Central City Mission was built in 1910 and designed by W F Gardiner. The idea for a building had started in 1907, and in 2 years $45,000 was raised by selling shares. The 1910 permit was for a $75,000 reinforced concrete building – which would have been one of the city’s earliest to use the new construction technique, and advisable in a six storey structure. Initially, in 1909, the site was acquired for $55,000, and 5-storey building was announced. J G Price, who was also sometimes an architect, was the builder.

The building was to be ‘fitted out in a modern way and containing a gymnasium, baths, classrooms, restaurant. bedrooms, offices, auditorium, employment office and savings bank and other conveniences. Besides doing reclamation work the object of the mission is to provide cheap, homelike, sanitary accommodation and congenial surroundings for miners, loggers, sailors and other classes who are only in the city a short time during which they are subject to temptation.’

By September 1910 construction was underway, and $80,000 had been subscribed. The building now had a steel frame, and had been constructed at seven storeys, (six above ground), 72 feet square, with concrete floors. The front elevation was clad in Clayburn pressed brick. There was a 600 seat auditorium on the main floor, with ‘two electric fans under the stage. In this auditorium will be centered the religious work of the mission. While this aspect of the work will be prominent, it will in no case be forced upon the patrons of the house, who will be free to come and go as they wish and for whom the one object of the mission Is the provision of clean, comfortable rooming quarters at a reasonable price.’

There was a dining room and kitchen in the basement, as well as a reading room and library. Overindulgence by loggers and seamen was a particular problem in the city, with many months wages paid out, and a return to the availability of alcohol that was prohibited in the logging camps. ‘Among the novelty features is a cell for the accomodation of such as may be disposed to disturb the meetings or in any other way become a nuisance. This Mr. Henry (the superintendent) thinks will be a better way of dealing with inebriates than ejecting them into the streets’. There were rooms and dormitories on the upper floors, and a hospital ward on the fourth floor. ‘Each floor will have accomodation for fifty men, and will be equipped with six lavatories, two bath rooms and a large wash room.’ The dry tank idea was dropped. A year later in a report on the success of the 200 capacity building, which had cost $100,000, the Province newspaper noted ‘The rules ‘governing the mission are brief but pointed. No liquor is allowed on the premises. Intoxicated men are immediately dismissed as also are those whose language is objectionable. Smoking is only allowed in the proper smoking room.’

In 1912, four additional floors were announced expected to cost an additional $75,000. The existing building was providing beds for nearly 250 men, every night. Fund raising didn’t go as well as hoped, and then the economy took a severe downturn, followed by the war. With many former residents finding war work (or enlisting) the need for the services were reduced, and by 1916 the building was in use as a soldier’s club, with accommodation for soldiers on leave without homes to return to, and the Mission took over the King’s Hotel on Carrall Street. Once the troops had moved from Vancouver to Vernon, later in 1916, the Mission amalgamated with The Rescue Mission and returned to this building. By 1919 150 men were staying here most nights, but there was no immediate need for additional space.

In 1932, with another recession, demand was greater than ever, and a drive to raise $100,000 was successful, but tensions among the population of indigent and homeless were high. In 1933 ‘One man was injured, four were arrested, and more than 800 dishes were smashed in a miniature riot at Central City Mission, Abbott street, late Saturday afternoon. George Watson, 4603 Slocan street, superintendent of the Mission, suffered severe bruises and lacerations when he was attacked by demonstrators. Gordon Van Every, no fixed address, and Carl Reisner, no fixed address, were arrested by police and charged with assaulting Watson. Charges of malicious damage to property were laid against George Lute, 2237 Main, and John Kramin, no fixed address. Police reports state that the disturbance commenced when the table was being set for supper. When Constable E. O. Seeget arrived at the Mission to investigate, the pandemonium was at its climax and it was some time before order was restored. 

In 1934 there was an investigation by City Council into the Mission because the Rooming House Operators complained the building was owned by a corporation, taking their potential clients away by offering cheap accommodation. Although technically true,  ‘shareholders’ received no dividends, and so the operation was in effect a non-profit.

We’re not sure when the additional floors were added, but in 1957 the Mission was accommodating 265 beds, and regularly turning men away despite them turning up with the 30c cost of a bed. In 1960 a new model was adopted, concentrating on treatment rather than just providing hostel beds (as new Salvation Army and other facilities had been developed). Initially, 100 men lived at the residence, with 130 of the 270 beds removed, leaving only those for residents, plus an extra 30 ‘for emergency care for transients’. That use was still in place when this 1985 image was taken.

The Mission developed a new facility on West Pender with 120 beds, that opened in 1993. The old building was sold for $1,050,000 in 1989 and closed in 1993, (having been rejected as the site for a street youth dormitory). K C Mooney designed the conversion to 45 strata apartments called Abbott Place, completed in 1996. The building’s pediment was replaced, and there are retail units on Abbott Street. A 687 sq ft 1-bed apartment sells here for around $600,000.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 790-2142

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In 1911, the Runkle Block was completed on the corner of Cordova and Abbott. Previously the two-storey wooden Cosmopolitan Restaurant was here, as we saw in an earlier post. In 1910, according to a building permit, J C Runkle hired Sharp and Thompson to design a new building costing $28,000 and built by Robert McLean. There’s no Vancouver resident with that name, but we have identified  a likely subject. The name ‘J C Runkle’ is on the building permit, and there’s a cartouche on the building with the initials ‘J R’.

Fortunately, Runkle is a relatively unusual name and in the 1911 census there was only one person in Canada listed with the surname ‘Runkle’. Even better, he lived in Vancouver, but he was Gordon Runkle, not J C Runkle. He had lived in Vancouver from around 1906, and died in Nanaimo in 1943.  He was married in the city in 1914, and he had the same architects design a house for him on Marine Drive in 1922.

Gordon had a brother (sixteen years older) named John Cornelius Runkle. Our guess is that Gordon, at the height of Vancouver’s property boom, managed the development on behalf of his brother – an absentee American east coast investor. In 1900 John worked for the National Coal Tar Co, in 1910 he was Vice President of a manufacturing company in Boston, and in 1930 he was an executive of a lumber supply company, living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1908 he bought an old house dating back to 1765, had it moved, and hired architect Lois Lilley Howe to reconstruct and remodel it. In 1911 both John C Runkle, and Gordon Runkle, made applications to buy land in the Skeena Land District. The family were obviously close; after Gordon’s death, his daughter Pam was married in New York in 1948, and was given away by her uncle, J C Runkle.

Upstairs the Dixie Rooms were addressed initially as 145 Abbott. In 1914, Kathleen Dooley, aged 7, lived here with her parents. The Province reported that “the little girl was attempting to cross the street in company with a small boy. She is said by witnesses to have stopped directly in the path of the approaching machine. The driver saw the danger and applied both foot and emergency brakes, but the car could not be brought to a standstill until after it had struck her.” Kathleen died of her injuries in Vancouver General Hospital.

A year later ‘Bobby’, a white setter went missing, and an unspecified reward was offered for his return. John Burgess, aged 14, lived here in 1917, and was riding his bicycle on Arbutus Street when he fell off and injured himself badly enough to be taken to the hospital. The Rooms closed in 1918, and the contents of 21 rooms were auctioned off by Love & Co. The rooms reopened as the Acme Rooms, and within a year became the Don Rooms, renumbered to 247 Abbott. In 1930 Ole Tallman dropped dead, after he asked his roommate Fred Johnson to get him a glass of water at 3.00am. His death was believed to have been as a result of his drinking a bottle of carbolic acid that was found in the room.

The address appears regularly for death notices, and reports of burglaries. Among the more unusual reports, the death of John Keilly was notable, in 1935. Police found the 65-year-old war pensioner wandering, and brought him back here. His landlady took him to his room, but his confused state didn’t improve, and he died soon after in the hospital, where a fractured skull was discovered. It was later confirmed that he had fallen down a flight of stairs, while intoxicated, before he was found by the police.

In 1944 Fred Lundgram met a charming couple and they all went back to his room here for a few drinks. He fell asleep, and when he woke the couple, his wallet with four $100 notes and his registration card had gone. He told the police, and an hour later a woman was arrested after $200 were found in her shoe. Her companion was arrested soon after, with $100 found in his sock. The death notices were often of loggers, or seamen. Ole Ongstad, a captain with BC Packers was 61 when he died here in 1951.

The rooms were called the Olando Rooms in 1974 when they were closed by a new lodging house bylaw, having failed Health Department inspections. Combined with the adjacent Cook Block to the west, the upper floors became office and commercial space addressed as 289 Abbott. These days it houses a mix of creative/tech companies including Archive Digital and Loud Crow Interactive, a company that crafts interactive book apps ‘that capture the fun and nostalgia of story time’, and a tattoo parlour.

The storefront on the corner became home to The Stanley Cafe, with Commercial Printers in the basement. By 1916 it was the Klean Kitchen Cafe, with May Gerrels selling cigars here too. In 1921 Yetta Franks had her cooking stove business here, but in 1924 it became home to a gun store. In 1929 “The door of Harkley & Haywood’s store, 101 West Cordova street, was accidentally left unlocked and a thief entered and stole two shotguns.” A 16-year old boy, armed with a loaded revolver, was arrested that year behind the library, which he had a passkey for, which he used for a series of minor thefts. He also admitted burglarizing the gun store.

Vincent Cashmore and his son were running the store in 1954, when a friend, Wallace Crawford, paid them a visit. A gun that was being repaired discharged unexpectedly, with the bullet ricocheting off the bench and passing through Mr Cashmore’s hand. In 1957 Michael Packloff of Timmins, Ontario, was jailed for two years for breaking in and stealing two rifles and 240 pounds of ammunition. Our picture shows the store in 1973.

After the gun and rod store moved, around 1980, the London School of Hairdressing was here, (the gun store moved nearby and went into receivership in 1982). Fusion, a consignment store, was here in 1990, and for the past 19 years, La Casita, a Mexican restaurant has occupied the space.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 1095-09053

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This Vancouver Public Library image dates from 1945. It shows the London Grocery at 2225 Main Street and the Motor Bureau next door at 2205 Main, The buildings had been approved in 1924. H H Simmonds designed them for  Monmouth’s Ltd and construction cost $6,000 to be carried out by A D Snider. We have no idea who Monmouth’s were. They’re not in the street directories, (there wasn’t even anyone called Monmouth in Greater Vancouver) and they don’t appear in any newspaper articles or notifications. Six months after the development there was a second permit for $500 for a new garage, also for Monmouth Ltd.

We don’t think the buildings were built immediately, but by 1930 Early-Neil Motors, Ltd were at 2205, in a building set back from Main Street, with a forecourt that could also be accessed from East Sixth. 2221 was vacant, Morton Clarke (who were confectionery and tobacco wholesalers) at 2223 and London Groceers and Provisions were at 2225. They were a chain with eleven stores across the city. The unit they occupied was first offered in 1927 for $30 (we assume per week) as a grocers and confectioners, with living room.

By 1931 the car dealer had become Autoteria, where Ed Johnston would pay cash for your car. That year Ed Robertson, the 16-year old delivery boy from the grocerery store was held up by 2 youths who stole $15 from him. The tobacco warehouse was broken into in 1932. Thieves broke into a skylight (using tools they had stolen from another warehouse on West 2nd), and removed a large quantity of cigarettes into a large car they had also stolen. A neighbour, suspicious of the car parked in the lane, called police. As they arrived one man ran away, and a shot fired into the ground by the police failed to stop him. Another man, Lorne S Anderson, was caught hiding behind a bush nearby. The cigarettes were valued at $500, and Anderson (‘active in unemployed demonstrations for the past two years’) was sent to jail for 9 months, with hard labour. Lawrence Manufacturing took over the premises in the late 1930s.

In a 1940 burglary at the grocery store in January, cigarettes were stolen, and another December break in saw the loss of $300 worth of cigarettes, and candy. In 1942 tea and tobacco were stolen, and in 1944 there was another burglary. This time the thief was caught, and Wilfred Humphreys, a soldier on leave from Calgary, was sentenced to three months ‘at hard labour’.

In our 1945 image The Motor Bureau sold used cars at 2205, run by F S Higgins and G F Quinnell, and the street-front building had two stores, Dawfield Meat Market at 2221 and the London Grocery was still next door. To the north was the Popular Priced Dress Shop. Burglaries continued at the grocers, and in 1947 a large police dog was stationed at the back door. The burglars broke in through the front of the building, took $35 from the till, and then left through the back door without the police dog noticing. In 1951 $371 of tea, coffee and other groceries were taken, and the store closed not long afterwards. In 1952 the butchers at 2221 was a Home Service Meat Market, but that also closed not long afterwards.

In 1955 Black Motors sold trucks from the garage, 2221 was still vacant, (although the Tow-Rite Trailer Co were operating from the lane behind, building custom trailers) and at 2225 the unit was home to BC Telemaster tv antennae. At 2223 the Western Rod and Gun Store started operating in the late 1950s. Rifles and ammunition were stolen from here in 1958, and a North Vancouver resident surrendered to police in 1960 and admitted involvement in the burglary. He was put on probabtion, and required to provide a $1,000 peace bond. By then the address was (briefly) associated with a new car dealership offering Peugeot cars.

Rowland Motors operated the second-hand car garage in the early 1970s, E&T Autos sold cars here in 1980, and the last firm to use 2205 Main was Vancouver Taxi, in the early 1990s. For many years the site was cleared, and used as a parking lot. It was acquired by the City of Vancouver for a possible road project that would have continued Kingsway diagonally as far as Quebec Street. That would have involved buying the block to the north as well, replacing a substantial bank data centre and a heritage school structure. The road plan was abandoned, and the City looked at using this site for boosting the supply of moderately priced rental apartments.

Today there’s a new non-market housing developed by the City’s Affordable Housing Agency. Called Aspen, and managed by Catalyst Community Development, it has 145 below-market units. The lower rents were possible because the land was provided by the City of Vancouver, and funding included support from Vancity Credit Union and CMHC. There’s a Steamworks restaurant facing the remainder of the site, which is being developed as a public park, and other retail units, with a pharmacy and a dentist as tenants.

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This is another West End apartment building designed by R T Perry. This was for Moxam Realty & Construction Co on Barclay Street, and the building only stood for about 60 years. It was developed in 1926 as the Moxam Court Apartments, and cost $45,000, replacing a house owned by John Burns, and where his son Fred (of Boyd, Burns & Co) and daughter Mae lived from around 1900. The new furnished suites in 1927 rented for $60 a month. We looked at Mr Moxam’s story in a recent post. He partnered with Andrew Tod on a series of West End apartment buildings,but developed this one on his own.

John Moxam occupied one of the suites when it was newly built, and had his car stolen from here in 1928. It was found, stuffed with sweets, in a lane in the 100 block of East Hastings. Three men were reported ‘acting suspiciously’ near the car, and one was arrested, believed to have used the car after a break in at a confectionery store. H Harrison’s apartment was broken into and looted at the end of the year, with jewelry, clothing and mining stock certificates being stolen. In 1930 it was F B Walpole’s turn to have unwanted visitors. They took $590 worth of goods, including the vacuum cleaner, silver, household goods and clothes.

There were more thefts reported in 1931, 1932, 1933 and 1936, but in 1934 the screams of Mrs R H McCall frightened off three masked youths with revolvers. In 1937 Miss L Garner and her sister frightened off a repeat visitor, trying to gain access to their suite through a window. He was thought to have been responsible for the theft of Miss Garner’s purse earlier in the week. A 1939 burglary was thwarted by the janitor, who interupted the man trying to get into W R Farnell’s apartment, but the would-be thief got away. Later that year Mrs H A McCallum had a radio stolen, and in 1941 Miss H Nathan had her purse stolen through the partly open window. In 1943 G S Cooper, the caretaker, frightened off thieves at 2am on two nights in a row.

There were no further thefts reported after that. In 1952 two business girls were looking for two more business girls to share their large apartment. In 1955 a quiet bachelor suite was available for $80 a month, and in 1968 it was $90 a month. Our image shows the building in 1974.

In 1976 Lort and Lort, for Viva Holdings, proposed a 26 unit condo building on 4 floors, but the project was deferred, and a year later architect Michael Katz proposed a 48 unit apartment building on 4 floors for the Housing Corporation of BC, which was completed in 1979. Called Barclay Square, it’s a strata building, having been sold by the Housing Corporation in 1978 before it was completed. Although the building was a strata, some of the suites were available to rent, as sales were low (with units still available for sale in the early 1980s). In 1983 a 2-bed suite was $625 a month. Suites were still rented out in the early 2000s, and in 2004 a 2 bed, 1 bath, 831 sq. ft. condo  sold for $250,000, and in 2007 a similar sized unit sold for $365,000. By 2022 a 1-bed 716 sq. ft. condo sold for $717,000, and top floor apartments are now assessed at over $1 million.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 1095-04922

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This  was initially a more modest building designed by W T Dalton for ‘Mr Murray’ in 1902 (numbered then as 177 Water) and costing $10,000 to build. In 1903 Charles Dashway was proprietor of the hotel, and in 1904 Charles Anderson, so that didn’t help which of the many Mr Murrays in the city might have been the developer here. Fortunately William Murray hired W T Dalton to design a house for him on Beach Avenue at Nicola in 1901, so we’re hoping that’s not just a coincidence. If we’re right, then William Murray was the manager of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, and had previously been manager of the short-lived Bank of British Columbia from 1892. There are just too many William Murrays in the city to be able to tell anything more about Mr Murray.

The Heritage statement for the building says it was called the The Great Western Hotel, but the name was only used briefly, and by 1910 it was the Marquam Hotel, run by Thomas Murray. (He wasn’t the developer, as there were no Thomas Murray’s in the city in the early 1900s, although he could be related). That would have been the upper floors on Water Street until the building was sold and the addition was built. E J Brooks, a logger, was living here in 1910 when he was run down and killed by a CPR Locomotive as he crossed the tracks between Powell and Alexander.

By 1911 there was a new owner. K K Bjerkness had Thomas Hooper design an addition, which we think it’s the back of the building, as there’s a 1909 image which shows the building had 3 floors on Water Street before the addition was built. The hotel/rooming house address then switched to 160 Cambie.

Karl Kristian Bjerkness (actually Bjerknes), was born in Norway in the 1860s, probably in 1866, (although the date moved a little further forward as he got older, and he knocked a few more years off his age, even on official documents like immigration applications when he visited the US).

Mr. Bjerkness also had a ranch at Mirror Lake, near Kaslo. He registered a patent for a firearm from there in 1900. In 1922 he was selling his cherries in Vancouver at a premium price of 25c a pound. He still lived here, and owned this building, as he carried out repairs in 1926, and again in 1939. He built a $10,000 house in 1921, on West 34th, which was visited by thieves in 1949 who hacked out the bottom of a safe with an axe, and stole an unspecified amount of money. He was married to Andrea, but they had no children. She died in 1954 aged 83, and his death was a year later, aged 88.

The building was initially a warehouse on Water Steet. In 1913 A P Slade had their business here at 199 Water, and the residential building was called the David Rooms, (although the newpaper ads said Davis Rooms), where Mr & Mrs Bjerkness also lived. Rooms were as little as 50c, and there was running water in every room. By 1920 they were called the Cambie Rooms, and they still had that name in 1939 when Joseph Sjolin was drinking with two friends here, and then made his way home (four blocks away) at 4.45am (after the landlady said they were making too much noise). He tripped and fell down 13 stairs, and was not expected to survive the fall, and that proved to be the case.

Four years earlier Ernest Woodhouse was running the rooms. He tried to argue that Maud Daley, who was the housekeeper for the rooms, was a domestic servant, and so not entitled to the $812 wages she sought. The courts disagreed, and said the Minimum Wage Act applied.

In the 1940s rooms were leased by the day, or week, and in the 1950s the weekly rate was $6. In the 1940s there were three records of theft from different rooms here, and one of the arrest of Robert Kerr, who lived here, for stealing two purses in 1944. He got a nine month prison sentence. Albert Krahn was running the rooming house in 1946, when he was fined $200 for charging more than the amount set by the Prices Board. In 1948, Edna Ross, who lived here, lost two teeth when she was hit in an unprovoked attack by Jaques Fredette, no fixed abode. He was fined $70, or had to serve 37 days in jail. Dorothy Dessaurault (42) was found in her room in 1953, with the gas taps turned fully on.

The rooming house was apparently popular with loggers. In 1957 Joe Bohler, who lived here, died when a Pacific Western Airlines plane crashed in Port Hardy. He was an employee of Alaska Pine, with no known relatives. In 1965 Victor Kirisits, who lived here when he wasn’t a chokerman employed at Jeune Landing, won $2,550 in damages from two other loggers who beat him up in a bunkhouse when he asked them to turn the light out so that he could sleep. This image shows the building in 1973.

The rooming house had shared kitchens and bathrooms, and in the 1980s also supplied linens and crockery. They closed around 1987, and in 1989 Brian Murfett & Co converted the former 42 room SRO to offices and added a 4th floor. For 28 years Starbucks had a branch here, facing the Steam Clock, but that closed in 2023 and has been replaced by Lee’s Donuts, for many years a favourite on Granville Island. Gray Line tours have their offices upstairs, now addressed as 110 Cambie, and there’s a lawyers offices on the top floor.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 1095-08074

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We saw the house that sits next to this apartment building in the previous post. We think it was moved to its current position around 1911, to allow the development of this building. As it’s next to a lane, it has the advantage of a flank wall that can have windows, making it a better location for an apartment development.

The Donnaconna Block appears in the street directories for the first time in 1913, with 9 tenants. The building permit was in 1911, to James J Smith, who also built it. He was actually James I Smith, and he was from Quebec. He was in New Westminster by 1890, and Vancouver a few years later. He was probably the mill hand listed working for the Royal City Planing Mill in New Westminster in 1892, and in 1911 he was superintendent of their mill – we assume the local one at the foot of Carrall Street. He was living in Mount Pleasant on Westminster Road (Main St) in 1901, on West 7th in 1905, and at this address (in the house that we think was later moved) by 1908. He stayed in the same house, next door to this building, until the 1920s.

The tenants here, for 111 years, have appeared in the local press in connection with minor crimes. In 1934 E C Fane’s apartment was broken into, and he had a camera stolen. The burglar also took a bottle of wine from a cupboard, and drank the contents before departing. A Year later W Pike lost jewelry and $40 in a burglary, and Mrs Graham had two purses containing $6 stolen in 1937. Murdoch Graham was in court that year for soliciting customers for a rival laundry, having previously worked for Canadian Linen on Richards Street and signing an agreement not to poach customers for a year. The judge was apparently unimpressed with having to deal with the case, requiring Mr. Graham to abide by an injunction not to do it again, and awarding damages of $1 to the laundry. In 1941 L W Gardiner had a blue canvas bag taken from his suite containing $20.

A year later a resident’s attempt to uphold the law were recorded in The Province. “A 16 year old youth was brought to police headquarters for questioning Sunday evening when he and a gang of boys freed a young auto thief and attacked a citizen who had captured the youth. Leo Boyer, 148 East Sixth shipyard worker, captured the lad after he had stolen the auto of William Leitch, 2162 Turner from Powell and Clark, driven it over the railway tracks near the Capilano Brewery into a gully in the 1400 block, Powell. The gang of youths were sitting on a nearby boxcar and after Boyer chased and caught the car thief, they attacked him and released the lad. The 16 year old was in turn captured by Boyer, and was questioned by officers in an effort to locate the auto thief and the other lads who interfered. ”

Leslie Cottrell, who lived here with his wife, was a welder in a North Vancouver shipyard and was killed in the hold of a ship in 1945 when there was an explosion while he was using an acetylene torch.

In 1947 the building (which now had 16 suites) was sold for $35,800 by J. and M Rozenek to M. Peterson.

In 1916 a four-room suite, with newly installed hot water, was $12 a month. This 1974 image is captioned The Stroh Apartments, and that was their name in 1971 when a bachelor apartment was $75 a month (up from $60 in 1963). In 1978 that had gone up to $175, and in 1990 it was $425 (including heat and hot water). In 2002 a 2-bed apartment was $750.

An interior was used for the series iZombie, and the building sold for $5.3 million in 2017.  Although it was photographed for the heritage inventory files, it doesn’t have any heritage status, and it’s a non-conforming residential use (these days with 17 apartments) in an area seeing significant investment in commercial/industrial buildings, encouraged by the plan that followed the Broadway SkyTrain extension. A project has been submitted for a large industrial and office building on this part of the block.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 1095-03467

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This house was probably first constructed in 1888 and was initially home to Albert Lindsay, who was a checker in the CPR freight sheds. That could make it the oldest house still standing outside Downtown, but we’re almost certain the house was moved from the lot to the east in 1911. There were two more houses to the the west (to the right) of this one, and all three houses were moved in 1910, and 1911. They were all then owned by ‘J J Smith’, and we assume they were shifted one lot to the west, to eventually make space for an apartment building where this house originally stood (on the left of the picture) Presumably it was easier to move the houses one lot over, rather than leaving one in place and moving the other around it.

When the houses were moved they retained the same street address, even  though they were on a different lot, and a new number was given to the apartment building. Albert Lindsay wasn’t here long – it would have been an inconvenient location for Downtown where his work was located. There werre no street numbers in the early directories, but in 1891 James Lindsay, a carpenter was living on Sixth Avenue, (but not Albert Lindsay), and with no street address identified.

The numbering here was allocated in the 1890s, and in 1895 we think that for a while this was 24 W 6th, when H W Maynard was resident. By 1901 Harry W Maynard was shown at 144 East 6th, and ‘Henry Wilfred Maynard’ was listed as agent for the Hamilton Powder Co. a year later. When he died in 1948, in West Vancouver, the death notice said he originally settled in Mount Pleasant in 1887, and had worked for the Powder Co (which made blasting powder for the mining industry). He had three brothers in California, but that’s not a clue to his origins, as he was from Wales, son of Lieut-Colonel Edmund Gilling Maynard. Within a few years he moved his wife and three daughters to a new home on West 14th Avenue.

By 1911 this was the home of James I Smith, the superintendent of the R C P Mill. That was the Royal City Planing Mill, which was down the hill at the foot of Carrall Street on False Creek (before that stretch of the creek, east of Main, was filled in for the new railway terminus and yards). The mill was part of British Columbia Mills, Timber and Trading Company. (Some records, including permits had J J Smith, but we’re pretty certain it was J I Smith).

James Israel Smith was born in Quebec in 1864, and married Mary Young in 1888 in Vermont. They had three sons, Wellington, (born in Ontario in 1889), Wesley (in New Westminster in 1890) and Percy in Vancouver in 1896. That year James Smith was a millwright, living in Mount Pleasant on West 10th. In 1901 he had moved to 2150 Westminster Road, which was a small house just to the east of here, almost on the corner of Main and East 6th. By 1908 ‘James J Smith’ was living here, superintendent of the planing mill, but in 1912 it was corrected to James I Smith, who by that point was superintendent at Hastings Saw Mill, and listed as living at 144 East 6th. He was still here in 1919, but in the early 1920s moved to Burnaby, which is where he was living when he died in 1933.

By 1932 the house had been split in two, with one unit addressed as 144 1/2. Later it became a rooming house, which was the case when it was here in 1974. A year earlier a room was available for $100 a month. It was for sale in 1983, “7 rentals. $17,000 gross. Unbelievable at $112,000.” A 1-bed basement suite was $300 a month in 1988.

Since 2014 it’s been home to artist’s collective The James Black Gallery ‘a queer led arts and culture hub dedicated to giving a voice to emerging artists in Vancouver, providing space for community engagement, and experimental multidisciplinary art practices’.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archines CVA 1095-03466

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We looked at another comparison with this ‘before’ picture in 2019. The Archives image was taken in 1927, so the privately built Lion’s Gate Bridge to the North Shore was still being planned – and there wasn’t a lot to do once you got there except the forest, if you did manage to cross on the ferry. The picture was taken by Pacific Airways, apparently for the Union Steamship Company.

Most of the area in Vancouver’s West End had been developed as houses in the early years of the 20th century, often by the city’s elite of the day. They soon moved on to occupy the Shaughnessy subdivision, south of False Creek, leaving their former mansions to be divided up into rooming houses or apartments.

On Georgia Street the huge Vancouver Arena was on the north side of the street, and the Horse Show Building on the south side, closer to the Stanley Park causeway.

The more recent image was published by Trish Jewison in October 2022, who took it from the Global traffic helicopter. It shows The Norwegian Jewel about to head to Alaska with up to 2,300 passengers and 1,100 crew aboard. Having been quarantined for covid, the ship was refurbished before coming back into service not long before this picture was taken.

Stanley Park appears as green as ever, but that is misleading, and is certainly not the case today. Several years of drought, and an infestation of looper moth has killed tens of thousands of western hemlocks, (many of them relatively young trees). Some western red cedar and Douglas fir have also been affected – altogether the estimate is that over 30% of around 600,000 trees in the park’s forest have died since 2019. A huge logging operation is now underway to remove around 160,000 of the dead trees that pose the greatest threat for potentially devastating fire, or damage to buildings or power lines if they fell.

In the five years since the previous image, five new residential towers have been built. All over on the right of the picture, Kengo Kuma’s Alberni tower, another designed by Henriquez Architects for Bosa, a rental tower on Robson for GWL and twin towers next door have replaced the 1970s Empire Landmark Hotel. Two more are now under construction on West Georgia, and ten more have been proposed in the same area of the West End, permitted by the new West End Community Plan that was approved in 2017, and that was expected to add at least 10,000 more people (to the 45,000 already living there) over 30 years.

On the waterfront on the right hand edge of the image, the tower of the Bayshore Hotel can be seen. The hotel was bought some years ago by Concord Pacific, so no doubt redevelopment and additional towers can be anticipated there too.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 374-181 and Trish Jewison on twitter.

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This five-storey brick warehouse was one of a row of new warehouses developed after 1910, just like the new warehouses in Yaletown just south of here. This was developed by G H Cottrell, who hired Baynes and Horie to build Parr and Fee’s design of the $55,000 building.

G H Cottrell was Ticket Agent for the CPR in 1899, but in 1902 he was a broker in Vancouver, offering space in a warehouse that he ran on Water Street. He lived on Haro, in the home of Anne Cottrell, his mother.

In October 1905 there was a fire that damaged the warehouse and caused $20,000 to $25,000 of damage, principally to the stock stored there. ‘Tea, breakfast food, cereals, confectionery and other perishables were stored in the building in quantity to the value of about $10.000, and the water played havoc among these things.’ The fire brigade’s chemical engine was initially used to try to douse the flames, but the fire was too fierce, so water was used, and it took two hours for the fire to be completely supressed. There were around $75,000 worth of stored goods in the building, not all insured. The building was owned by General Twigge, and needed significant repairs.

Mr Cottrell continued to advertise storage through 1910, both for household and bonded space, in a ‘new brick warehouse’ until mid 1911. By August his address had changed to 349 Railway. Every so often his sideline as a property broker would lead to an ad in the classified section.

George was born in Breslau, Waterloo, Ontario in 1865, and married Marion Burkett London in Ontario in 1899. A daughter, Susan Tomson, was born a month later (in Scotland), followed by Francis in Ontario in 1900, and Muriel and Harry (in Vancouver, in 1903 and 1905).

Anne Cottrell, George’s mother, died in 1910, and soon after George embarked on a development spree, altering 139 Water Street (where he had his real estate office) and his Railway Street warehouse, building another on Powell Street and then this warehouse in 1911, which he was offering to let ‘with trackage’ only four months after the building permit was issued. We don’t know whether the warehouse was ever intended for the Cottrell storage business, but it was immediately leased to Johnston Bros, wholesale dry goods. In 1920 it was home to Modern Automobile and Tractor Schools Ltd.

In 1914 G H Cottrell was elected as an alderman, but he only served one year on City Council. He was involved in a wide variety of civic bodies; on the hospital committee, as a park commissioner, and an active member of the Board of Trade. In 1928, as chairman of the aviation committee, he was appointed to the national aviation committee of the Chamber of Commerce. Marion died in 1938, and George moved to the Terminal City Club, where he died at the age of 85 in 1951. The storage and transportation business was already being run by his son Francis Cottrell from a new location in 375 Terminal Avenue, and continued into the 1980s as Cottrell Transport Inc.

This space became an early tech office, renovated as the home to Seagate Software in 1998, after Canada Safeway moved their offices out that year. Previously the warehouse here was used by Macdonalds Consolidated from the 1920s, who were acquired by rivals Kelly, Douglas in 1942. Safeway had moved into the warehouse a few years later, with both a warehouse, and office space, (seen here around 1985) which was gradually expanded as more modern warehouse space was occupied elsewhere by the firm.

Seagate became Crystal Decisions, and moved close by in 2002, but the tech use continued as Microsoft had offices here for several years. The building was bought by Allied Property Trust, and is now multi-tenanted, and home to the Vancouver studios of digital animation company Animal Logic.

Image source City of Vancouver Archives CVA 790-1777

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These were the Elizabeth Apartments in the West End, seen exactly 50 years ago. They were developed in 1926, and designed by R T Perry. The developers were also listed as the builders of the $65,000 ‘Apartment; Two-storey, frame const., covered in stucco’, ‘Moxam & Tod’.

Andrew McTear Tod, and John Archibald Moxam were partners in a development business that built at least five West End apartment buildings, all with the same architect, and many of them with a fairly similar design. Most saw a large house from the late 1890s or early 1900s demolished to make way for a 2-storey walk-up apartment. This was a larger site, and a slightly different design to the others.

John Moxam was from Foresters Falls, Whitewater Region, Renfrew, Ontario. He was born there in 1882, and he married Blanche Boyle there in 1906, and the couple had a daughter, Margaret. We can’t find the family in either the 1911 or 1921 census records, but they were in Calgary in 1912. Margaret married Lieutenant D Newall, but he was killed early in the war, and she married again in 1941 to another serviceman, Lieutenant W Rorke of the Calgary Highlanders.

Andrew Tod was Scottish, born in 1884 in Larkhall, Lanarkshire, and arrived in Canada in 1902. His wife, Isabel Janet Service came to Canada from Glasgow at the age of 16, in 1905 (following her brother). The family were in Edmonton in 1913 when their only child, Philip, was born. Mr Tod was working as a motor driver there when he signed up to fight in France in 1917, and was demobilised in 1919 in Vancouver.

Moxam and Tod arrived in 1925, having developed nine apartment buildings in Winnipeg, two in Calgary and two in Oakland, California, and immediately developed five apartment buildings here, three in the West End and two in Fairview, in the spring of 1926. This followed soon after, in October. Having overstretched their business financially, the business was liquidated in 1929. This had already been sold to ‘a local investor’ a year after the building was completed, Pemberton’s Realty office sold it, named the Roslyn Apartments, for $95,000.

By 1931 Andrew and Isabel Tod had moved to Nanaimo, where Andrew was an insurance broker. They moved back to Vancouver in 1936, but six days after arriving Isabel died, Her death was entirely unexpected, and the death notice recorded the fact that she was the sister of Candian poet, Robert Service. Andrew Tod died in Vancouver in 1950.

John Moxam moved to Victoria, where he had owned a home since 1912, and he continued to develop apartment buildings, including a hotel in Oak Bay. He died in Victoria in December 1941.

Roland Raymond lived here in 1936 when car was stolen, and was subsequently written off. Four men, believed to be safecrackers, were chased by police at speeds of up to 80 miles an hour at four in the morning, and crashed the car in Burnaby, rolling it six times. Remarkably all four men were able to run away, but were arrested later. The case against them fell apart when witnesses gave an entirely different version of events at the site of the accident than police evidence, and the judge acquitted them. That same year J C Short had $300 of jewelry stolen from his apartment here.

In 1947 Edward Gudewill married Janey Cherniavsky, and the Sun announced they would be moving here. Edward worked for the family Goodwill Automatic Music Co, and had $60 stolen from car, parked in a garage. The entire sum was in nickels, as Mr Gudewill’s job was emptying the family’s rented jukeboxes, and weighed over 60 pounds.

Some time in the late 1950s or early 1960s, the building name changed to The Elizabeth. In 1954 a batchelor suite was $70, and a 3-room suite $82.50 in 1960, but in 1982 rent inflation meant a large 1-bedroom apartment leased for $450 a month. By 2003 the building was the Roslyn again, and a 2-bed apartment was $1,600 a month – a high rent for the time, but no doubt justified by the description of the suite; ‘Funky – Hip – Stylish’. In 2009 935 Jervis Holdings were looking for a manager for the 10 unit building – ‘must speak Korean’. The furnished suites today lease for between $2,750 and $4,500 a month.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 1095-01238

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