Vancouver City Hall

May 1, 1907: A Trip Across Vancouver

by Eve Lazarus on August 20, 2016

I’m writing a book about John F.C.B. Vance, the first forensic scientist in Vancouver, and this week I wrote about his first day of work as the new City Analyst. My book is non-fiction, but sometimes you need some creative license. My challenge was to get to get Vance from his house in Yaletown to Market Hall, a lovely long-gone gothic building on Westminster (Main Street) which doubled as City Hall.

You can read all about Inspector Vance, the murders that he helped to solve, and the history that he passed through in Blood, Sweat, and Fear.

Watch the book trailer here

Main and Hastings Street — Market Hall, 1928 CVA 1376.88

Vance takes the streetcar:

I decided that Vance would take the streetcar. I went to Vancouver Archives website, found a map of 1907, blew up the sections of downtown Vancouver, ran them off, taped them together and stuck them on my wall.

Map 191 1907

Next I played City Reflections. William Harbeck shot the earliest known surviving footage of Vancouver that year by mounting a hand-cranked camera to the front of a streetcar as it rattled through downtown and the West End. Just five years later poor William was dead, a victim of the Titanic, and the film disappeared for decades until it turned up in the home of an Australian film buff who thought he was looking at Hobart, Tasmania.

In 2007, the Vancouver Historical Society reshot the same route and put the two side by side.

You can watch the film here.

The CPR Station dominated the foot of Granville in this 1907 William Harbeck film

Missing heritage:

While it was fascinating to see what’s changed, I was surprised at how much has stayed the same. Back then, as now, construction was everywhere, on every block. The home of the new post office (Sinclair Centre) was going up at Hastings and Granville, as was Fire Hall No. 2 on East Cordova, and the recently defunct Pantages Theatre would soon open as a 1,200 seat vaudeville theatre. Slogans on banners shouted out the benefits of development. As today, Vancouver was attracting investment and visitors from around the world, and property prices were soaring.

Sinclair Centre — Post Office, 1910 CVA Str N117.1

The Vancouver Opera House and the second Hotel Vancouver are long gone, as is the CPR Station, a massive chateau-style building that dominated the foot of Granville Street. But Spencer’s Department store (now SFU) remains, as do several of the buildings between Richards and Homer. The former Royal Bank of Canada is now the film production campus of the Vancouver Film School, the Flack Block built in 1898 from proceeds from the Klondike is still east of Cambie, and what used to be the Central School, is now part of Vancouver Community College. Woods Hotel, just a year old when the film was shot, is now the Pennsylvania Hotel.

Hotel Pennsylvania, 412 Carrall Street, 1931 CVA 99-3895

Three daily newspapers:

In 1907, the Province was one of three daily newspapers. An ad that year boasted that it was read in 90 percent of Vancouver homes, and sold for five cents.

How those times have changed.

I’m not sure how long in real time it would have taken Vance to get to work that day, but it took me most of the week to get him there on paper.

Vancouver Opera House, 765 Granville Street — The Vancouver Opera House at Granville and Georgia in 1891. CVA Bu P509

Tags Central School, City Reflections, CPR Station, Daily Province, Fire Hall No. 2, Flack Block, john F.C.B. Vance, Market Hall, Pantages Theatre, Pennsylvania Hotel, Second Hotel Vancouver, Sinclair Centre, Vancouver City Hall, William Harbeck, Woods Hotel

What the Alhambra Theatre and the Vancouver Stock Exchange have in common

by Eve Lazarus on June 13, 2015

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

I was spending a typical Friday afternoon yesterday poking around the digital files at Vancouver Archives when I found this photo of the Alhambra Theatre. The photo was taken in 1899, the year the theatre first appears in the city directories and it stood at the corner of West Pender and Howe Street.

West Pender and Howe Streets — Alhambra Theatre, 850 West Pender Street, 1899 CVA Bu N424

While I often run posts lamenting the loss of our old building stock, I do realize that change is inevitable, and all of it isn’t bad. I wanted to know what had replaced this old theatre.

The Royal Theatre at West Pender and Howe Street — 1902 Tourist Guide map showing the Royal Theatre courtesy Tom Carter

The Alhambra Theatre didn’t last long. By 1901 it was the Royal, and two years later the People’s Theatre. Tom Carter*, who is the expert on anything and everything that’s theatre in Vancouver, tells me that Vaudeville magnates Sullivan and Considine performed a huge renovation and turned it into the Orpheum in 1906. The theatre lasted at 805 West Pender until, according to Tom, its owners rebuilt the Vancouver Opera House into the second Orpheum Theatre in 1913 (the current Orpheum Theatre was built in 1927).

850 West Pender Street — People’s Theatre 1903

In 1914, the West Pender building is listed in the directories as the “old Orpheum Theatre” and (possibly because it’s now the war years) it doesn’t get a mention again until 1917 when it becomes a tire-dealership. The building then hosts a couple of different taxi companies, and at one point the Sing Lung Laundry.

By 1929 the building has been replaced by the eleven-storey neo-gothic Stock Exchange, its address changes to Howe; and it becomes the home of the Vancouver Stock Exchange until 1947.

West Pender and Howe Street — Stock Exchange Tower, 475 Howe Street, 1929 CVA 1399-600

It’s a valuable piece of real estate in development hungry Vancouver, and its zoned for a much higher tower. But instead of knocking down this old gem as we’re prone to do, Credit Suisse, a Swiss company has stepped in with the Starchitect behind the restoration of London’s Tate Modern gallery, to incorporate the old building into the design for the new.

The new building will be a 31-storey office tower and the ground floor will be retail.

It’s an impressive looking building, a win for heritage, and a nod to the original architects—Townley and Matheson, the same two who designed Vancouver City Hall in 1936.

*For more on Vancouver’s theatre check out Tom Carter’s chapter in Vancouver Confidential: “Nightclub Czars of Vancouver and the Death of Vaudeville.”

* For more on our missing theatres: Our Missing Theatre Heritage – what were we thinking?

Tags 475 Howe Street, 850 West Pender Street, Alhambra Theatre, building, Credit Suisse, Orpheum Theatre, People's Theatre, Royal Theatre, Sing Lung Laundry, Stock Exchange, Sullivan and Considine, the Exchange, Tom Carter, Townley and Matheson, Vancouver Archives, Vancouver City Hall, Vancouver Confidential, Vancouver Stock Exchange

Doors Open Vancouver

by Eve Lazarus on October 2, 2014

The second Doors Open Vancouver is coming up this Saturday October 3, and will give you a behind-the-scenes look at 18 city-owned buildings. Since you won’t have time to see all of them – here’s my top six:

1. Vancouver Fire and Rescue Training Centre:

Go see the city’s only burn building (meaning one that’s lit on fire), find out about the heavy urban search and rescue team, and of course, check out the hot firefighters.

Tactical

2. Vancouver Police Department’s Tactical Training Centre:

Where cops go to fire guns and learn other skills (Waterboarding 101 anyone?)

Photo courtesy greenbuildingaudiotours.com

3. Stanley Park Train

The Stanley Park Miniature Train Yard—It has been around since 1947, and should be on the must-do list of any visit to Vancouver (with or without kids). It may even have its Halloween clothes on.

Stanley Park Train

4. Carnegie Community Centre:

Built in 1903 as the Carnegie Library, now operating as the Carnegie Community Centre at Main and Hastings. Right next door are some of the cleanest washrooms I’ve ever seen. You could eat off the floor.

CVA Bu P116.1

5. The Orpheum Theatre:

For all the different architectural influences, and because it wasn’t demolished

Dan Rickard photo. www.danrickard.ca

5. Vancouver City Hall

Go just to see our Mayor’s ceremonial office and council chambers. Who knows you may even have a strange encounter with the mayor himself.

Vancouver City Hall from Yukon, 1937, Leonard Frank photo CVA City P21

Sharp eyed-readers will notice that this post was written last year for the first Doors Open Vancouver. I’ve updated a little, but overall, I stand by my choices. If you got to these ones last year check out the other 12 on display at Doors Open Vancouver 2015

Tags Carnegie Community Centre, Carnegie Library, Open Doors Vancouver, Orpheum Theatre, Stanley Park Train, Tactical Training Centre, Vancouver City Hall, Vancouver Fire and Rescue Training Centre

Mayor Gerry McGeer’s $20 Million Tear-Down

by Eve Lazarus on August 2, 2014

Mayor Gerry McGeer lived at 4812 Belmont Avenue in Point Grey between 1927 and his death there in 1947. At around 10:00 pm on June 17, 2022 the house burned to the ground. It was unoccupied and apparently under renovation after not getting a demolition permit.

What will $20 million buy you in Vancouver? Mayor Gerry McGeer's former West Side digs. — What will $20 million buy you in Vancouver? Mayor Gerry McGeer’s former West Side digs.

Sixth most expensive listing:

As of August 2014, the property at 4812 Belmont is apparently the 6^th most expensive listing in Vancouver. I’m not surprised—it’s a street that’s always attracted big money. According to the listing it’s a “great investment property” with a killer view and over 8,200 sq.ft. of living area including six bedrooms and a conservatory. The listing suggests that new owners either renovate the 1920 property or “build” their own “dream residence.” (The listing shows the view, not the house).

What the listing doesn’t mention is that one of our most colourful Mayors—Gerry McGeer lived in the house from 1927 to his death while still in office in 1947.

As I wrote in Sensational Vancouver, McGeer was a lawyer and later a Member of Parliament, Senator and Member of the Provincial Legislative Assembly. He ran against L.D. Taylor for Mayor in 1934 and won. He’s remembered for reading the Riot Act to a bunch of unemployed men at Victory Square the following year.

Mayor Gerry McGeer:

McGeer pushed for the new site of City Hall at its current Mount Pleasant location and raised much of the $1.5 million through Baby Bonds. In a pitch to investors in June 1935, McGeer told the Vancouver Sun: “Work and wages mean better times and prosperity, and is the correct answer to Communism. In raising $1.5 million for a City Hall, sewers, parks, and lanes, we are providing work and wages…to improve your city.”

McGeer and his wife Charl, daughter of department store magnate David Spencer, paid $25,000 for the house. He parked his Stutz Bearcat—a black, long, low and sleek four-door car with windows made of shatterproof glass in the new garage.

McGeer was a notorious drinker and was said to stash his whiskey in the garden.

McGeer ran again and was elected in 1946.

According to a 1986 biography, Mayor Gerry, McGeer’s daughter Pat recalls that the 59-year-old Mayor had come in to her bedroom to say good night and talk about his recent trip. He reached for a large bottle of eau-de-cologne on her dresser and downed it in one swig. The next morning McGeer’s chauffeur found him dressed in pajamas lying dead on the couch in his Belmont Street study.

Cause of death was massive heart failure.

Tags 4812 Belmont, Charl Spencer, David Spencer, L.D. Taylor, Mayor Gerry McGeer, Sensational Vancouver, Vancouver City Hall

A brief history of Vancouver’s City Halls

by Eve Lazarus on July 26, 2014

Vancouver City Hall designed by Fred Townley — Vancouver City Hall in 1945 CVA City P45

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

Before Vancouver settled on its current City Hall on West 12^th, it had been housed in a number of really interesting buildings.

The Vancouver Police Department outside City Hall in 1886 VPL #1090

The first council started out in a tent shortly after the Great Fire wiped out most of the city in 1886. The tent was on the CPR pier at the foot of Main Street. Chief Constable John Stewart is pictured second from left.

149-151 Powell Street, finished in October 1886

Three months later, the Sentell Brothers were contracted to build the first city hall at 149-151 Powell Street–a two-storey wooden structure. It took just a month to build and came in at under $1,300. But the city couldn’t afford the tab, and the Sentell Brothers took the unusual step of shutting them out until they came up with the cash.

Powell and Columbia Streets Oppenheimer Bros Wholesale Grocers building 1898

The building quickly became too small for the growing city, and when David Oppenheimer was elected mayor in 1888, City Hall into his warehouse on Powell and Columbia. The building is remarkably still there, in a sketchy part of Gastown, rehabilitated and now owned by rock star Bryan Adams.

Oppenheimer was replaced by Frederick Cope as Mayor in 1892 and City Hall moved to the old Market Hall on Main Street (Westminster Avenue until 1910) in 1898 just south of the Carnegie Library at East Hastings and remained there for the next three decades. The building with its wonderful turrets was demolished in 1958.

Holden Block. Leonard Frank photo, 1936 CVA BuP56

In 1929 City Hall moved to the Holden Block at 16 East Hastings designed in 1911 by William T. Whiteway—the same architect who designed the Sun Tower and Kathryn Maynard’s Alexander Street brothel.

Since 1937 our art deco City Hall designed by Fred Townley has stayed at its current location on West 12^th. You can thank (or blame) Mayor Gerry McGeer for the look and the location, the first time a major Canadian city had built its city hall outside of the city.

Tags 149-151 Powell Street, Bryan Adams, Carnegie Library, Chief Constable John Stewart, David Oppenheimer, Fred Townley, Gerry McGeer, Holden Block, Kathryn Maynard, Old Market Hall, Opppenheimer Bros, Sentell, Sun Tower, Vancouver City Hall, William T. Whiteway

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