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John Atkin

Top 10 Vancouver History Blogs of 2019

by Eve Lazarus on December 29, 2019
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It’s been a couple of years since I’ve done a roundup of my favourite history blogs. To make the list, the blog had to be written by an individual, come out fairly regularly and have a strong Vancouver flavour.

In alphabetical order:

1. Changing Vancouver 

John Atkin and Andy Coupland started the blog just after their book of the same name was published in 2010. These days, Andy does most of the work on the blog with John contributing the odd photo and newspaper clipping.

What’s your Elevator Pitch?  To look at the architectural history of the city using the before and after idea, but coupled with detailed research to build a comprehensive record of Vancouver. 

What keeps you motivated? Interest in history and the hunt for obscure information

Favourite Post? The Ormidale Block post was recent but it solved a mystery (at least for us) that was quite satisfying.

2. Daniel Francis

Dan started blogging in May 2013.

What keeps you motivated? I find it hard to keep motivated, actually. I began blogging because I thought I had lots of ideas and opinions to share about Canadian history. I wanted a space to vent. But it turns out that articulating one’s ideas and opinions is harder work than I’d thought. Perhaps in a bar you can toss off the first thing that enters your head, but on a blog, you need to be a bit more thoughtful. And that takes time.

What’s Your Elevator Pitch? I do try to add something new two or three times a month that’s provocative and amusing.

Favourite Posts? The Literary Life; A Day in Provence, Debating Sir John A

3. Every Place has a Story

Yes, this is my blog which I’ve been writing obsessively since 2010. I’m excited to tell you that it will be coming out as a fully illustrated book in the fall called Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History.

What’s your elevator pitch? My blog is an outlet for my passions of quirky local history, heritage houses and crime, and it lets me try out ideas for future books, have fun with photos, and just gives me an excuse to look up cool stuff. It also acts as a companion to my Facebook page of the same name. I’m very proud that the BC Historical Federation named it the best blog of 2015!

Favourite Post: Always the last one: The Woodward’s Christmas Windows

4. Historical Research

Donna Jean MacKinnon started this blog in 2018.

What keeps you motivated? My own interest in local history and in historical research and staying connected with the local historical community

What’s your Elevator Pitch? If you want to do some historical research but don’t know where to start, this blog will help guide you through some of the rarified material found in archives, little-known library sources, and other strategies for discovering information related to your project.

Favourite Post? Port Moody Passed Over in Favour of Vancouver because it is about one of my favourite research materials (directories) and also speaks to an interesting local political controversy that has reverberations to this day.

5. Janet Nicol

Janet started blogging in 2008

What keeps you motivated? Telling stories that are lost, hidden or not valued keep me motivated.

What’s your elevator pitch? I mostly post ‘teasers’ of articles I have written once they are published in print or with on-line journals. Recently my blog has expanded to include promotional events about my first book, a biography of BC artist Sybil Andrews and my own art work, some of it illustrating my stories.

Favourite post? My volunteer work with the BC Labour Heritage Centre inspired me to write Girl Strikers’ and the 1918 Vancouver Steam Laundries Dispute, published in BC Studies, Autumn 2019.

6. Trueborns 

Rob Howatson wrote his first blog post in 2014.

What keeps you motivated? The thrill of finding neat stuff, like a missing time capsule at the old Sunset Community Centre or the Fraserview backyard where country music queen Loretta Lynn was discovered.

What’s your elevator pitch? Vancouver Trueborns seeks to uncover the truth about the city’s past, with extra coverage of its forgotten corner—South Vancouver.

Favourite Post? Jim Dragan is about as Trueborn as they get.

7. Vanalogue

Christine Hagemoen started her Vanalogue blog in 2013, although she has been blogging since 2004.

What keeps you motivated? Positive feedback and my own inquisitive mind.

What’s your elevator pitch? Researching and writing about local history is my passion. I love to uncover the untold or long-forgotten stories of the people and places of this region. Vanalogue is a history-themed blog that is about exploring and featuring all things “analogue” (aka historical) in Vancouver and beyond. Van (Vancouver) + analogue = vanalogue.

Favourite Posts?  The bottle-dash Stucco, the sidewalk prisms and Sarah Cassell

8. WestEndVancouver

Robert Moen started his site in 2013.

What keeps you motivated? The most gratifying aspect of this blog is when someone finds out information that they were not able to discover anywhere else. Some people have been able to locate relatives; others have discovered family information that they had not heard about before. Other people are interested in architecture.

What’s your Elevator Pitch? This site is primarily about the history of the West End in Vancouver starting in the late 1800s and running to about 1920. It deals mostly with the West of Denman area, from Denman Street on the east to Stanley Park on the west, and from Coal Harbour on the north to English Bay on the south.

Favourite post? The Horse Show Building

9. Vancouver as it was: A Photo Historical Journey

Murray Maisey started blogging in 2014.

What keeps you motivated? For me, motivation comes from photographs. I find that when I hit a dry patch, I’m recharged by looking at CVA’s or VPL’s photos.

What’s your Elevator Pitch? VAIW is a post focussed on photographs taken of Vancouver in the past. The text seeks to tell something of the stories of people who are central to those photos. I always try to offer at least a little info that isn’t available elsewhere online so that I can add historical value with each post.

Favourite Post? If I was asked to choose one post (of the 537 posted to date), I’d pick this two-parter: MIA: The Loss of a 20-Foot Painting (Rolph Blakstad)

10. What Floats to the Top of my Desk 

John Atkin started his blog in 2012. He says it’s “an occasional blog of bits and pieces that didn’t fit anywhere else, and it was a place for some original research that was of interest to me.”

What keeps you motivated? Curiosity about everything. I have my note book filled with jottings, clippings and antidotes which are sitting there waiting—I call it my book of perpetual research.

What’s your elevator pitch? If it’s of interest to me, it might be of interest to you

Favourite Post? One of the more popular posts was the fireworks post about why Halloween fireworks were only allowed in BC and Nova Scotia.  My favourites are the Shanghai Alley posts and figuring out the true history of the Alley and the Squirrel post which solved the mystery of how Vancouver got those critters.

If you are in need of a little more history in your holidays, try these posts from the last few years:

The top 10 History Blogs for 2017

The top 10 Facebook Group Pages for 2016

The Top 10 Facebook History Pages for 2015

Have I missed your favourite Vancouver history blogger? Leave me a comment and I’ll make sure to check them out. And, thanks for following my blog!

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

City Reflections: The Epic

by Eve Lazarus on April 28, 2018
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I am excited to tell you that City Reflections is now on YouTube. As you’ll read in John Atkin’s story, it was a massive volunteer undertaking by members of the Vancouver Historical Society. It has been, and will continue to be, a huge tool for researchers—I would never have got John Vance (Blood, Sweat, and Fear) to work on his first day in 1907 without it! 

A huge thank you to Jason Vanderhill for getting me the stills from the film.

By John Atkin, civic historian

It was a silent, jerky and disjointed film shot from the front of a BC Electric streetcar in 1907 that captivated the Vancouver Historical Society’s audience members one September evening in 2004. Colin Preston, the former CBC Archivist had just introduced everyone to a recently restored version of the earliest known moving image of the city.

The film shot by American film maker William Harbeck was one of a series that played in specially designed theatres that replicated the experience of riding a streetcar. Long thought lost, the film was rediscovered in Australia and sent to the Library of Congress, eventually ending up with Library and Archives Canada.

As the evening ended someone in the audience suggested that it would be fun to create a modern version of the film. And with that, a project was born. It sounded simple enough, so a small group of volunteers got together to think about and begin planning how to tackle the job of recreating Harbeck’s film. The self-imposed deadline of 2007, the film’s hundredth anniversary seemed far enough away to be doable.

However, the project quickly shifted from just reshooting the route to developing a documentary about Harbeck, annotating the streetcar’s route and developing background information about Vancouver in 1907. Scripts were written and then rewritten and written again as the focus of the project shifted.

Wes Knapp chaired the project and helped secure sponsors. Colin Preston contributed the best possible copy of the film on DVD. John Atkin, Andrew Martin and Chuck Davis did much of the research. Mary-Lou Storey acted as production manager. Ernst Schneider and Jason Vanderhill contributed technical expertise and graphic design. John Atkin and Jim McGraw worked on the script. Jim did the final storyboard, directed and narrated. Paul Flucke oversaw the finances.

The project timeline was thrown for a loop with the announcement of the Canada Line construction which meant Granville Street would be off limits in 2007, so initial filming was moved up a year.

On shooting day, the team assembled at CBC on Hamilton Street to set up the camera car and get ready to hit the streets. CBC had generously supplied a camera man (Mike), camera and video stock to assist us in the shoot. Andy and Pacific Camera Car supplied the truck and Vancouver’s film office helped us out on the closure of Cordova Street—we had to drive the wrong way to match the 1907 route.

Another year of work to complete all of the pieces of the project and it was ready to be unveiled. In May of 2008, 101 years after the original film was shot, an audience of 400 people sat down to watch the first public showing of the VHS production of City Reflections.

© All rights reserved.

Top 10 History Blogs for 2017

by Eve Lazarus on December 1, 2017
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For my last post of 2017, I have compiled a list of my favourite history blogs. To make the list, the blog had to written by an individual and have a strong Metro Vancouver flavor.

In alphabetical order: 1. A Most Agreeable Place

Lana Okerlund, a Vancouver book editor and writer, has put together this quirky little blog about bookstores past and present. And who doesn’t love a bookstore? It’s full of facts. For instance did you know a copy of Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels or Don Quixote would cost you 60 cents  in 1887?

2.  Changing Vancouver

This is one of my go to sites when I’m looking up an architect or building. John Atkin is behind this blog of before and after photos divided into still standing, gone and altered with archival photos from the Vancouver Archives, BC Archives and special collections at Vancouver Public Library. I love how the blog includes a section on how the image was made.

3. Daniel Francis Blog

Dan Francis just collected the Governor General’s History Award for Popular Media in Ottawa last month. That’s a big deal and I can’t think of anyone more deserving. There are 15 books listed on his website (everything from the history of trucks to brothels). I especially like Dan’s personal touch with posts such as the one about how he met his nanny—66 years later.

4. Every Place has a Story

Yes, this is my blog which I’ve been writing obsessively  since 2011. It’s an outlet for my passions of local history, heritage houses and murder, and lets me try out ideas for future books, have fun with photos, or just gives me an excuse to look up cool stuff. It also acts as a companion to my Facebook page of the same name.

5. Illustrated Vancouver

Jason Vanderhill stopped writing his blog in 2015 when he reached a staggering 1,000 posts. I’ve included it because it’s an amazing resource for anyone with an interest in Vancouver’s art history. You’ll find work from artists like BC Binning, contemporary artists such as Tom Carter, and stuff you never knew about such as 1930 plans for a museum at Dead Man’s Island.

6. Janet Nicol

Janet is a former high school history teacher turned writer, who according to her blog, has notched up more than 340 articles in 44 magazines and journals. She writes on BC history, social justice issues and art.  And if you can’t afford a subscription to BC History, Janet often posts her articles on this blog.

7. Past Tense

Lani Russwurm gets my vote for the most knowledgeable history guy in the city. His blogs are always entertaining, highly researched, and I’m forever learning something new and wishing that I’d thought of it first. As well as his Past Tense blog, Lani wrote Vancouver was Awesome and is behind the Forbidden Vancouver blog.

8. Unwritten Histories

I’m seriously intimidated by Andrea Eidinger’s qualifications. She has a BA in history from McGill, a doctorate of philosophy in history from UVic, and is currently teaching at UBC. Andrea does a roundup of history news each week, and has a great list of resources on her site such as the Canadian Historians Guide to Twitter and a Holiday Gift Guide for Historians.

9. Vanalogue

Christine Hagemoen is the force behind this excellent blog. She has worked as a media librarian for the CBC and an archival assistant at Vancouver Archives and really knows her stuff. Subject material ranges from Sara Cassell’s East Georgia Street café to the date stamps in concrete sidewalks to bottle dash stucco.

10. Vancouver as it was: a photo historical journey

Murray Maisey’s blog is much more than photos, he really delves into the history of whatever he is researching. I like the way he “talks” to himself in his stories. In a post about the long defunct Empire Building he writes: “A question which often arises in my mind with such structures is “Who were the tenants who occupied it?…So I dug into Vancouver directories.”

If you are in need of a little more history in your holidays try these posts from the last two years:

The Top 10 Facebook History pages for 2015

The Top 10 Facebook Group Pages for 2016

Have I missed your favourite Vancouver history blogger? Leave me a comment and I’ll make sure to check them out. And, thanks for following my blog!

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

West End Heritage–a chance to have your say

by Eve Lazarus on June 11, 2016
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There are two vastly different West End housing proposals going before Vancouver council this week and both have implications about how we view heritage in our development-mad city. One, in Mole Hill, involves the community’s desire to designate Mole Hill as a Heritage Conservation Area; while the other is a way to redevelop and save a deteriorating 1920s West End apartment building.

Mole Hill
Henry Mole House, 1025 Comox St in 1895. CVA BuP697

I discovered Mole Hill about 10 years ago when I was writing At Home with History. It’s a small enclave in the West End that’s tucked in behind St. Paul’s Hospital, opposite Nelson Park and bounded by Comox, Bute, Thurlow and Pendrell Streets. The houses date back to 1889 and are swarming with social history. While the name sounds like something from the pages of Wind in the Willows, the area is actually named after Henry Mole, a retired farmer who was one of the first people to settle in the area. Anything left of his house now sits under the hospital.

Mole Hill
Photo Courtesy Mole Hill Community Housing Society, 2015

The vast majority of the heritage homes are owned by the City of Vancouver and comprise 170 social housing units, a group home for eight youth, the Dr. Peter Centre which has 24 health care units, three daycares and community gardens. Public walkways full of shrubs and flowers spill over into lanes that wander between the houses. There’s a funky little Victorian cottage in the laneway at 1117 Pendrell that was saved from demolition in 2002 when the Vancouver Heritage Foundation had it moved a few blocks from Hornby Street.

Mole Hill
George Leslie Laneway cottage. Photo courtesy Vancouver Heritage Foundation

Depending on who you talk to, the area’s heritage is either under threat or it’s being thoughtfully brought up to date.

Quentin Wright is the executive director at the Mole Hill Community Housing Society which provides affordable housing through a 60-year lease with the city. The problem, he says, is that three of the houses on Comox Street are privately owned, two have applied for redevelopment and it’s expected the third, which recently changed hands, will as well.

Mole Hill
1150 Comox Street (on the right)

The immediate concern involves #1150, a 1903 cottage.

According to Michael Kluckner of the Vancouver Heritage Commission,  zoning allows the owner to add density to his lot, and he has chosen to add an infill building in the back lane. Mole Hill residents were horrified by the size of the building in the first drawing and the city sent the architects back to the drawing board.

Mole Hill
The proposed infill for 1150 Comox Street

“The Heritage Commission rejected [the second drawing], as the cottage is the heritage item, and adding a huge addition onto its back (in the middle of the lot, as it were), wasn’t good,” says Kluckner. “The design was too glaringly modern. So the architect and owner came back to the Heritage Commission with this design (pictured above).”

Mole Hill
The rejected plans for 1150 Comox

Local civic historian John Atkin reckons the Commission made the right call. “In a situation like this, an infill should be in a contrasting design,” he says. “A faux heritage design would muddy the visual record. New should always stand out.”

Wright would like to see the laneway be recognized as part of the heritage landscape and be given legal protection.

West End
The Florida, 1170 Barclay Street

After I blogged about Charles Marega, I received an email from Lyn Guy saying that Marega’s old home—a 1920s two-storey apartment building called the Florida, was ringed with fencing and looked like it might be going the way of many older buildings in Vancouver.

The Florida
Photo courtesy Lyn Guy

Turns out that it’s good news. The owners want to work under a Heritage Revitalization Agreement to redevelop the building, add a couple of storeys to the back and increase the rental stock from 16 to 28 units.

You have until this Friday June 17 to tell the city what you think of the plan.

The Florida, 1170 Barclay
Photo courtesy Lyn Guy

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

Making History with Facebook for 2015

by Eve Lazarus on December 26, 2015
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Since this is my last blog for the year, I thought I’d put together a list of my top 10 favourite FB pages. My criteria is pretty simple: the page has to have a strong Greater Vancouver flavour, there has to be a historical element, and the page has to post reasonably often and with original postings.

In Alphabetical order……

FB Vancouver Archives1. City of Vancouver Archives (likes: 2,328)

The Archives does an amazing job as our official keeper and promoter of Vancouver’s history. But most importantly the Archives took the step a few years ago of digitizing tens of thousands of photos and making high res versions freely accessible to anyone who wants them. They also have a great blog.

FB Every Place2. Every Place has a Story (likes: 1,643)

I started this page a couple of years ago and it has grown into a mixture of curated material, photos and original posts (you really don’t know what you are getting from one day to the next  because I’m never sure myself).

FB Foncie3. Foncie Pulice (likes: 1,384)

Most long time Vancouverites have at least one Foncie photo in their album, and his photos really touch a chord and say a lot about our history. Foncie took his first photo in 1934 and his last in 1979. He was the last of the street photographers

FB Forbidden Vancouver4. Forbidden Vancouver (likes: 5,518)

This is a local business run by Will Woods (shown wearing cool hat). Will has shaken up the idea of the walking tour, added some theatre and shows the sketchy side of Vancouver to locals and tourists. His FB posts reflect this side of Vancouver.

FB Heritage Vancouver5. Heritage Vancouver Society (likes: 2,091)

For keeping Vancouver’s heritage buildings as an issue, for publishing the top 10 watch list of endangered buildings and for putting on great events that keep us interested in heritage. You need to follow this page.

FB NVMA6. North Vancouver Museum and Archives (likes: 2,091)

The North Vancouver Museum and Archives has been fundraising this year for a new museum that would live at the foot of Lonsdale. They’ve also ramped up their postings on FB and shared some really fascinating bits of local history and photos for people on both sides of the Inlet.

FB Vancouver Fire Fighters7. Vancouver Firefighters Historical Society (likes: 531)

Not all the photos are of burning buildings, some are shots of old equipment, trucks, parades, old Vancouver and heritage fire halls. And, if you’re in need of some eye candy pop over to The Hall of Flame calendar page — it’s okay it’s for the children!

FB VHF8. Vancouver Heritage Foundation (likes: 3,334)

Through the annual heritage house tour, lectures series, walking tours, Places that Matter and their collateral, the Vancouver Heritage Foundation does an amazing job of keeping heritage important and fun. Follow this site for information about grants and events.

FB Vancouver Then9. Vancouver Then (likes: 14,861)

I can’t say enough good things about Vancouver Then. Jeremy Hood posts consistently and often and he puts a huge amount of work and thought into his posts and photos about Vancouver. My favourites are his then and now posts that show how much we have changed, or in some cases, how much we haven’t.

FB Vancouver Vanishes10. Vancouver Vanishes (likes: 7,702)

Noted fiction author Caroline Adderson started this page a couple of years ago and has attracted a huge following of people who are just as outraged as she is by the demolition of character houses in Vancouver. Her relentless beating on City Hall has had real results and her page was the basis for Vancouver Vanishes, a book of essays with contributors such as Michael Kluckner, John Atkin, Kerry Gold, and me.

If I have missed any of your favourite pages, please leave a note in the comment section below!

Heritage Streeters (with John Atkin, Aaron Chapman, Jeremy Hood and Will Woods)

by Eve Lazarus on February 28, 2015
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One of the things I loved most about being a contributor to Vancouver Confidential was working with reporters, bloggers, artists, tour guides, actors, musicians and academics that cut across both decades and demographics. The experience made me realize what a truly diverse group we have working in the local history and heritage space.

So just for fun, I’ve asked several of my heritage heroes to tell me their favourite residential or commercial building, and to tell me the one building that should never have left our landscape.

John Atkin

John Atkin is a civic historian, heritage consultant, author and walking tour guide. He co-chairs the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC, sits on the board of the Friends of the Archives and is a Trustee of the Dr Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden. In his spare time John likes to bind books and draw.

John AtkinFavourite Vancouver building:

Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church on Campbell Avenue in Strathcona is a single-handed effort from the Russian Orthodox missionary priest, architect and carpenter, the Reverend Archpriest Alexander Kiziun. He died before completion, but was responsible for its design. He salvaged materials from a variety of sources which makes the church unique in its construction and character.

Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church
Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church

The one building that should never had been destroyed:

The Georgia Medical Dental building should never have been demolished. Silly reasons put forward by the council of the day, a developer with an outsized ego and a building which would have been a dramatic blend of old and new if it had survived for a few more years like the now celebrated Hotel Georgia.

 Aaron Chapman

Aaron Chapman is a writer, historian and musician with a special interest in Vancouver’s entertainment history and the author of Liquor, Lust, and the Law, Live at The Commodore, and a contributor to Vancouver Confidential. You can catch Aaron live at the Vancouver Archives on March 22 

Aaron ChapmanFavourite Vancouver building:

The Vancouver Planetarium. The steel crab sculpture, the UFO like dome building, and the ramp that rises up to the doorway makes you feel like just entering the building is an event. The design is modern, but it’s the location for the Vancouver Museum, and therefore full of the past that makes an interesting contradiction. And there’s something of that late 60s “space-age” era architecture that not only reminds me of that design style that was so popular when I was a kid, but the whole place also likely reminds me of the elementary school field trips fondly spent there. Runner ups? The Penthouse and The Commodore Ballroom, of course!

The one building that should never had been destroyed:

The Cave. I was too young to ever go in myself before it was demolished, so perhaps I’m considering it through an odd lens of nostalgia. How wonderful would it be today to see a show that had such history to it, and knowing that you were standing in the place where so many great jazz musicians, comedians, and stars came through, especially in a place designed to look like a cave with stalactites and stalagmites everywhere as the decor. Hipsters today would have flocked to a place with such kitsch.

H.R. MacMillan Space Centre (Vancouver Planetarium)
H.R. MacMillan Space Centre (Vancouver Planetarium)

Jeremy Hood 

Jeremy Hood is the sole administrator for the FB page Vancouver: Then. “It has been a labour of love for the past two and half years and I am still blown away by some of the comments of real life Vancouver stories, some first hand, some passed down, that follow in the comments section of the photos I post,” says Jeremy. “When not working at my day job I am a photographer, a local history buff and cat lover.”

Vancouver ThenFavourite Vancouver building:

The Dominion Building wins out for me mainly for its uniqueness and how little it has changed in over 100 years. There is no building quite like it in Vancouver and it is situated in a location that enhances the magnificent stature of the building, including the mansard roof and decorated cornice. Even with a city that has grown around it, it still manages to stand out.

The "now" photo by Jeremy Hood, the "then" photo of the Dominion Building Vancouver Archives, 1944 CVA 1184-615.
The “now” photo by Jeremy Hood, the “then” photo of the Dominion Building Vancouver Archives, 1944 CVA 1184-615.

The one building that should never had been destroyed:

Two buildings that should not have been torn down are the Birks Building and the second Hotel Vancouver. The Birks Building, while majestic, handsome and a cruel loss to the city, didn’t have quite the mind-boggling ‘wow factor’ that the second Hotel Vancouver had. The sheer size of this hotel building and the fantastic detailing that went into it is almost impossible to imagine today, with vintage photographs of it likely just scratching the surface at what as treasure this landmark building once was. One can only wonder ‘what if’ and how that building would look today if it was saved.

Will Woods

Will Woods is the Founder and Chief Storyteller at Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours and a contributor to Vancouver Confidential.

Photo by Kiri Marr
Photo by Kiri Marr

Favourite Vancouver building:

Any one of the early twentieth century buildings on Pender Street in Chinatown that have retained they recessed balconies and ornamental features. It’s really something to walk down that street and see buildings that wouldn’t be out of place in Guangdong, circa 1900-1920. And the recessed balconies are perfect for our climate here, but for some reason never caught on!

Second Hotel Vancouver on Georgia Street
Second Hotel Vancouver on Georgia Street

The one building that should never had been destroyed:

The second Hotel Vancouver. The images that survive today show what an incredible and ornate building that was. A real tragedy it is gone, especially when the current occupant of that site is one of the city’s most bland office buildings. Fast-forward ten years and I expect I will be saying the Canada Post building on West Georgia. I’d love to see that retained and turned into an art gallery or museum – akin to the Tate in London. I think the merits of 1950s architecture will be increasingly apparent, the faster it slips into the rear-view mirror and the more of the buildings are lost. That particular building has a hint of the futuristic about it (helicopter pad on the roof for example), but also homage to tradition, with the large emblem on the front. It’s also “Herzogian” in its era, the photographer who seems to capture the ‘essence’ of Vancouver as well as anyone over the years. Almost as if the ’50s were ‘peak Vancouver’ in terms of visual richness.

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

Who was Maxine?

by Eve Lazarus on September 13, 2014
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John Atkin can be a bit of a kill joy, always squashing rumours about secret tunnels in Chinatown, ghosts in the Dominion Building, and well, blood in Blood Alley. John squashes another rumour in his story about a tunnel that supposedly connected a sugar baron to a brothel, but in doing so he uncovered some fascinating information about Maxine MacGilvray, a successful businesswoman who moved to Vancouver in 1914. This article originally ran on John’s blog What Floats to the Top of My Desk.  

By John Atkin

I recently had the pleasure of leading a walk in the West End for the Vancouver Heritage Foundation as part of their Sunday coffee series at JJ Bean.

The cafe’s newest location on Bidwell sits behind the preserved facade of Maxine’s Beauty School. The question that’s most often asked is if there was a tunnel that connected the Rogers’ mansion Gabriola on Davie with a bootlegging operation and/or brothel based out of Maxine’s.

1215 Bidwell Street, Vancouver
CVA 99-4477 Stuart Thomson photo, 1936

Apart from the general absurdity of the idea – the elevation change between Gabriola and Maxine’s would have made a tunnel an incredibly expensive engineering feat—Maxine’s was built in 1936—long after prohibition ended in BC and three years after it was repealed south of the border. There was no need for a bootlegging operation, let alone tunnels in the building, and the idea that a tunnel was used by sugar magnate B.T. Rogers to access a bordello from his home makes no sense because Rogers died in 1918.

Gabriola, 1904 VPL 7161. Philip Timms photo.
Gabriola, 1904 VPL 7161. Philip Timms photo.

The idea of the brothel probably stems from the sexy sounding name Maxine’s, but while sexy, it was still just a beauty school. Instead of a silly cliche, what we do have is a story of an enterprising woman who built a successful series of businesses here and in Vancouver and Seattle. I think she deserves some recognition.

So who was Maxine?

Maxine MacGilvray, 1918
Maxine MacGilvray, 1918

Maxine’s was named after Maxine E. MacGilvray from Wisconsin. Her name first appears here in connection with beauty products sold by Spencer’s department store in 1914. Trained in California, she gave talks on skin care at the store and would later open the first of her parlors in the store.

Maxine started with a hair salon in the 600 block of Dunsmuir, opened her second location in the 1920s on the ground floor of a house at 1211 Bidwell Street, and followed this with the opening of the Maxine College of Beauty Culture next door. Maxine manufactured her own beauty products in a small factory at 999 East Georgia Street called the Max Chemical Company.

She hired Ivor Ewan Bebb, a young Welshman who came to Canada in 1924 as her apprentice. Four years later Maxine, 36, and Ivor, 26, were married in Washington State. In 1931 the company moved to 1223 Bidwell to join her other enterprises and was renamed the Max-Ivor Company.

The couple hired architect Thomas B. McArravy to design a new building to replace the original school on Bidwell in 1935. The design is a cute Mission Revival building which was expanded in 1940 by architect Ross Lort. This is the preserved facade we see today.

The Vancouver beauty school closed in 1942 and the couple converted it into the Maxine Apartments. By the late 1940s, advertisements show it as an apartment hotel, and later as a full blown motel. In 1943, Maxine and Ivor opened the Max-Ivor Motel at 4th Avenue South in Seattle. The motel had 20 rooms, maid service and steam heat. Maxine died in 1952 and Ivor moved to Seattle to run an expanded Max-Ivor motel.

Sources: 1940 US Census, Skagit County marriage licences, immigration records, Vancouver World newspaper, BC Directories and Chuck Flood’s book, Washington’s Highway 99 

Vancouver’s Regent Hotel

by Eve Lazarus on May 17, 2014
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I was standing on the 7th 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.

Regent Hotel in 2014

For more about our tour of the DTES:

The Main Street Barber Shop

The Smilin Buddha Cabaret

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

 

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