This 1905 image helpfully identifies a vacant site where the Wellington Building was being constructed. On the right hand side of the image was the Horseshoe Hotel with the Horseshoe Rooming House in the three storey building alongside. Next door was the site for the Wellington; we don’t know who wrote the identification on the image, but it was very helpful as it makes more sense than the 1912 insurance map, that (wrongly, we think) put the Wellington next door, to the west. That site had an early wooden false-front building here in 1905. The site was acquired in 1907 by Angelo Calori, as we described in an earlier post. In 1910 the Princess Theatre was built here – a movie house with a pipe organ.
Beyond the Wellington Block, and the Horse Shoe Hotel is a three storey building that has recently been demolished. We haven’t managed to identify the original developer: by 1919 it was owned by William Dick, the clothing store magnate who had a store there, then became home to ‘The Hub” a men’s clothing store run by Max Freeman. It was known for many years as the Universal Rooms, converted to an SRO hotel in 1945 but was closed in 1974 after failing to meet the fire code. Most recently United We Can, the binner’s collection point operated here. It’s now a development site for a 14 storey building being built with nearly 200 units market and non-market housing by Atira.
Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 371-2107
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Changing Vancouver 