We’ve looked at the other three corners of this intersection in previous posts, including the Angelus Hotel which once stood on the south east corner. This 1936 image shows Angelus Confectionery on the opposite corner to where the hotel was built (in 1912), so presumably the store borrowed the name of the hotel. The store was identified as being run that year by Antigoni Gogoras. A Gogoras had been shown running the business in 1929, and Miss E Gogoras in 1930 and again in 1938 (assuming Miss E A Gogoras is the same person). By that time it was a restaurant, known as the Angelus Dairy. In 1935 W Gogoras was running the confectionery store.
We can guess that the family name is Greek, as there was a Greek family recorded as Gougowras in the census, but identified as William Gogoras in the street directory. He ran a grocers in the city in the 1920s, but appointed a receiver to wind up the business in 1923. Basil Gogoras was born in Greece in 1870, and died in Vancouver in 1944. His father was Anastasios Gogoras, and his wife, Mary, also born in Greece died in 1980, aged 92. They had a daughter, Kaliopi. We also found Ethel Gogoras, from Vancouver, who married John MacGowan, and in 1930 had a daughter born close to Vancouver in Sedro Wooley, in Washington.
By 1951 the Angelus Café was run by S L Miloff, with the entrance on Howe Street, and Angelus Confectionery still existed nearby on Dunsmuir, run by W Kaltsatos.
The house was very old – it’s clearly shown on the 1889 insurance map. It looks as if John Clements, listed as an architect, (but described as a ‘well known builder and contractor’ in the newspaper of the day) may have lived here in 1890, across the street from a better known architect, William Blackmore. Mr. Clements built many buildings for the CPR, and was supervising a new station when he died in 1896, in North Bend. The Daily World noted at the time ‘He did considerable contracting in the way of station building on the C.P.R. and was sometimes spoken of as foreman on construction of buildings.’ He was from Newfoundland and Labrador, (although one census record shows Ontario), and in 1880 was living in San Francisco. We don’t know if he built the house for himself, but that seems possible.
Today there’s a 14 storey office building dating back to 1976.
Image source: City of Vancouver Archives Str N284
0781
Changing Vancouver 