or just came for the day to check out the bandstand, balloon flights or perhaps tight-rope walking. The hotel’s grounds also had a boat dock and a swimming beach, because in those days the water reached to just below Esplanade.

North Vancouver train tunnel opening in 1928. Courtesy NVMA

A Tunnel:

Unless you’ve been stuck at the foot of Chesterfield Avenue waiting for a train to pass, you’ve probably not given much thought to “the Lonsdale Subway.” The Subway is actually a 1,585 foot tunnel, built in the late 1920s to link two railways. The tunnel ran from St. Georges to Chesterfield and connected the Terminal Railway to the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (later BC Rail, then CN Rail).

At the foot of Lonsdale in the 1970s. NVMA 15806

A Ferry:

Most North Vancouver residents will remember the Seven Seas, a restaurant that was moored at the foot of Lonsdale. Some of you may even remember it as Norvan Ferry #5, a forerunner to the Seabus, and one of the ferries that brought people to Vancouver and back. Ferry #5 went into service in 1941 and was sold to restauranteur Harry Almas for $12,000 in 1959, a year after the ferries took their last run across the Inlet.

After the Seabus launched in 1977 and kick-started economic activity in Lower Lonsdale, a plan was hatched for the Lonsdale Quay development. The thought was that densification of the area, with over 300 housing units, restaurants and shops would be encouraged, but care would also be taken to restore the heritage buildings in the corridor. Mayor Jack Loucks was certainly optimistic. “It has been said that Lonsdale Quay will become an extension of Granville Street,” he said. “I like to think that when the project is complete, Granville Street will become an extension of Lonsdale Avenue.”

Well, perhaps not. More like a parking lot for billionaires and their luxury yachts.

Next week we’re getting back on our bikes and cycling the newest part of the Spirit Trail from Lonsdale Quay to Mosquito Creek.

*Top photo: View of North Vancouver west of Lonsdale Avenue showing Tom Turner’s cabin in 1890. Courtesy CVA OUT P79

The North Shore’s Spirit Trail – Moodyville (part 1)

Moodyville to Lonsdale Quay (part 2)

Mosquito Creek (part 4)

Harbourside (part 5)

Pemberton to Capilano River (part 6)

West Vancouver (part 7)

Tags Harry Almas, J.C. Keith, Jack Loucks, Lonsdale Quay, Lonsdale Subway, Moodyville, North Vancouver Hotel, Pacific Great Eastern Railway, Pete Larson, Seabus, Seven Seas Restaurant, Spirit Trail, Tom Turner

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

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