Stan Douglas

Woodward’s: Store #1

by Eve Lazarus on July 25, 2020

Margaret Cadwaladr has written a memoir Food Floor: My Woodward’s Days, a nostalgic walk through the area, filled with black and white and colour photos.

When I first came to Canada in the mid-1980s the Woodward’s Food Floor saved my life. It was literally the only place in Vancouver that sold jars of vegemite. And I certainly wasn’t the only one. Lots of other immigrants and travellers were able to find things from home, everything from Scandinavian rye crackers to saffron and matzo to rattlesnake meat imported from Florida.

Woodward’s postcard ca.1953. Courtesy Margaret Cadwaladr

Food Floor:

Margaret Cadwaladr kindly sent me her new memoir, Food Floor: My Woodward’s Days, a nostalgic walk through the area, filled with black and white and colour photos.

Margaret started work at the downtown Woodward’s store in 1967, but her relationship with the store, like many locals, started way before that.

A brill trolleybus in front of Woodward’s in 1968. Steve Scalzo photo, courtesy Margaret Cadwaladr

“I had known Woodward’s all my life. I remember, as a child, taking the tram down Main Street with my grandfather. We would visit the hardware department then go down the wide steps to the grocery department and order cases of Carnation condensed milk, grapefruit juice and tins of food for Muggins the cat,” She writes: “The next day the blue Woodward’s truck would deliver the order.”

Test Kitchen:

There was Bea Wright’s test kitchen that dished out advice and recipes, elevator operators a small café, a book shop and $1.49 day. Employees got to take their breaks on the roof with views of the North Shore mountains and harbour.

It was a good time to work in retail. Cadwaladr says decent wages and perks such as medical benefits, paid holidays, a pension, profit-sharing and a 15% discount, kept unions out. Social events included picnics at Bowen Island and roller-skating.

At its height, Woodward’s had 26 stores in BC and Alberta. Store #1, as it was known, operated at the corner of West Hastings and Abbott Streets for 90 years, while everything changed around it. When the store opened in 1903 for instance, the courthouse was at Victory Square and several theatres lined Hastings Street.

The resting place of the giant red W. Margaret Cadwaladr photo

The chain went bankrupt in 1993 and store #1 sat empty and boarded up. The original building is now surrounded by retail stores and housing. A replica of the giant red W was installed on the new project in 2010. You can visit the original in the courtyard, near Stan Douglas’s spectacular photo mural depicting the Gastown riot of 1971.

Food Floor: My Woodward’s Days sells for $15.95 and is available through Margaret Cadwaladr’s website and Chapters/Indigo.

Tags Food Floor My Woodward's Days, Margaret Cadwaladr, Stan Douglas, Store #1, Woodwards Department Store

Hidden Pasts, Digital Futures: Vancouver Circa1948

by Eve Lazarus on October 3, 2015

Last Saturday I time-travelled to Hogan’s Alley and landed smack in 1948. Geographically, I wasn’t really that far away. I was standing inside a large box in Vancouver’s Woodward’s building using my body as a joy-stick to move through the streets of an area that’s been buried under the Georgia Viaduct since 1972.

3-D render of Hogan's Alley ca.1948. Courtesy NFB — 3-D render of Hogan’s Alley ca.1948. Courtesy NFB

The National Film Board teamed up with Vancouver artist Stan Douglas, and last year released an app that turned the second Hotel Vancouver and Hogan’s Alley into two digital worlds. This month they upped the ante with a complete virtual reality experience.

There is no headgear, no buttons to push, no levers to move. I stood inside the box and waited while the computer captured my skeleton and eye movements. Within seconds the blank walls became Hogan’s Alley, and by moving slightly in one direction, I could travel down the street, check out the architecture, listen in on conversations, climb up stairs, even walk around inside a brothel.

3D render of Hogan's Alley, ca.1948 app. Courtesy NFB — 3D render of Hogan’s Alley, ca.1948 app. Courtesy NFB

Loc Dao, the NFB’s executive producer, says there are four projectors in the room that use a technology called projection mapping and give you that sense that you’re walking in real time through a digitally recreated space.

The images are based on a handful of archival photographs and newspaper pictures that exist, supplemented with interviews and oral histories. A team of artists, animators and modelers then used digital carpentry to construct each piece of the scene to give the sense that you’re inside a three-dimensional, gritty, post-war Vancouver.

Girls in Hogan's Alley, 1937. The Province. — Girls in Hogan’s Alley, 1937. The Province.

When it comes to making history exciting and accessible this technology is leading edge, and a glimpse into what’s possible—eventually adding touch, smell, sound effects, even the ability to reach in and grab something.

The choice of year and location is interesting. Hogan’s Alley was once a hangout for Vancouver’s black community, while the second Hotel Vancouver was an extraordinarily beautiful building that was taken over as a squat by homeless WW2 vets, and then demolished in 1949.

3D render of Hotel Vancouver, Circa 1948 app. Courtesy NFB

“What was going on in these locations was actually symbolic in what was going on all over North America,” says Loc. “We were very interested in a project that dealt with social issues and the theme of history repeating itself.”

As far as the actual installation, it’s off-the-shelf, consumer grade hardware—an Apple Mac mini; a Mac pro server and iPad Air. The magic is all in the software.

Second Hotel Vancouver ca.1930s. Sat at the corner of Georgia and Granville Streets. Courtesy CVA 770-98

And that’s the other exciting part. Potentially you could plug in any environment—the Pantages or the Empress Theatre for example, and it could be a way of preserving the memories of these long demolished buildings.

You could even archive experiences. Be at Victory Square when Mayor Gerry McGeer reads the riot act or sit in a courtroom with Police Chief Walter Mulligan and watch the Royal Commission into police corruption unfold.

The total cost for the development of the app and the installation including all the research and the artwork came to $700,000 and change.

The interactive installation is at Woodward’s atrium until October 16 and then moves to SFU’s Surrey campus.

Tags Hogan's Alley, Loc Dao, National Film Board, Stan Douglas

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