Here’s the corner of West Pender and Seymour in a 1935 Leonard Frank VPL photograph; it hasn’t really improved over the years. What you can see is the Delmonico Hotel reported by the Daily World to have been built for the Marquis of Queensbury in 1892 to replace the short-lived St Charles Hotel, designed by Fripp and Wills. As we have now realised, it was a rework of an existing hotel, the Windsor, and the St Charles was burned down on the opposite side of Pender Street. The Delmonico was in turn lost to the current parking garage in 1969.
Just in the corner on the far left of the picture is another 1890s building – the 1896 Clarence Hotel. Notice too the Bank of Nova Scotia building in the background – the 1910 A A Cox designed building received a brutal modernisation that replaced all period details. Sandwiched between the Delmonico and the bank are the Crowe and Wilson Chambers, built in 1907.
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Changing Vancouver 