Vancouver Exposed

The Royal Hudson

by Eve Lazarus on March 19, 2022

Angus McIntyre took this photo of the Royal Hudson at Arbutus and Broadway in 1977 travelling to the US on a three-week promotional tour

The Royal Hudson travelling along the Arbutus corridor at Broadway. Angus McIntyre photo, 1977

Going South:

This photo of the Royal Hudson travelling along the Arbutus corridor at Broadway on March 20, 1977 is one of my favourite Angus McIntyre photos. If you’re a regular follower of my blog, you’ve already seen some of his wonderful early street photography. But it wasn’t until I was writing Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History that I did some digging to find out why locomotive 2860 was chugging its way from the old BC Hydro yards in Kitsilano across the border into Blaine.

Turns out that it was part of a three-week promotional tour spearheaded by Grace McCarthy, travel minister and Vancouver Mayor Jack Volrich. The steam engine hauled seven cars filled with BC artifacts. Because it was Queen Elizabeth’s silver jubilee, one of the cars had been turned into a Royal suite complete with life-sized waxworks of Her Majesty, Prince Philip and Prince Charles. Three other cars carried a variety of models, maps and posters of BC’s resource-based industries.

Royal Hudson on tour. Sacramento Bee, March 20, 1977

The Photo:

“I heard a steam whistle and I knew that something was going along the Kitsilano trestle. I could see smoke coming up from that area, so I got into my car and drove recklessly across Broadway, parked near Arbutus, got out of my car and took a grab shot. There was no time to set up,” says Angus

When Angus had a show of his photographs at the Baron Gallery in 2012, legendary photographer Fred Herzog attended. He bought a copy of Angus’s photo and told him that some of his best photos were grab shots.

The Royal Hudson exiting the south portal of the Thornton Tunnel. Angus McIntyre photo, 1975

History:

For 25 years, the Royal Hudson steam locomotive 2860 had a regular run from North Vancouver to Squamish.

That ended in 1999 when the engine’s boiler gave out. Aside from a couple of “appearances,” the engine is on display at the West Coast Railway Heritage Park in Squamish. The Arbutus corridor is now a fancy bike and pedestrian trail. Abe Van Oeveren tells me that the last train to run on the line was on May 31, 2001. “CPR 1237, affectionately known as ‘Queenie” lifted the last two empty malt hoppers from the Molson’s brewery by the Burrard Bridge.”

Royal Hudson meets American Freedom Train, Vancouver Sun 1975

On November 1, 1975 the Royal Hudson took 800 passengers on a trip from North Vancouver to Seattle for a meet-up with the stream-powered American Freedom Train, which was on a 21-month tour through 48 states. It was the first time a passenger train had crossed the new Second Narrows railroad bridge and travelled through the Thornton Tunnel.

BC Binning’s Missing Murals

by Eve Lazarus on February 5, 2022

BC Binning wasn’t just an important artist; as a teacher, he influenced architects such as Arthur Erickson, Ron Thom and Fred Hollingsworth. Where are his missing murals?

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

BC Binning’s mural still decorates the old BC Hydro Building, which was converted into condos in the early 1990s. Doris Fiedrich photo, 2017.

Artist and teacher:

BC Binning wasn’t just an important artist; as a teacher, he influenced architects such as Arthur Erickson, Ron Thom and Fred Hollingsworth. His tiled murals are still outside the BC Hydro building (now the Electra Building) on Burrard Street, as well as in and outside his West Vancouver house which was designated a heritage building in 1999 and a National Historic Site in 2001.

BC Binning’s home, interior mural. Parks Canada photo

Murals:

What you can’t see are the murals that he created for the old Vancouver Public Library on Robson Street, or the 76.2 metre-long mural he created in 1956 to wrap around the CKWX building on Burrard Street. That building was replaced by a 20-storey condo tower just 33 years later.

BC Binning’s mural decorated this building from 1956 until it was demolished in 1989. Selwyn Pullen photo, 1956

The University of British Columbia came up with most of the $8,000 needed to rescue a 7.3 metre section of the CKWX mural, while Andrew Todd, a Vancouver conservator was charged with prying Binning’s blue, green and yellow mosaic off the wall, tile by tile, and placing it on a rolled canvas for storage at UBC. “Oh my god it was tough to save,” Todd told me. “It was an abstract arrangement of one-inch glass tiles from Venice, much like his mural on the BC Hydro Building. And it was huge, maybe 20 feet by 10 feet (six by three metres) in sections.”

The old Vancouver Public Library on Robson. Vancouver Archives photo ca.1972

The saved section of the mural was to be installed on a proposed studio-resources building, which was to house the university’s fine arts program. The building was never built, and the mural has apparently disappeared.

Tags Andrew Todd, Arthur Erickson, BC Binning, BC Hydro building, Electra, Fred Hollingsworth, Ron Thom, Selwyn Pullen; CKWX, Vancouver Exposed

The Evolution of Devonian Harbour Park

by Eve Lazarus on June 26, 2021

The name of the 11-acre green space at the entrance to Stanley Park known as Devonian Harbour Park has nothing to do with its indigenous history, the land’s connection to the Kanakas, the buildings that once dotted its landscape or Vancouver. The park was named after the Calgary-based Devonian Group of Charitable Foundations which forked over $600,000 to develop the site to its present look in 1983.

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

Note the lovely old Stuart Building (1909-1982) Bruce Stewart photos

Kanaka:

Kanaka was a term for indigenous Hawaiians who came to Canada in the early 1800s to work for the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur trade. Most went home, but some stayed, married Squamish women and settled in Coal Harbour.

By the early 1900s, the Kanakas had been chased out and moved to the Mission Reserve in North Vancouver. That left the land free to develop. And, in 1911, Vancouver’s population of nearly 150,000 felt big enough to sustain a 10,000-seat arena. It was built by a couple of young guys from Victoria: brothers Frank and Lester Patrick (aged 25 and 27 respectively) who needed a home for their new Pacific Coast Hockey Association. As a comparison, Rogers Arena, built in 1995, has a capacity of 18,910.

Denman Arena:

In 1915, the Denman Arena hosted Vancouver’s first and only Stanley Cup—when they beat the Ottawa Senators in three straight games. Rudolph Valentino judged a beauty contest, Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) gave a speech, and the arena was used for public skating, wrestling, military assemblies and musical performances.

Selwyn Pullan photographed the first proposed model in 1963

Then on August 20, 1936, just hours after 4,000 boxing fans watched Max Baer fight James Walsh, the building burned to the ground.

In 1927, the Patricks built the Denman Auditorium just to the south of the Denman Arena. The Auditorium survived the fire, went through a few different owners and names, hosted everything from political rallies to a strange assortment of revivalists and faith healers from the States.

Bruce Stewart took these photos of the ‘tribe’ in residence in November 1971. He had met with Rod Marining, later co-founder of Greenpeace and Rod was able to rally the tribe for this amazing ensemble shot of everyone on the big rock. “Later in the week, I ventured down to the small a-frame lean-to during a snowstorm to meet up with the gang and to present my photographs,” says Bruce.

Development:

The building was demolished in 1959 to make way for the opening of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

Now devoid of buildings, developers dreamed of hotels and condos. The first attempt came from New York in the early 1960s. The second, by a local outfit called Harbour Park Developments that proposed 15 towers soaring up to 31-storeys in height. The third was a plan by the Four Seasons Hotel chain. They wanted to build a 14-storey hotel, three 30-storey condos towers, and a bunch of townhouses.

A peace sign garden at All Seasons Park, the proposed site of a Four Seasons Hotel near the entrance to Stanley Park, on May 30, 1971. Gordon Sedawie photo, Province

Hippies:

On May 29, 1971 about a hundred hippie/activists took over the site. They planted maple trees and vegetables, dug a pond, and installed children’s playground equipment. They called it All Seasons Park. The hippies lasted just under a year. Mayor Tom Campbell brought in the backhoes and knocked all the shelters down. Campbell’s own development dream fell apart later that year when the Federal government refused to hand over a crucial piece of land. Instead, the land was annexed to Stanley Park and purchased by the City of Vancouver.

One of the most popular features of the park is the bronze sculpture of the woman sitting on the park bench. She’s searching through her bag looking for the glasses that she’s forgotten are on top of her head. One Valentine’s Day, the woman was joined by another bronze statue—that of North Vancouver pioneer Walter Draycott. No one is saying how Walter got all the way to Stanley Park from his Lynn Valley bench, but he was returned without incident and bolted into place to stop him from wandering off again. Eve Lazarus photo, 2020

Tags Bruce Stewart, Denman Arena, Denman Auditorium, Devonian Harbour Park, Kanakas, Mayor Tom Campbell, Stanley Park, Stuart Building, Vancouver Exposed

When Fact Meets Fiction: Sam Wiebe’s Vancouver

by Eve Lazarus on September 18, 2020

Sam Wiebe is the award-winning author of the Wakeland novels, a detective series set in Vancouver that includes Invisible Dead and Hell and Gone.

“When poet-turned-screenwriter Paul Ling goes missing, his teenage daughter hires Vancouver P.I. Dave Wakeland to track him down. To the shock of his family and colleagues, Ling’s body is found within days in the home of a stranger, killed by a drug overdose—and Wakeland suspects foul play. Did Ling have a secret life that finally caught up with him, or did his search for creative material for his writing take him down a dangerous path? In the world of bad television and cutthroat competition, Wakeland will need his wits about him to sort friend from foe.”—Sam Wiebe’s Hollywood North.

Sam Wiebe just released Hollywood North as a thank you to his newsletter subscribers. And I’m grateful because it’s a terrific story that’s set in Vancouver and continues on from his two Dave Wakeland crime novels Invisible Dead (2016) and Cut you Down (2018). Wakeland is a former Vancouver Police officer turned PI and his character is intrinsically involved with the city, so much so, that Sam tells me that Vancouver became a character in his books.

DTES:

And it’s not the glossy, international playground of the tourist brochures. Wakeland’s Vancouver is often the gritty streets of the DTES. Sam’s PI comes right up against the social issues of the day, whether that’s homelessness, drugs, sex workers or the missing and murdered Indigenous women.

One idea that turned up in Sam’s story Wonderful Life in Vancouver Noir (a 2018 collection of crime fiction that he edited) came from a story that Aaron Chapman wrote for the Vancouver Courier about the H Squad several years ago.

Vancouver Confidential:

Sam’s says he’s also inspired by Vancouver Confidential, a non-fiction book by John Belshaw featuring stories by writers such as Jesse Donaldson, Lani Russwurm, Aaron Chapman and me.

In Hollywood North, Sam tackles the vacuousness of the American film industry in Vancouver. And, I was excited to find two of my favourite heritage buildings in his story.

Royal Bank Building:

Wakeland’s office is in the Royal Bank Building on West Hastings, which also turns up in my new book Vancouver Exposed (the Royal Bank has the last elevator operator in the city).

“I just fell in love with the building and I thought if I was an up and coming PI that’s where I would shoot for,” he says. “I also liked that it was on Hastings street, because Hastings Street was so synonymous with the narrative of poverty and drugs and all that stuff and people forget that 90 percent of Hastings is either part of the financial district or bleeds into Burnaby and the suburbs. It’s a very vibrant street so I thought putting it there was important.”

The Canada Post building on West Georgia also has a role in Hollywood North and it’s part of Vancouver Exposed. Where Sam uses the building as a metaphor for bad American television and business practices, I talk about it through its art, its tunnel and its roof.

Canada Post building in 1960. Courtesy JMABC

Want to read Hollywood North? Sign up for Sam’s newsletter and enjoy!

And look out for his new novella Never Going Back which will be out by the end of the month.

Tags 675 West Hastings Street, Canada Post building, Cut you Down, Hollywood North, Invisible Dead, Never Going Back, Royal Bank Building, Sam Wiebe, Vancouver Confidential, Vancouver Exposed, Vancouver Noir

Missing Heritage: Firehall #2

by Eve Lazarus on August 7, 2020

Firehall #2 was designed by William Blackmore in 1888 at 724 Seymour but it would be another decade before the VFD started paying its firemen.

Firehall #2 on a training day in 1923. Vancouver Archives photo that really pops thanks to **Canadian Colour**

I’ve been having a lot of fun putting together my new book Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History over the last year or so. It’s given me the excuse to zero in on different streets particularly in Vancouver and the West End and show the changes that have occurred there over a hundred years or more.

I didn’t get to the 700-block Seymour Street, but I’ve always been intrigued by photos of the old firehall #2 that used to be at 754 Seymour Street.

700-block Seymour Street in 1947. With thanks to Murray Maisey for this annotated photo.

Changing Vancouver:

A White Spot restaurant in a building designed by McCarter and Nairne in the mid-70s used to be on the corner of West Georgia, and for years I got my hair cut at Crimpers on the ground floor. Long before that, there was a row of three-story wooden rental houses stretched along Georgia.

Georgia and Seymour Street in 1981. CVA 779 E05.36

Now the whole city block bounded by Georgia Street, Richards, Seymour and Robson is part of the massive Telus Garden development. But before Telus swallowed up the east side of Seymour Street it housed a couple of really interesting buildings and some pretty nice houses.

The original Firehall #2 at 724 Seymour. Courtesy Vancouver Fire Fighters Historical Society

One of them was Firehall #2.

Second Firehall:

The early version of the Vancouver Fire Department opened in May 1886, just a couple of weeks before the city burned to the ground in the Great Fire. William Blackmore designed the first Firehall #2 at 724 Seymour in 1888, but it would be another decade before the VFD started paying its firemen—they started at $15 a month.

The second Firehall #2 went up in 1903 just a little up the block at 754 Seymour.

Judging by the photos a lot of training took place there.

Training at Firehall #2, 1923. Glad he’s got a net! Courtesy Vancouver Fire Fighters Historical Society

The firehall sat next to BC Tel’s headquarters until 1950 when the building sold to BC Tel and became part of the telco.

The firehall is now located in a modernist structure at Main and Powell where it is apparently the busiest firehall in Western Canada, nestled as it is in the heart of the troubled DTES.

For more information on the 700-block Seymour Street please see:

Vancouver as it Was blog

Changing Vancouver Blog

Tags 199 Main Street, 724 Seymour, 754 Seymour Street, Firehall #2, McCarter and Nairne, Telus Garden, Vancouver Exposed, Vancouver Fire Department, Vancouver Fire Fighters Historical Society, White Spot, William Blackmore

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