Tom Carter is an artist, a musician, a historian, and a private collector. He has kindly agreed to write a guest blog about one of his most exciting finds.
There are some “holy grails” out there in Vancouver entertainment history—stuff we fantasize about that still exists somewhere. I still can’t believe I landed one of the biggest of them—the owner’s scrapbooks from the Marco Polo!
The Marco Polo, a club deep within Chinatown, was one of Vancouver’s legendary nightclubs. In the ‘60s it was considered one of the “big three” along with The Cave on Hornby and Isy’s Supper Club on Georgia. While posters, cards and ephemera are pretty common from The Cave and Isy’s, the Marco Polo has long been shrouded in mystery.
Over the years there have been rumours of scrapbooks kept by Victor Louie, manager and one of the Louie brothers who owned the club. They had become a legend among collectors like Jason Vanderhill and Jim Wong-Chu who have been hunting them for years.
What we knew was that Victor Louie had loaned the scrapbooks to Jason Karman when he was researching a film about Harvey Lowe in the early 1990s. Lowe was a yo-yo champion, owner of the Smilin’ Buddha and a staple of the Chinatown entertainment scene with connections to the Marco Polo.
After Karman returned the scrapbooks they vanished!
Then, last year, they miraculously resurfaced when a dealer I know bought the scrapbooks from a picker who had pulled them out of the garbage behind a warehouse in Chinatown. (A “picker” is someone who combs through junk in alleys, dumpsters, etc. looking for things of value to sell to antique dealers).
The dealer told me he planned to dismantle the books and sell off the bits—effectively destroying their historical value.
Instead, I bought everything.
When I got the scrapbooks home, I discovered photos of musicians on stage and chorus girls. There were menus and handbills and all sorts of letters from clients. Harvey Lowe had produced and emceed the opening show, and I found his script. There was even a handwritten listing of every act that played the club from 1964 to 1968!
These scrapbooks form a more-or-less complete history of the Marco Polo from 1960 when the Louie’s took over the Forbidden City and renamed it, through to 1982 when the original Chinatown club closed and moved to North Vancouver.
Everything is now photographed, and with the assistance of BC PAMA and the UBC School of Library Archival and Information Studies, the entire contents of the scrapbooks will eventually be online.
Tom Carter has been painting historical views of Vancouver for many years with artwork in prominent private and corporate collections. Tom serves on the boards of the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame, Friends of the Vancouver Archives and the Vancouver Historical Society. You can read more about his work in Vancouver Confidential “Nightclub Czars of Vancouver and the Death of Vaudeville.”
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 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.
Favourite 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
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 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
Favourite 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)
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.”
Favourite 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 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 is the Founder and Chief Storyteller at Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours and a contributor to Vancouver Confidential.
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
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.
Favourite Vancouver building:
Favourite Vancouver building:
