Jimmy Cunningham Archives

A few months back, I spent a frustrating hour searching for a plaque at the corner of West Hastings and Hamilton Streets. It was unveiled in 1953, as evidenced in a Vancouver Sun article and photo.
It wasn’t there.

Isobel Hamilton and Major Matthews unveil the plaque at Hamilton and West Hastings Street on April 21, 1953. Courtesy Vancouver Archives Mon P63.1

Graeme Menzies, co-author of 111 Places in Vancouver that you Must Not Miss, tells me he did the same thing while researching his book and it’s entry #41: “Hamilton’s Missing Plaque.” Turns out it was taken down about five years ago when the CIBC building was demolished and it was never replaced. I suspect no one wanted to advertise that a white dude called Lauchlan Hamilton named streets after himself and his railway pals.

Greenpeace Plaque at 1500 Island Park Walk. Courtesy City of Vancouver

One plaque you can see is entry #37—the Greenpeace Plaque. It tells the story of the crew of 12 setting sale for Alaska from False Creek on September 15, 1971.

Graeme met his co-author Dave Doroghy when the two worked at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Graeme looked after the official publications and digital communications, while Dave was director of Sponsorship sales. They bonded over a love for history and quirky Vancouver stories.

Graeme Menzies left and Dave Doroghy far right with a couple of guys that they met while searching for the hidden symbols of the Stanley Park Seawall.

“I am a bit of a history buff and in another life would have enjoyed being an archeologist, so peeling back the layers about a place to find something new really rings my bell,” says Graeme. “I enjoyed learning about the Toys R Us sign on West Broadway and finding the original Fluevog store was very rewarding. The Billy Bishop pub is another favourite—it’s one of those places that is so different on the inside that you wonder if the doorway isn’t really some sort of Alice-in-Wonderland portal to another world.”

I’ve written a lot about Jimmy Cunningham over the years—he’s the guy who built most of the Seawall—but until I read this book, I didn’t know that there were symbols—a hockey puck, hockey stick, the four card suits and a maple leaf—carved into the stones of the wall near Third Beach.

TJ Schneider, owner of The Shop, 432 Columbia Street. Courtesy Graeme Menzies

You’ll also find some very Vancouver-type businesses such as Lotusland Electronics that sells things like vintage stereo turntables and vertical record players on Alma Street in Kitsilano; and there is Cartem’s on Main Street, a donut shop inside a 1912 building. Just up the road a bit Rob Frith’s Neptoon Records, still does a roaring trade in vinyl.

Neptoon Records on Main Street. Eve Lazarus photo

The good news is that many of our indie bookstores are open for online orders and curbside pick up. For instance, the Book Warehouse is offering a flat $5 delivery fee anywhere in the Lower Mainland. Check out this map for bookstores that deliver near you or offer curbside pickup, and thanks for supporting local bookstores, local publishers and local authors like me.

Jimmy Cunningham, 1962 Courtesy the Province

Jimmy Cunningham and the Stanley Park Seawall is an excerpt from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the city’s hidden history

The James Cunningham Seawall Race started in 1971–the year the last stone was laid on the seawall It takes place every October and attracts more than 1,200 people.

Jimmy Cunningham spent 32 years of his life heaving granite blocks weighing hundreds of pounds and built over half of the 9.5 kilometre wall. The little Scotsman (he stood five foot four – 1.6 metres) tall immigrated to Vancouver in 1910 and became master stonemason for the Parks Board in 1931. From 1921 until he retired in 1955, Cunningham, his wife Elizabeth and their three daughters lived at 4446 Quebec Street, in Vancouver, a tree-lined street near Nat Bailey Stadium. Surprisingly (or maybe not considering his occupation) instead of a stone fence, there’s a well-kept hedge.

Cunningham’s granddaughter Julia says her grandfather would talk to her in Gaelic. She remembers a big potbellied stove in the kitchen and having to boil water for the upstairs bath. During her nursing training, she would meet Jimmy at the seawall and remembers his gnarled, swollen hands. “His right hand was really quite swollen and almost deformed because of all the cutting,” she says. “He never stopped working on the wall. They lowered him down on the rope at low tide. He chose the rock to be cut and then cut the rock down on the beach. He did all the work himself. And he was still doing that into his 80’s.”

Jimmy, his wife Elizabeth lived on Quebec Street from 1921 to 1955 — 4446 Quebec Street, Vancouver

Stuart Lefeaux, a civil engineer who retired n 1978, masterminded much of the layout of the wall. He says most of the granite blocks came from the beach, the city streets, and a stone quarry on Nelson Island, but a few of them are the abandoned bases of headstones from Mountain View Cemetery.

“Wherever we could get stone, especially granite, we would send out our trucks and machinery and pick them up,” he says.

Taken in Stanley Park just by Siwash Rock. Eve Lazarus, July 2021

Long after Cunningham hung up his trowel, he’d head down to supervise the crew building the seawall. He died in 1963 at 85 and never saw it completed. Story has it that Jimmy and Elizabeth have their ashes buried near the rock at Siwash Rock.

111 Places in Vancouver that you may not know about

James Cunningham and the Stanley Park Seawall

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