John Mackie

For a number of years Caroline Adderson wrote outraged letters to City Council about the large scale destruction of heritage houses in her Vancouver neighbourhood. When her letters went unanswered, Caroline sent pictures—she still didn’t get a response.

In January 2013, the award-winning author took her fight to social media and started posting pictures of beautiful character houses and short descriptions of their social history, including the address, when it was built, the first owner and occupation. Sometimes she’ll throw in photos of beautiful interiors and working appliances, just before they are crushed and sent to the landfill or off for recycling. The status is of course, always DEMOLISHED.

“For me, they are more than houses, they are cultural artifacts,” she says. “When you say John Smith, barber, and his wife Mary, suddenly you see this man doing something and a story is there and it makes it not only a horrible environmental waste, but also such a loss of narrative, story and history,” she says.

The FB page struck a chord with others who are passionate about the diminishing heritage stock in our city. Caroline has attracted a bunch of media attention and finally got the attention of City Hall. Now Caroline is the organizer and contributor to a fully illustrated book that was released this week called: Vancouver Vanishes: Narratives of Demolition and Revival.

“This is a tiny tiny sample of what’s actually being demolished in Vancouver,” she says. “This year we will have the most demolitions in the last decade and this is happening right in the middle of the city’s Heritage Action Plan so it’s pretty disheartening. I think it’s something like 1,400 demolition permits that will be issued by the end of this year.”

Caroline has contributed three pieces, one is about her own house, another about the Dorothies—a twin pair of houses that were saved from demolition and appear on the cover. My chapter covers the disappearing West End based on my blog, and other contributors include the Globe and Mail’s Kerry Gold, John Mackie from the Vancouver Sun, civic historian John Atkin, and poets Evelyn Lau and Bren Simmers. Michael Kluckner wrote the introduction.