Victory Square Archives

For Part Six in my sad, but ongoing series of our missing buildings, I’ve selected a former city hall, a railway station and a court house and then taken a look at what we’ve done with their old sites.

Even if you don’t love the architecture—and I do happen to be a fan of anything that’s gothic and grim and wears a turret—you’ve got to admit that they’re interesting buildings, and would have made amazing additions to our current landscape.

The Second CPR Station

CPR station lotus johnson

Seems we’ve always had a penchant for new versus old. This interesting old building lasted not much more than a decade. Built in 1899, in a Canadian Chateau style design, it was quickly replaced by the third CPR station (now Waterfront Station or the Sea Bus terminal). The skyscraper and plaza that went up in the ‘70s and a parking garage occupy the old station’s former site and was for many years, the headquarters for the Vancouver Sun and Province. The building was part of Project 200, another “urban renewal”* scheme that would have wiped out most of Gastown, and fortunately never got off the ground.

The Old Courthouse

Photo of original courthouse courtesy Vancouver Archives CVA SGN 848 1900 hastings and cambie

The first courthouse was built in 1888 at the corner of Hastings and Cambie, facing Hastings, and where Victory Square is today. Even with an addition in 1894, the building was quickly deemed too small for the growing city. Instead of repurposing the imposing building for some other use, it was gone by World War 1, replaced for a time by a large tent used by military recruiters to sign up soldiers to fight in the war.

Market Hall

Before it became City Hall in 1898, Market Hall had a public market on the ground floor and a theatre on the second floor. The building was finished in 1890 and sat on Westminster Avenue (Main Street) near the Carnegie Centre on East Hastings. City Hall moved down the street into the Holden Block in 1929. Market Hall came down in 1958.

For more stories like this one, check out Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

Update: The Dominion Building sold to Toronto-based Allied Properties Real Estate Investment Trust in October 2021. It had been in the Cohen family since 1943 (they operated Army and Navy until last year). It won’t surprise you to know that the 1910 building is haunted. Tenants have heard ghostly footsteps on the spiral stairs and some claim to have seen a ghost hovering about there….

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

Eve Lazarus inside the Dominion Building, 2020. Arlen Redekop photo, Vancouver Sun

John Shaw Helyer:

A few weeks ago I was standing on the 11th floor of the Dominion Building looking down its spiral staircase and thinking about architect John Shaw Helyer.

Helyer designed the 1910 building and then supposedly committed suicide by throwing himself down those same stairs at the building’s grand opening. It’s quite a story, it’s just not true. Helyer died from a stroke in 1919.

Dominion Building, Vancouver Archives, 1969

But just because that’s an urban myth, it doesn’t mean the building hasn’t its own great story. For starters, this overdressed red brick and yellow terra cotta structure with its oddly shaped beaux-arts roof comes from a time when architectural sculpture helped shape Vancouver. One writer called it a 19th century Parisian townhouse that should be one storey high, stretched up into an eccentric skyscraper.

Eve Lazarus, Arlen Redekop photo, Vancouver Sun, 2020

Once the heart of Vancouver:

It’s this eccentricity that I love about the building, that and the way it dominates the corner of Hastings and Cambie. It’s a reminder that this part of the city was once the heart of Vancouver. The Woodward’s building to the east, a couple of newspapers and department stores within walking distance, and the original law courts across the road where Victory Square now sits. We know Victory Square for the Remembrance Day ceremony, but when Mayor Gerry McGeer read the riot act to 4,000 unemployed workers in 1935; it was here where they gathered to protest.

207 Hastings Street, Vancouver — The Dominion Building is now dwarfed by high-rises, but for a short time it was the tallest building in the British Empire. CVA, 1936

Alvo von Alvensleben:

The Dominion Building was financed by Alvo von Alvensleben, the flamboyant son of a German count. In the 10 years he lived here, he brought millions of dollars of German investment into Vancouver. He bought up large tracts of land and houses and he lived at what is now the Crofton Girl’s School. He turned the Wigwam Inn at Indian Arm into a luxury resort.

Before going fabulously broke in 1913, he’d amassed a personal fortune of $25 million. His business interests included mining, forestry and fishing. By the time the Dominion Trust collapsed in 1914, Alvo, reviled as a spy, had grabbed his Canadian born wife and children and fled to Seattle.

Dominion Building:

On October 12, 1914, William Arnold, the vice-president and general manager of the Dominion Trust, killed himself with a shotgun in his Shaughnessy Heights garage.

Alvo von Alvensleben, 1913. Courtesy CVA Port P1082

Prior to its completion, in June 1909 the Vancouver Daily Province reported on the terra cotta in buff and red from Leeds, the polished red granite columns from Aberdeen, a two-storey high main entrance fitted with bronze-plated metal and polished wood, and a 13th floor with a large hall, a dome ceiling, 14 marble toilets and a barber shop.

Jacqui Cohen, president of Army & Navy owns the building. She rents it to the same eclectic bunch that have always been attracted to its look and feel or perhaps drawn by its lower rents. Writers, barristers, accountants, artists, unionists and film directors rub shoulders in the elevators. One elevator has a collage of archival photos dating back to the building’s birth, and the other a Tiko Kerr rendition of a wobbly looking Dominion Building. It’s all quite unnerving after a couple of glasses of wine.

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