We initially took a while to line this shot up. The before image was shot by Arthur Collier, and is labelled as being shot somewhere between 1955 and 1957. All of the buildings along Beach Avenue today were developed later than that, so we couldn’t line any of them up. We were able to identify Tudor Manor, some of it still standing, but some redeveloped as a tower today. The mountains also line up! (The image is available at a larger size if you click on it).

There’s a white, modernist 8-storey building on the western side of the picture. We’re pretty certain that’s The Pacific Beach, designed by Gerald Hamilton and completed in 1959, which would seem to be just completed when this picture was actually taken. The houses in front on Beach Avenue, were replaced by (from left to right) the 11 storey Penthouse Tower in 1965, 8-storey Ocean Villa in 1993 and 11-storey Beach Terrace in 1964. Those block the view of the building, and the Barafield Apartments which are behind the Pacific Beach, on Harwood street, seen as a grid of recessed balconies, not yet completed. The building was first leased at the end of 1959.

In the background, the tallest building in the centre of the 1950s image, with a red brick rear elevation is Holly Lodge, at a high point of Davie Street. It’s also possible to see Royal Mansions, developed in 1910, with a solid 5-storey red brick facade. That’s now hidden by The Tallin, completed in 1969, with 1133 Beach, even taller at 21 storeys and completed in 1973. The tallest tower, Sunset Plaza, on the right hand edge of the image today, has 26 floors and 176 apartments. Developed by Block Brothers, and completed in 1969, it had Lort and Lort as architects. In the gap between the towers the red roof of Pacific Horixon can be seen, built in 1978 and designed by Waisman Architectural Group.

Image Source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 1415-154

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We saw the story of the early days of this building in the previous post. Developed as the Quadra Club in 1929, designed by Sharp and Thompson, the club ran into financial difficulties, were unable to pay their property taxes, and the building was auctioned off. The club moved to cheaper premises, and this building continued as the Moose Lodge, (moving here from Burrard Street). Dances and events continued to be run by other organisations, as they had under the previous ownership.

The Quadra had always have female participation in many of their events, but The Women of the Moose took that further, with practice and posture classes and tea and sale afternoons. There were dances and socials throughout the war, with modern and old-time dancing. In 1945 the Divine Science Church met here on Sunday evenings. In 1947 there was a dance to raise funds for the gymnasium of the Loyal Protestant Home for Children, featuring the Len Holland’s 15-piece Accordian Band, as well as a comedienne, a concert violinist, a soprano, and a 30 voice male choir. We assume the Moose lodge found these premises less than ideal as in 1948 they moved to a new Lodge on Howe Street that had cost $100,000.

In 1948 The park Board acquired this building, which became known as the Theatre Under the Stars building, and also home to the BC Institute of Music and the Youth Symphony. Societies like the Gaelic Society continued to hold concerts and dances in the premises, but in 1950 it was sold to the Federal Governmnet for $160,000 to become home to the Royal Canadian Air Force Reserve. That lasted until 1957, when the Department of Defence evicted the Air Force and leased the building at $1,000 a month to a newly reformed University Club. After spending $100,000 on renovations the club opened in 1958. Gentlemen could use the entire club premises (very similar in use to its Quadra days), but ladies were permitted to use the first floor. There were 275 members who had paid $600 each, and $150 a year fees.

The premises weren’t leased out to other organisations, so continued as a private club. In 1987, with declining membership, the club closed, merging with the nearby Vancouver Club. BCE Development Corp bought it and hired Richard Henriquez to design a replacement office building, but it was never built. Instead, in 1996 the Terminal City Club moved in while their adjacent premises were redeveloped.

In the early 2000s (when we shot this image), it was the sales office for the Shaw Tower, but was redeveloped as an office building in 2014. The MNP tower was developed by Oxford Properties, who co-own it with the CPP (and the adjacent Marine Building and Guinness Tower). The facade of the club was retained and incorporated into the building, home to a lawyer, a mining company, a real estate business and accountants MNP. Designed by the San Francisco office of KPF, it won numerous accolades, including a heritage preservation award.

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These club premises were developed in 1929, designed by Sharp and Thompson with vaguely Spanish Colonial Revival styling. Originally founded in 1921, the Quadra Club briefly occupied the former premises of the Vancouver Club, who had built a new bigger building next door to their earlier premises, in 1914 (also designed by Sharp & Thompson). Its founders were members of the old Western Club, and the University Club, (which later merged with the Quadra) and it was named ‘after the Spanish admiral who handed turned over Spain’s possessions in the west to Great Britain’, (hence the design ‘on Spanish lines’).

In 1927 the club started efforts to raise $125,000 to build the club, with a reinforced concrete frame, with brick and artificial stone facing on West Hastings. There was a main floor with a large hall and readinmg room, and a dining room on the second floor to seat up to 125, with ‘a splendid view of Burrard Inlet’. The top two floors had 10 bedrooms and three or four bathrooms. There were two basement floors with kitchens and other back-of-house facilities as well as a bar, lounge and billiards room in the basement, and parking for 26 cars in the sub-basement.

Not long afterwards, before the new building colud proceed, the club had to find a new chief steward as H Nakamura was sentenced to six moths in the penitentiary for dealing in cocaine and morphine, sold to an RCMP detective in a sting operation.

When Henry Bell-Irving died in 1931, part of his estate included the $60,000 mortgage on the club. We hadn’t realised the rooms were residences, but when dental surgeon Dr Larry Gilroy died in 1934 the death notice said he resided at the club, and in 1939 Norman Wallace, a refinery accountant was living here (found liable for injuries Lucy Howell, a teacher, suffered as a result of a collision with his car).

Generally the news report were of luncheons, reunions, dances, balls, banquets, festivities and celebrations. Sometimes there were slide shows, recitals or working luncheons among trade representatives (like the B.C. Mushroom Growers’ Association). But occasionally the Club featured for more unusual activities.

In 1936 the Sun reported that “two gunmen are sought today as a result of their raid on the Quadra Club, 1021 West Hastings Street at 1:45 a.m. on Sunday. R. B. Jensen, night steward at the club, was parsing through the bar In the basement when a man sprang out of the shadows, shoved a gun against his ribs and announced: “Stick ’em up. This is a hold-up.” A second gunman then put in an appearance and the steward was forced into a card room at the rear of the basement. While one of the pair stood guard over him, the other forced open the cash drawer in the bar and scooped out $153. Both men fled through a window off the card room.”

A year later there was another newsworthy incident. “A hold-up failed when a bandit walked into a basement room of the Quadra Club, 1021 West Hastings where J. R. Lamb, E. Kelly, D. McKeddie and F. S. Williams were sitting at 3:05 a.m. Friday. “This is a hold-up,” announced the bandit as he entered the room. “This is no fooling. Put what you got on the table.” No gun was in evidence and McKeddie rose from the table and started toward the door of the room. The bandit turned and fled through the billiard room and escaped through an open window.”

For an organisation with several accountants as members, and the Conservative Association holding regular meetings, it was odd that in 1939 the Club was auctioned off for $10,000 in lieu of unpaid taxes going back to 1936. The club had a year to reimburse the successful bidder, with interest, but as the premises were worth $100,000 no doubt the debt took on greater importance. However, the club don’t appear to have solved their problems completely; instead they moved to Seymour Street, and this building was sold and became the Moose Hall, home to The Loyal Order of Moose Vancouver Lodge No. 888. Our image dates from 1985, after it had changed again, as a subsequent post will explore.

Image source City of Vancouver Archives CVA 790-1761

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We saw a similar angle to this one in a 1964 aerial shot we posted 18 months ago. This before image is earlier, from the 1930s. The eastern side of Stanley Park had far sparcer tree cover – most (but not quite all) of the park was logged over several decades. A breakwater had been built to create a safe space to swim in 1932, but the heated Second Beach Pool wasn’t built until 1995. The old pool was drained and refilled with ‘fresh’ sea water once or twice a week – with the occasional surprised mud shark or octopus ending up in the pool to keep things interesting.

Beyond the park, the West End was mostly a residential enclave of houses and low-rise apartment buildings. By the 1930s some of the grander homes had been split up into smaller apartments, or had become rooming houses, as their wealthy owners moved to smarter areas of town like Point Grey or Shaugnessey. Gradually, and then dramatically, the area redeveloped from the 1950s with midrise and then towers, and the density of population increased. By 1971 there were 37,000 residents, but a downzoning of the area meant it stayed the same for 20 years. It has steadily risen in the past 30 years to 47,000, as new density has been injected into the area – a process that is speeding up with a new West End Plan.

In the distance there are a few ‘tall’ buildings – the Marine Building on the left, the Royal Bank, the World Tower (in the 1930s the Bekins Moving and Storage Building), The third Hotel Vancouver and beyond it the second (on Granville and Georgia). Today the two towers punctuating the skyline are both hotels with condos above, the Paradox and Shangri La hotels. The slim dark shard tower is the Wall Centre, controversially approved as a ‘crystal tower’ that was built with dark glass, but approved with light. A compromise saw it completed two-tone, with clear upper glass. Some years later it was reglazed with dark glass as the mechanical systems and air conditioning couldn’t handle the solar gain from the clear glass that the developer had never intended should be used, despite that being the basis for approval.

Trish Jewison published the contemporary image on her twitter feed on 18 January 2023, having taken it in the Global traffic helicopter.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives Air P104

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Trish Jewison, in the Global traffic helicopter, regularly posts amazing images of Vancouver on her twitter feed, and we borrow them and try to match them to historic aerial images. Here’s a second look at Yaletown and the area of North False Creek posted in April 2022, (our first from the CTV’s Chopper 9 from three years ago is here). The before image is in the Vancouver Public Library collection, and was taken in 1953.

In the foreground are some of the Concord Pacific towers that replaced Expo 86, developed on the former CP railyard in Yaletown. Because the Roundhouse (now the Community Centre) lines up, it’s possible to see that the marina is actually carved out of the former railyard land. (The red roof of the remaining part of the roundhouse is just visible among the towers.) The railyard was on previously filled land in 1953, so the bay only partly recreates the former coastline, which originally ran all the way back to Beatty Street.

In the background, in 1953, The new Granville Bridge was just being completed, with the loops down to Pacific Street still under construction. In 2023 it’s almost invisible because of all the buildings around it, but those loops are being removed and replaced with normal roads as part of the grid, creating space to build four more residential towers, including non-market housing.

The remaining parts of Downtown South have shifted from modest one and two storey buildings to residential towers, often with a commercial base. The exception is the three blocks of Yaletown, the warehouse district released for development by the Canadian Pacific Railway in the early 1900s, and almost completely built out in just five years. Most of those warehouse structures are still standing, but as we’ve seen over a series of posts here, today some are apartments, others are office buildings. Most have two floors of retail or restaurant use (reflecting the full floor change in elevation coming down the hill from the west, and the retention of the rail loading docks, allowing extensive covered patios).

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E F Salkeld hired Gardiner & Mercer to design this $13,000 Mission style repair garage on West Broadway in 1926. Ernest Salkeld was born in 1881 in Ontario, and by 1926 was shown as retired, but his younger brother, Frederick V Salkeld was running the Service Garage at 555 W Broadway, and they shared a home on Ontario Street with their sister, Mattie StJohn Salkeld, who was born in 1883. Mattie and Frederick were in Vancouver in the 1921 census, but Ernest was in Saskatchewan, living with another sister and her husband. At the age of 39 he was already living on ‘income’ rather than having a job. In 1901 he had been a farm labourer in Spy Hill, and a decade later a farmer in Saltcoats, also in Saskatchewan, where his mother and sister were living with him.

In 1927 Frederick married Greta Harkness, and Mr and Mrs Fred Salkeld moved to West 13th and became part of the city’s social circuit, holding a bridal shower at their home for friends, and attending a St Patrick’s Day social evening. Fred worked at the Service Garage which now occupied these premises, later in partnership with Charles Plaxton. He was generally shown as a mechanic, if his role was specified, but he was mostly mentioned for his involvement in tennis, as a keen member of the Oak Street and then Jericho clubs, where he played and provided trophies for youth competitions. He died in 1961, survived by his widow and older brother. Fred’s obituary concentrated on his role as a youth tennis coach, and professional player at the Jericho club.

Ernest barely registered in the life of the city, except for an incident in 1955 when his 16-year-old nephew, Stewart McAllister, suffered a broken neck and was partially paralyzed while diving at Shuswap Lake. Ernest, who was part of the family outing, saved him by dragging him out of the lake. He died in 1963, aged 83, having never married.

The garage continued in use for many years, finally as Kendall Garage (seen here in 1974), but a year after this picture was taken had switched to retail, as Carpetland. Advertised as ‘next to London Drugs’ (whose store can be seen in the corner of the image), at some point the garage became part of London Drugs, (at a slightly higher level, and with a new facade to match and reach the back of the sidewalk). When the drugstore moved eastwards to the new Crossroads development, Michael’s Crafts took over, and now run craft classes in the former garage part of the building.

Image source: City of vancouver Archives CVA 1095-00260

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We’re on the corner of West Georgia and Hornby, looking north, and on the right the HSBC Bank (Canada) headquarters that’s there today is possibly being sold to the Royal Bank of Canada, so the bank and office tenants may change in future. In 1981 there was a cleared site, following the implosion using 136 kg of dynamite of the Devonshire Hotel. It had stood here for 57 years, and took 12 seconds to demolish. (These days that method of demolition isn’t allowed, due to health and safety concerns about the potentially toxic dust that can be generated). We discovered that Coley Hall, who owned the hotel at one time, was also a director of the bank that would replace it.

Designed by Webb, Zerafa, Menkes, Housden and Partners, and completed in 1986, it was built as the the head office of  the Bank of British Columbia. Intended by Premier W A C Bennet to allow more local control for making decisions on loans to BC businesses, it was first proposed in 1964, and granted a charter in 1968. Original plans called for the skyscraper to be in the block behind the courthouse, on a site owned by the City of Vancouver, for a new Civic Centre, before those plans were dropped, (where the new court was later built). When the federal government refused to allow the Province to hold shares in the new bank, the skyscraper was dropped and a more modest new home initially identified at 999 West Pender. As the bank grew, it moved into leased offices in the Bentall Centre.

Following the collapse of two Alberta Banks, in 1986 a CBC program alleged serious management problems, and that in turn led to the bank being taken over by the Hong Kong Bank of Canada in the same year the new headquarters was completed.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 779-W05.17

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We’ve seen all the buildings in these two images before, but only from their ‘smart’ side, on Homer Street. Here they are on the working side, on Hamilton, where the train tracks could bring freight cars right to the back door (although the rail access had gone by 1981 when these pictures were taken).

The tallest building, on the right, is known as Murchies warehouse, but it had a much more interesting role before the tea importers moved in, as home to Joseph Kennedy Ltd, one of the city’s busiest rum-running companies. During US prohibition, they exported alcohol ‘legally’, mostly to Central America, but mysteriously the exporting ships never made it all the way on their voyage, but moored up just outside US waters. Their paperwork would confirm that the cargo had been delivered as the manifest showed, but in reality a fleet of small, fast boats would collect the booze, often at night, and then outrun the US Customs. The building was initially developed by J Russell and Donald Gray, who emigrated to Canada from Scotland in 1906. They hired H S Griffith to design the building.

The shorter building to the south, with the eleavtor tower was developed in 1946. Townley and Matheson designed it for Walter M Lowney, a US candy company. In 2000 it became an architect’s office.

The building with the two-storey addition is today also residential, known as The Ellison. It was designed by Sharp and Thompson for George Baker in 1929. We think he was a builder, in which case he knew the area well, as he had built the Gray Block at the end. Howard Bingham Hill designed the conversion which was the first project carried out by the Holborn Group and completed in 2007. Next door there had only ever been a small single story shed before the 1998 ‘Grafton’ condo building was completed, designed by Linda Baker in a ‘warehouse’ style that matches the rest of the block.

Since we took our contemporary images the power supply has been altered, and the poles removed.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 779-E13.11 and CVA 779-E13.12

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The ‘before’ picture here was taken in 1962, when there had been significant change in West End, but the taller towers hadn’t started to get developed. The last residential building visible on Beach Avenue is Kensington Place Apartments, completed in 1913 at the foot of Nicola Street, and still standing, painted cream, today. The tall tower in the centre of the image with the pointed top is Tudor Manor, a 23-storey tower designed by Paul Merrick and completed in 1989. The two taller towers on the right-hand edge of the picture are Pacific Surf, designed by W D Buttjes and completed in 1967, and Ocean Villa, designed by John Hollifield. It’s on the south side of Beach Avenue, and was completed in 1993

Right on the edge of the water on the left hand side of the picture, the Crystal Pool occupied prime real estate. It opened in 1929, intended to be part of the private Connaught Beach Club, designed by McCarter and Nairne, which was to have squash, badminton and tennis courts, Turkish baths for men and women, a beauty parlour, barber shop, a roof garden and a ballroom. The developer’s timing was terrible, and with an economic crisis in North America the contractors finished the pool, and ended up owning it in lieu of payment, and then lost money through the 1930s, despite various stunts and attractions to try to attract crowds.

The City took over the building in 1940, buying it for $30,000, with $27,106 approved in late 1939 in a plebiscite that just squeaked past the required 60% approval. The Park Board ran it when it reopened in 1941 as the city’s only all-year swimming pool, and immediately ran into conflict because a ‘color bar’ was introduced – blacks and Asians were only allowed to swim on Tuesday mornings. That rule took four years to be removed, despite the introduction of a token additional Monday night Chinese swimming proficiency class.

Although it wasn’t reported in the press, Vivian Jung, Vancouver’s first Chinese-Canadian teacher, protested the rule.  She needed a lifesaving certificate to complete her teacher training, but couldn’t obtain it with the rest of her student teacher classmates. Her organised protest ensured that in November 1945 the Park Board lifted all restrictions on the use of the pool. Vivian taught at Tecumseh Elementary School for 35 years. In 2014, the year that she died at 99, Jung Lane, the lane that runs close to Sunset Beach was named for her.

In our contemporary image, which was taken six months ago, the ‘barge on the beach’ was finally being dismantled and removed. She broke free in a storm in November 2021, and stuck fast on the rocks off Sunset Beach, where the pool had once been located. Efforts to drag her off having failed, the barge took from July until November to dismantle, after extensive investigations of toxic materials. Built in Portland, Oregon in 1966, the 5,000 tonne barge had been converted into a bin barge in 1989, and her owners, Sentry Marine Towing, spent an estimated $2.4m on removing her.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 392-1756

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This is one of Downtown’s oldest houses, although it hasn’t been lived in for many years. It was built by George Washington Leslie, who was listed at different times as both a carpenter, and a plasterer. He lived in the house with his family from when he built it soon after arriving in 1888 (the year he turned 38) to his death in 1924. Family members continued to live here until 1947.

George was born in Cape Breton in 1850, the third of nine children. He married Susan Bethune, also from Sydney Mines (a coal mining town) in 1872, and they started their family of 11 children a year later, when Charles was born, and ending when Susan was 45 and gave birth to Arthur. (Ermina died as a baby). Arthur (who seems to have been known by his middle name, Purvis) and Ernest were born in BC in 1895 and 1891. Life in the new house must have been tough going for the first few years; the water service was only connected in 1896.

George’s home is a rare remaining example of a ‘cottage’ version of a Queen Anne style Victorian house, modified to include some Italianate elements, and it was full! The 1891 census showed all eight children at home, with Charles  already a carpenter at 18, and Emma, who was a year younger, a dishwasher. By 1901 there were still seven children at home, but in 1902 Agnes married Sterling Grieve, and ten months later their daughter, Thelma was born.

In 1903 George applied for a permit to add another dwelling behind the house (identified as 1380 Hornby), and by 1905 Agnes and her family had moved in, with Amy born in October 1905. Sterling was from New Brunswick, and a brakeman for the CPR. They didn’t stay in the lane house for long, and in 1907 a four-week old son, Sterling, died. His father worked in the CPR yards and as a fireman, and the family moved around, but always close to Hornby.

George’s son Harold (also a carpenter) was the next to occupy the cottage, in 1906. He had married Mary Girvan in June 1905 and just over seven months later their son George was born. The family moved to West 12th, and a variety of lodgers moved into the cottage. In 1911 there were still six children at home, including oldest son Charles. He had married Emily Hagenbuch from Victoria (who was 14 years younger) in 1910, and they had a daughter, Adelene, in 1920, a year after George’s mother, Susan had died.

In 1921 Archibald Sloan was shown as head of household in the Hornby house, with his wife Isabella and their children, Pervis, Ruby and Ruby . Isabella’s father, George Leslie was still living here, as were two of her siblings, Arthur and Edith. Son Fred, and his wife Josephine were shown in the street directory living in the cottage, but the census seems to have missed them.

George Washington Leslie died in 1924.

Emily Leslie died in 1929 at age 41; her death was reported in the press, and at the time the family were living on Kitchener street, and she was described as a member of the Pythian sisters. Charles was superintendent of the Burrard Shipyard and Engineering Works. He remarried in 1931 to Ella Gill, who was from Winnipeg. The Sun reported the birth of a daughter a year later, although we haven’t traced any further records. His daughter, Adelaine, was only 20 when she died in 1941, and Charles died two years later.

Ernest Leslie and his wife Clare lived here until they sold the house to Wilhelmine Meilike in 1947. Ernest was a shipwright at the Pacific Drydock shipwright, and his bachelor brother, Arthur Purvis Leslie was living in the lane house that year. The Meilike’s converted the house into an interior design store, with their upholsteror Sid Toren living in the laneway house (until 1955). Around 1967 the house becomes a dress design business, Mano Designs, with the owners living in the laneway.

Umberto Menghi established his Italian restaurant, Il Giardino, here in 1973, and soon added the single storey building next door, operating as La Cantina in our 1975 image. It had been built in 1941, when it was the offices of Townley and Matheson, the architects. In the late 1990s Umbert was thinking of adding a boutique hotel tower to the site, and even obtained a development permit. To clear the site he donated the laneway house to the Vancouver Heritage Foundation. The house was moved to a new location in the West End heritage enclave of Mole Hill in 2002.

Umberto never built the hotel, and eventually sold the site, moving his restaurant nearby. The purchaser was Grosvenor Americas, the North American arm of the Duke of Westminster’s property empire, who applied to build a slim 39 storey residential tower with 224 condominiums. The Leslie House, like the laneway, was picked up and moved, but in this case returned to just around the corner to the Pacific Street part of the lot. Fully restored as a commercial building with period details (but to contemporary code), it was sold in 2022.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 780-12

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