Vancouver Public Library

Saving History: Twinning the Lions Gate Bridge

by Eve Lazarus on August 19, 2017

Lions Gate Bridge in 1940. Courtesy CVA 586-462

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

Last year, Daien Ide, reference historian at the North Vancouver Museum and Archives was sitting at her desk when she got a tip. A 1994 model of a proposed Lions Gate twinned bridge had turned up at the Burnaby Hospice Thrift Store on Kingsway with a $200 price tag.

A local had saved the model after finding it tossed out in an alley behind his house a couple of decades earlier. For whatever reason, he decided it needed rehoming, and gave it to the thrift shop.

Vancouver Sun photoThe Lions Gate Bridge spans the first narrows in Burrard Inlet, connects Vancouver to the North Shore, and is one of the most iconic structures in the city. Built by the Guinness family to encourage development after they bought the side of a West Vancouver mountain, the suspension bridge was tolled from the time it opened in 1938 until 1963.

It cost 25 cents for cars and five cents for pedestrians.

By the early 1990s, the bridge was in serious need of an upgrade or replacement and the City narrowed down the options to three proposals. One was to build a tunnel; another to twin the bridge and double the number of lanes; and the third was to double-deck the existing three-lane bridge.

In 1994, Safdie partnered with engineering firm SNC Lavalin, and the Squamish Nation, which owned the land on the north end of the bridge.

They wanted to build an identical bridge to the east of the original structure that would carry northbound traffic, while the original bridge would carry vehicles south into Stanley Park. The new bridge would be tolled, and judging by the model, cut a chunk out of Stanley Park.

The scaled model is clearly identified with the name of the architectural firm—Safdie Architects. In Canada, Moshe Safdie is a highly regarded architect, known for the Expo 67 Habitat in Montreal, the National Gallery in Ottawa, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and our very own Vancouver Public Library.

As we now know, the Province chose the cheapest and least controversial option, electing to widen the three-lane existing bridge and replace the main bridge deck.

In 2005, the Lions Gate Bridge was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.

Our traffic problems persist.

Tags Guinness Family, Lions Gate Bridge, Moshe Safdie, North Vancouver Museum and Archives, Vancouver Public Library

Movie projectionist escapes death when bomb wrecks car

by Eve Lazarus on June 20, 2015

Wally Woolridge — The entire roof of the car was blown away, the windows smashed, the seats ripped, the rear door torn off, and a section of the fender hurled several feet CVA 99-4114

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

This photo of a bombed out car in 1932 has been bugging me ever since a reader posted it on my FB page a few weeks ago. So this week I made a trip to the Vancouver Public Library to find out its back story.

It turns out that the unfortunate car was owned by Wally Woolridge, a 38-year-old movie projectionist. Wally finished his shift at 7:30 p.m. at the Colonial Theatre, got in his car, turned on his lights, and was then hurled 20 feet in the air through the roof of his car. He landed on the gravel several feet away concussed, deafened and with blood pouring from both ears.

Colonial Theatre, 603 Granville street — The Colonial Theatre, 603 Granville Street in 1972 CVA 447-399

The “dynamite” bomb was powerful enough to break windows in nearby buildings. Wally’s life was saved because the bomb was placed at the back of the driver’s seat and the backrest deflected the explosion. His heavy coat softened his fall.

Wally Woolridge “I think I know who did it. I could put my finger on the man if I wanted to,” Wally told a reporter, adding that he wasn’t going to name names. “I can tell you one thing, though. It’s the work of racketeers. The thing tonight is just another episode in the story of bombings which have been taking place all over the continent during the last few months.”

Clearly you had to be pretty brave to see a movie in the ‘30s.

Wally was an active member of the B.C. Projectionists’ Society which was affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. According to the paper, the “recognized group” was caught up in a war with “the rebels” a breakaway group of non-union employees. The attempt on Wally’s life followed a spate of stink bombs that previously found their way to the non-union Royal Theatre (the former Pantages).

Either murderers were incredibly incompetent back then or Wally was just very lucky, because it was the third attempt on his life. A year before he was the victim of another failed car bomb while driving along Hastings Street, and just weeks later shots were fired at him as he came home from work late one night. His telephone line had been cut.

On March 20, 1933 the Royal Theatre was torn apart by a bomb, its lobby and ticket office destroyed. W.P. Nichols, who lived in a suite above the theatre, was jolted from his bed. Despite the bad blood between theatre employees, police decided it was not a result of labour unrest, but simply a personal grudge.

For instructions on how to make a stink bomb: https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Stink-Bomb

Tags American Federation of Labor, B.C. Projectionists' Society, Colonial Theatre, the Pantages, the Royal Theatre, Vancouver Public Library, W.P. Nichols, Wally Woolridge

Who lived in your house — in 10 (mostly easy) steps

by Eve Lazarus on March 15, 2014

In some ways, researching your home is like an archeological dig. But with a bit of patience you can find out who built your home, who lived there before you, who was murdered there, who died of a comfortable old age, perhaps, even, who’s haunting it now.

1. City Directories:

I always start with the city directories, and now thanks to the Vancouver Public Library, all of B.C. is online up from 1860 to 1955. After 1955 you can find actual copies at the Vancouver Archives, at the North Vancouver Museum and Archives in Lynn Valley or on microfilm at the VPL. The directories will tell you the name of past residents, owners as well as their occupation. The directories also give information about the population of the time, the business climate and advertisements for businesses—it’s a bit like a tourist brochure.

2. Census:

Once you’ve discovered the people who lived in your house you can find out all sorts of great information through the census records. If nothing else it will give you a whole new appreciation why you slog through the forms every five years.

3. Ownership Title:

If you’re flush with cash you can always visit the Land Titles Office in New Westminster. If you provide them with a legal description (District, Block, Lot), and payment, they will provide you with details on ownership history

4. Vital Events Records:

It gets better every year with birth, marriage and death certificates online. More often than not, you can even find copies of the actual death certificates. This death certificate, for example, tells you that Errol Flynn died in Vancouver in 1959, that he’d been here six days, that he lived in New York City, was a motion picture actor from Tasmania and that he was married to Patrice Wymore (and that’s just the top half)

5. Heritage Registers:

If your house has historical merit (and this includes mid-century homes) it may be listed on a Heritage Register. Most municipalities have them and they are almost all online now. Your local city hall will also have a file on your house, and don’t forget to check your local archives.

6. The Vancouver Building Register:

It’s worth checking to see if your house is on the Vancouver Building Register. This register lists tons of information and sources for residential and commercial buildings in Vancouver.

7. Building Permits

Heritage Vancouver took on the herculean task of transcribing the original handwritten registers from Vancouver Archives. As of the end of March 2015 they had just under 33,000 pre-1922 building permits online in a searchable database. Heritage Vancouver also says that if you dig through the water permits at Vancouver Archives you’ll find additional clues to your house’s completion date.

8. Heritage House Tours:

It’s worth a shot, if your house is old enough it may be on one of these tours. New Westminster has run an annual tour for the past 35 years. The Vancouver Heritage Foundation for the past 12 Vancouver Heritage Foundation. and if you’re in Victoria you’re really lucky because the Victoria Heritage Foundation has put out a comprehensive set of four books.

9. Google:

Sometimes the obvious is best. Simply google your address and see if anything interesting pops up. Often past sales will give you pictures and information on the owners.

10. Newspaper databases:

Taking Google one step further, most newspapers are accessible online through your public library. All you need is your library card. For archival newspapers, the British Colonist is online from 1858-1920.

For more information on researching your home’s history see At Home with History: the secrets of Vancouver’s heritage houses

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

Tags British Colonist, city directories, Errol Flynn, Heritage House Tour, Heritage register, Heritage Vancouver, Land Titles Office, North Vancouver Museum and Archives, Patrice Wymore, Vancouver Building Register, Vancouver Heritage Foundation, Vancouver Public Library, Victoria Heritage Foundation

An Accidental Postcard

by Eve Lazarus on January 18, 2014

Marsha Fuller was cleaning out a client’s attic in Western Maryland a couple of weeks ago when she came across this postcard of a traffic accident featuring a Grandview street car in 1909. Marsha’s company, Your Mother’s Attic, helps the relatives of the newly dead sort out what is often a lifetime of possessions—she often comes across these types of historical treasures.

Marsha, who is a certified genealogist, told me the client has no Canadian connections and has no idea why the family has possessed this Vancouver postcard for the last 100 years or so.

She says her most interesting find was an original 1762 land pattern of Pennsylvania. She makes a point of dispatching these artifacts back to where they originated.

Philip Timms (1874-1973) — Philip Timms and bicycle at Spanish Banks

According to Biographies of BC Postcard Photographers, there was a postcard craze between 1900 and the outbreak of war in 1914. One of the most prolific photographers, Philip Timms apparently did some of his best work on postcards. “I shot up everything in sight and turned them into postcards,” he was quoted as saying in the book. “Sold them to stationery and drugstores. They were an advertisement to the world about Vancouver.”

Philip Timms was born in 1874, lived at 653 Barnard Street in 1898 (Union Street back then) and died in 1973 at 98 years of age. He shot everything from street scenes to the Chinatown race riots to horse races and balloon flights. He left a legacy of more than 3,000 glass plate negatives at the Vancouver Public Library.

Want to know more about a postcard? Check out the Vancouver Postcard Club.

Tags 653 Union Street, Biographies of BC Postcard Photographers, Grandview, Marsha Fuller, Philip Timms, Vancouver Historical Society, Vancouver Postcard Club, Vancouver Public Library

Researching John Bull’s House

by Eve Lazarus on March 13, 2013

On February 23, Jennifer Clay gave an A to Z workshop to home owners wanting to research the history of their homes. Jennifer has written a guest blog based on her presentation.

732 East 8thStreet, North Vancouver — Jennifer Clay in front of her 1926 heritage house

By Jennifer Clay

I live in a 1926 heritage home in North Vancouver, and while I had a vague idea of the previous occupants of our home, the key word is ‘vague’. So when my daughter Kristen, 11, was looking for ideas for her heritage fair project, I suggested she research the history of our home.

Our first stop was the local archives where we were shown the City Directories (1871 to 1996). These directories are like an old fashioned “411.ca”—you can look up your address, find out the name of the occupant, his profession, his employer and the name of his wife (after 1934).

The City Directories are just one useful resource at the Archives. You can also look for Building Permits, Property Tax Assessments and Fire Insurance Maps to determine the name of the owner, the type and value of structures built on your property and the relevant dates. You may also be able to find photos of your house, its occupants or your neighbourhood. The Vancouver Public Library has over 90,000 historical photographs. BC Archives has five million, Vancouver Archives about 1.5 million, while the North Vancouver Museum and Archives has a searchable database of 15,000 photos.

If you wish to trace the genealogy of the previous residents of your house, you can search for their names in the 1852, 1901 and 1911 Canadian Census documents, and can also find a wide range of birth, marriage and death certificates for Vital Events which took place in BC and elsewhere in Canada.

By doing all this and more, I was able to trace the family of the first owner (John Bull) back to Britain in the early 1800’s. I found out that he left his home in Ontario in the 1860’s, went to Brooklyn, married the (Catholic) daughter of Irish immigrants, had seven children—including twin girls—and in the 1890’s, brought his family to the Slocan region of BC to seek his fortune. It’s unclear if he found either gold or copper during his 20 year stay, but we did learn that he lost one of his twin girls, Henrietta Maud, on August 8, 1904 in a drowning accident. When my daughter and I figured this out, we both felt a sense of loss ourselves, as by this time, we felt an emotional tie to this pioneering family who once inhabited the same space that we now inhabit. After their stay in the Kootenays, the family came to North Vancouver, where John Bull started a Coal and Building Supply business, built our house at the age of 75, worked until he was 82 and died at 83.

I’m not done yet. It’s my goal to find a photo of John Bull, be it through his descendants or through the archives of the Slocan Valley. It remains to be seen if I will be successful but it has already been a fun and very rewarding journey.

Tags 732 East 8th, BC Archives, city directories, City of Vancouver Archives, Henrietta Maud, Jennifer Clay, John Bull, North Vancouver Museum and Archives, Vancouver Public Library

Forbidden Vancouver

by Eve Lazarus on June 3, 2012

I met with Will Woods for coffee last week. Will is a young Brit who moved to Vancouver six years ago with his wife and little boy, and like a lot of us transplants, fell deeply in love with the history of the city.

You may have seen him hunched over the card files at the Vancouver Public Library’s special collections, checking out the journals at Vancouver Archives, or wandering the alleyways of the Downtown Eastside.

“I met historians, I scoured old newspapers, I walked every street in downtown. I had a mission to discover the history of the city that isn’t found in the guidebooks, that isn’t taught in the schools,” he says. “There were stories of corruption, rioting, gangsterism, smuggling and vice.”

He was hooked.

Will chucked in his job as a risk management consultant for Deloitte and founded Forbidden Vancouver, a company that leaves Grouse Mountain and the Suspension bridge to the tour buses, and looks at the speakeasies, opium dens, crooked cops and bootleggers of Vancouver’s shady past.

Customers for his 90 minute tours range from 22 to 75.

What I find interesting is that Will isn’t going after tourists for his tours, although he’s not knocking them back either, but he’s honing in on the locals.

It’s a smart move. I’m always surprised at how many Vancouverites have never heard of the Dr. Sun Yat-sen gardens, visited the Space Centre or taken the Stanley Park train (you don’t need kids for this).

Will hasn’t just researched the city though. He took six months of acting school, studied body language, and created a role for himself—an investigative newspaper reporter.

While most tours are educational based and led by university students, Will’s tours are themed. His current tour is built around prohibition—(1916 to 1920ish). Eventually he wants to run 10 to 12 themed tours a week, he’s currently developing one on crime, and fortunately for him, there was no shortage of it.

“The toughest thing is knowing what to leave out of the tour,” he says.

Will’s tours run every Friday and Saturday night and wind their way through Chinatown, Gastown and the downtown area. You can book online at www.forbiddenvancouver.ca

Tags City of Vancouver Archives, Dr. Sun Yat-sen Gardens, End of the line, Forbidden Vancouver, Grouse Mountain, Space Centre, Stanley Park Train, Vancouver Public Library, Will Woods

BC Binning and the Heritage Inventory

by Eve Lazarus on September 28, 2010

The full story of B.C. Binning’s house is in Sensational Vancouver

Most municipalities have a heritage inventory that includes houses built before 1940. Makes sense doesn’t it? When you think heritage you think old. But actually heritage can be 20 years old, and that can surprise a new home owner wanting to renovate or demolish who is suddenly hauled in front of a heritage commission.

When the City of Vancouver introduced the Heritage Register in 1986, the foremost concern was saving buildings deemed architecturally important. The register identified prominent Shaughnessy houses such as Glen Brae and Hycroft, Roedde House in the West End, as well as various churches, schools, and public buildings. Recently, the city added 22 modern buildings to the register. Five of these are protected through designation: the former BC Hydro building, the former Vancouver Public Library, the Gardner House in Southlands, the Dodek House in Oakridge and the Evergreen Building.

In 1997, the District of North Vancouver published a modern inventory for houses built between 1930 and 1965. Many are modest looking post and beams designed by local legends Arthur Erickson, Ron Thom, Fred T. Hollingsworth and Ned Pratt.

Designed by Ned Pratt in 1941 — BC Binning House

The Binning Residence at 2968 Mathers Crescent, in West Vancouver and built by Ned Pratt, is maintained by The Land Conservancy and it’s well worth checking out on one of the public tours.

Built in 1941 for $5,000, the house is credited with launching the West Coast modernism movement. Unlike the massive multi-million dollar mansions that surround it, Binning responded to the social and economic condition of the time by using local materials and efficient construction materials to create an affordable house that harmonizes art and architecture, form and function.

A prominent artist who studied under Frederick Varley and Henry Moore, Binning founded the University of B.C.’s department of fine arts. His interest in architecture led him to design large mosaic murals for public buildings such as the B.C. Electric Substation and the series of murals which he painted directly onto the walls of his house.

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