Pacific Centre

by Eve Lazarus on March 13, 2021

When the Pacific Centre took over Granville and Georgia Streets, it knocked out blocks of heritage buildings.

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

Angus McIntyre got this shot in 1974 by leaning out of a window on the top floor of the Birks Building. The Granville Mall was under construction, and Eaton’s had just opened.

The Great White Urinal:

When I moved to Vancouver from Australia in the mid-1980s, locals had already had a dozen years to get used to Pacific Centre and the “Great White Urinal”—the name they’d not so affectionately dubbed the Eaton’s department store building. But it wasn’t until several years ago when I saw a 1924 photo showing the Strand Theatre, the Birks Building and the second Hotel Vancouver lined up along Georgia at Granville, that I realized how much we had lost.

In the 1970s, the Scotia Tower and Vancouver Centre took out the Strand Theatre and the Birks Building. CVA Str N201.1 1924

In the 1960s, city council wanted a redevelopment of downtown Vancouver with Georgia and Granville Streets as the epicentre. The fear was that the downtown core would lose business to suburban malls and the hope was that a new, modern shopping centre would attract people and breathe life back into that intersection. The thought was that this retail vibrancy would come through a superblock and underground parking that spread across several blocks.

In this photo taken by Angus McIntyre at a similar angle to top photo in 2020, you can still see the BC Electric building and part of St. Paul’s Hospital. Missing includes King George High School and Dawson Elementary

Superblock:

The superblock was made up of Block 52—bounded by Granville, Georgia, Howe and Robson; and Block 42—bounded by Granville, Georgia, Howe, and Dunsmuir. The problem was that the T. Eaton Company, which owned all of Block 52, wasn’t in a hurry to move from West Hastings (now SFU Harbour Centre) and a new department store was essential to anchor the proposed shopping mall.

Newly bulldozed Block 42 in 1973 and the 30-storey TD tower that replaced the parking lot that replaced the second Hotel Vancouver. CVA 23-24

The other problem was 18 individual landowners owned Block 42 and none of them wanted to sell. By the fifth redevelopment report in July 1964, a frustrated city council led by Mayor William Rathie were figuring out ways to expropriate their land.

An aerial view early 1960s showing the future site of the Pacific Centre and Robson Square. CVA 516-32

Vancouver’s Greatest Day:

In May 1968, the city held a plebiscite to allow them to buy up all the properties in Block 42 and 70 percent of voters agreed. The next mayor, Tom Campbell, told the press: “We’ve got a united city which wants a heart. Vancouver had only a past—today it has a future. This is Vancouver’s greatest day.”

The Eaton’s Marine Room had an outdoor patio that looked out onto Howe Street. Angus McIntyre took this photo in 1979 – you can still see the part of the Devonshire Hotel and the Georgia Medical Dental Building on West Georgia in the background.

By 1974, we had the Pacific Centre and Vancouver Centre shopping malls, much of it as an underground bunker. We’d rid the streets of gorgeous brick buildings and gained the IBM tower, the former Four Seasons Hotel, the Scotia Tower and a 30-storey black glass monument to capitalism in the TD Tower. Rather than revitalize the Granville and Georgia intersection, we sucked the life right out of it.

The Second Hotel Vancouver: What were we thinking?

Vancouver’s missing heritage buildings

Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

Tags Birks Building, Eaton's Department store, Pacific Centre, Scotia Tower, Strand Theatre, Tom Campbell, Vancouver Centre, William Rathie

The Art of George Norris

by Eve Lazarus on June 27, 2020

George Norris was born in Victoria in 1928. He studied at the Vancouver School of Art. His sculptures are spread around Vancouver, Victoria and Calgary, but his most famous is probably The Crab (1967) that sits outside the Museum of Vancouver.

Last week I had the pleasure of writing about Svend-Erik Eriksen and showcasing some of his fabulous photos of early Vancouver. I’ve been running a different photo on my Facebook page each day this week, and this one of the people lined up to catch a bus outside Eatons at Granville and Georgia really caught my eye.

Outside Pacific Centre at Granville and Georgia. Svend-Erik Eriksen photo

There’s so much going on from the clothes of those waiting for the Brill trolley bus to the Clark Kent-style telephone booth. But I was curious about the sculpture shown right of frame.

It was created by George Norris, and if you haven’t heard of him, I’m sure you know his work.

The Crab (1967)

His famous crab sculpture sits outside the Museum of Vancouver and if you spend any time on the North Shore, you’ll recognize his 1971 fountain sculpture at the corner of Capilano Road and Ridgewood Drive.

George Norris sculpture in North Vancouver

He created the concrete frieze outside Postal Station D on Pine Street (1967), Mother and Child at UBC’s East Mall (1955) and a terracotta and brick sculpture outside UBC’s Metallurgy building (1968).

Pacific Centre:

In 1973, he was commissioned to design a sculpture for the newly created plaza outside the TD Bank building at Granville and Georgia.

The polished steel sculpture took him a year to create and was 13.5 metres high–roughly the height of a four-storey building. “It’s an abstract piece and I’ve attempted to give a sense of release to the space that is free and open. I wanted people to see it their own way, so it has no name,” he said at the time.

George Norris’s sculpture outside Pacific Centre, 1986. CVA 784-190

At the time of its conception, Norris had fought for a plaza that also included trees and shrubs. “But they weren’t interested because they wanted to get everybody down into the underground mall like moles,” he told a Sun reporter in 1987.

Scrapped:

George was understandably upset because Pacific Centre had decided his work was “no longer appropriate” for a planned redesign of the plaza. And, the piece which cost more than $30,000 and by then valued at $50,000, was shipped off to Surrey.

Surrey couldn’t figure out what to do with it, so the city took it apart and put it into storage. A few years later, a worker came across it and thinking it was scrap metal sent it off for recycling. When city manager Doug Lychak was called out on it, he told a reporter: “It was an honest mistake.” Or in other words, shit happens.

“The sculpture to me was like a silent song,” said Norris who died in 2013.

For more on George Norris’s work see:

Murray Maisey’s Vancouver as it Was blog
Public Art in Vancouver

Tags George Norris, Museum of Vancouver, Pacific Centre, Postal Station D, Svend-Erik Eriksen

Vancouver’s Missing Theatres

by Eve Lazarus on December 12, 2014

It’s hard to imagine that 100 years ago the Hastings Street area had a thriving theatre district, filled with opulent buildings, cafes and people, and known as the “Hastings Great White Way.”

The Rex Theatre, 25 West Hastings Street, 1914, CVA 99 240

In past blogs I’ve written about the Strand, the Pantages and the Empress–all theatres that once existed in downtown Vancouver, but have long since been turned into parking lots or cheaper, uninteresting buildings.

I decided to take a look at the city directories from 100 years ago and take a stroll through Vancouver’s theatre district. Just look what we’ve done with the space.

1920 — Columbia Theatre, 64 West Hastings, CVA 99-3293

In 1914 the National Theatre and the Columbia Theatre sat side by side at 58 and 64 West Hastings Street, just across from the Rex Theatre. The space is now a “developer ready” lot.

The Bijou Theatre sat at 333 Carrall Street just off Hastings Street. It was demolished in 1940. The photo (below) and the story of its life and death is at the Changing Vancouver blog.

In 1913, The Vancouver Opera House turned into the Orpheum Theatre and started showing vaudeville acts. The Orpheum (but not the one we have now) sat at the 700 block Granville Street. In the Leonard Frank photo below you can see the second Hotel Vancouver behind.

By 1935 the Orpheum had morphed into the Lyric and in 1969 it was a distant memory — demolished to make way for the Pacific Centre.

The gaudy Pacific Centre on the 700 block Granville

The Imperial Theatre was once part of a vibrant street scape along the 700-block Main.

700-block Main Street, ca.1918 CVA 99-1269

The theatre is long gone and the two adjacent buildings on the corner of Main and Union and what’s now the Brickyard are likely soon to be replaced by another boxy glass condo building.

The Star Theatre was at 327 Main Street in 1914.

Sources:

Changing Vancouver – then and now blog

Murray Maisey’s slide show on Hastings Theatre

For more posts see: Our Missing Heritage

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