These two small buildings are part of a block of very old (for Vancouver), and low-density buildings in what was once one of the most important city streets. On the extreme left of the frame Dr. Whetham’s Arlington Block can be seen, built in 1887. We looked at the building on the right, (home of the Frank & Oak clothing store today), in an earlier post. 314-316 W Cordova was developed in 1905 by R McLeod. We only have newspaper references, not a permit, so we can’t identify the architect, or which of several ‘R McLeods’ this might be. There was contractor called Rod McLeod, although we might expect him to build his own investment. Another possibility was Robert McLeod, an engineer in Victoria who had been married in Vancouver in 1900, and had an interest in a mining company near Nelson.

Next door to the east, (the left hand of the pair), is 310 West Cordova, which was initially numbered as 308. This is the Turner Block, originally designed by C O Wickenden for George Turner in 1889, so it’s one of the oldest buildings in the city. The Heritage Foundation’s website takes their information from the Heritage Statement for the building, that says it was built as a restaurant in 1914, but there’s no permit to support that, although it was altered quite early in its life. The building was vacant in 1915, but there’s an undated image that shows the Arlington Hotel and this building, when it had arched second floor windows. There was a single storey building to the west, so the picture was taken before 1905. It’s possible the upper floors were altered, or the building rebuilt when the Washington Cafe moved in. It opened in 1916, and that might be the source of the Heritage statement date, although we would expect a building permit for any major work, and there doesn’t appear to be one.

There was a George Turner in New Westminster who is well-documented; he was the provincial surveyor. This was a different George Turner; he lived at this address briefly in 1889, but by 1891 had rooms in the Leland House Hotel, where he was was listed in the street directory as ‘speculator’.

He was apparently missed in the 1891 census, but was listed in 1901 as a lodger at the Merchant’s Exchange Hotel, on Seymour Street. That record said he was aged 50, born in 1850 in the United States, and he was a miner who had arrived in Canada in 1886. His age records varied; when he died in 1914, in Savona, his birth date was 1846, and The Province published two obituaries, one citing each year, so it was unclear which was true. He died wealthy, but unmarried, and left his estate to two sisters, Katherine Meeker of Asbury Park and Mary Welles of Los Angeles. Katherine’s family tree shows a brother called George, one of seven children born in New York state, in 1848, so it appears he had a habit of adding or subtracting two years either way when saying how old he was.

It’s not clear what George did before arriving in Canada, but he was already a wealthy man (so perhaps he was a successful miner). He arrived in the city just as it became Vancouver, and acquired property very early, with at least three different lots allowing him to be on the 1887 voter’s list. (In those days, men who owned property could vote, irrespective of nationality). By 1889 he had $30,000 worth of property, and two years later it was worth $10,000 more. Biographies identify some of George’s fortune from mining in the Rossland, Slocan and Sandon areas, but we were wary of confirming that as there was at least one other George Turner (a Spokane judge and politician) who was associated with mining shares in BC, and who is not the Vancouver speculator, and there were three other George Turners with miners certificates. However, it appears reasonably clear that he was involved in both the Great Western Mine in Sandon, and the Two Friends Mine in Slocan in the 1890s where he was superintendent, and had a reputation as ‘an honest broker’. In 1897 he had rooms in Black’s Hotel in Sandon.

When he was in Vancouver he was a member of both the Vancouver Club and the Terminal City Club, and enjoyed playing chess – in 1892 he was president of the Chess and Draughts Club. His business interests outside mining included the early Street Railway company, their rivals, the Gurney Cab Co, and later a milling and grain business and the McLaren-Laurentia Milk Co. He acquired land in the San Joaquin Valley in California, where he established a ranch and was on a fishing trip to Savona in 1914 when he died.

A variety of businesses occupied the premises over the years. From 1916 it was home to the Washington Cafe, and the upper floor had been linked to the Arlington Block and was part of The Arlington Rooms. At the back was a separate 3-storey building that had been used as the Soldier’s Training School. Thomson and Stoess owned 310 W Cordova in 1926, but the repairs were to a workshop, factory and warehouse, so that was probably the building at the back. In 1930 Kydd Brothers occupied the space, and the Washington Cafe was still in operation in front.

Initially no owner was identified for the cafe, as it was ‘Chinese’ (and that was all you apparently needed to know). It had opened in 1911 in the Arlington Block, when it was run by Mer Wing. Two waitresses were wanted in 1911, when the wages offered were $9 a week. In 1922 John Ming Ching was listed (in the Chinese Section of the Directory) as manager. In 1931 Gin Gin was manager, and in 1935, the last time it appeared, Wong Do.

In 1936 the building was empty, and by 1939 a safe manufacturer, J & J Taylor, had moved in, with Sinclair Bros making confectionery in the building on the lane. That situation remained the same in 1955, the last year we can check directories online. A few years ago The Deluxe Junk Co had a clothing consignment store, then by 2016 Woodsons had their law office over a Versace Home store, and today Neumann & Associates, a law firm have their offices over the Indonesian Trade Promotion Centre

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives (copyright) CVA 810-21 and UCR California Museum of Photography 1996.0009.X4834

1187

Here’s the Vancouver Club’s 1893 premises for sale in 1930. To the west is the club’s newer building, designed by Sharp and Thompson and opened in 1914. Many published histories will tell you that the new building replaced the old, but as this picture shows, that’s not exactly accurate. The club developed their new building, opening on January 1st 1914, on the site where there was an earlier single storey annex to the first club building. That had been designed by C O Wickenden, and like the new club, was state-of-the-art when it was first constructed.

Initially the Club had occupied space in the Lefevre Block, which was opened in 1890. Many of the first members were associated with the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the club was seen as having the city’s ‘elite’ membership. CPR executive (and property developer) Harry Abbott and its chief surveyor, J M Browning helped found the club.

Once the club moved into their own building in 1894, David Oppenheimer, the mayor, and Isaac, his brother, and another important landowner were also members. The Daily World said “The idea originated in the minds of conservative men of a class who want a thing good and who are willing to have the patience to abide their time in order to secure the fulfilment of their desires.” The building was said to have been designed with ‘refined elegance’ and featured a lower floor with billiard room with two tables, and a bowling alley, as well as cold storage and a cellar. Upstairs were a wine room, a reading room and a refrigerated room. Above that were two card rooms and two dining rooms, with oak paneling, as well as the kitchen and pastry room. At the top of the building were bedrooms for ‘the help’. and also for members or guests.

Having moved again to even larger premises, the club retained its pretentions through the decades. Rafe Mair wrote about joining the club; “In 1966, the Vancouver Club was an English-style men’s club: dark and cheerless, where voices were kept at a murmur and displays of mirth beyond the hint of a smile were frowned upon. Women were allowed as guests and then only at dinner – escorted by a member, of course – and were not permitted to enter the premises through the main doors.” “The reading room was on the main floor, and boasted deep armchairs and a selection of all the right magazines and papers, such as the London Times, Punch, the Illustrated London News and, oh heresy, The New Yorker. That was where, after a liquid lunch, the cream of Vancouver’s business community slept it off before wobbling back to the office. They would return to the club at 5 p.m. sharp and repair promptly to the third-floor bar to top off the day with a few drinks for the road.” Women were finally allowed to become members in 1994, and more joined when the women-only Georgian Club merged its membership. The club has evolved significantly since then, in terms of both membership profile and activities.

The old building was initially occupied by the Great War Veteran’s Association, and later a new club, the Quadra Club was started there around 1923. That allowed members to obtain a drink – although prohibition had ended in BC in 1921, the availability of liquor and the rules for saloons were onerous; clubs had greater freedom. The Quadra Club moved a block to the west along West Hastings in 1930.

The building was demolished not long after it was sold (as this Vancouver Public Library image shows) and the site has, remarkably, never really been developed since then. In the 1940s and 50s it had Thompson and Graham’s gas bar, service station and privately owned parking lot. (There was also another gas station on the north side of the street in 1940). It was still a parking lot in the 1980s, and indeed, it is today, although you wouldn’t know from this image. The entrance to Lot 19 is on the next street to the north, West Cordova, and there are 409 city-owned underground parkade space underneath the civic plaza with a pedestrian right-of-way, and public art. This consists of the (unintentionally ironically named) ‘Working Landscapes, by Daniel Laskarin, installed in 1998 “Four circular platforms are set in the park throughway beside the Vancouver Club. Each platform has a park bench and a living indigenous tree in a round steel planter on it. The platforms are made of wood and rotate at subtle speeds based on the work week: 1 hour, 8 hours and 40 hours. The fourth platform represents the 20-minute coffee break.” The mechanisms have been repaired and replaced several times, but more often than not, it seems, they’re not working.

Image Source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 677-67

1027

This 1967 image shows an office building that today looks like it dates from the 1980s. 1112 West Pender and several of it’s neighbours developed in the ’80s were clad in red brick, but in 1960, when it was completed, The Fidelity Life Insurance building had a more contemporary look. The architects, McCarter and Nairne included angled vertical aluminum sunshades in front of the east facing windows – a device seen on contemporary buildings like the United Kingdom Building and the City Library. We suspect there may have been issues with that idea in our West Coast climate, as they didn’t survive very long on any of the buildings.

On the east side of Thurlow, closer to us, were three buildings from an earlier era. They were all demolished soon after this picture was taken. A new office building was developed here, completed in 1971, designed by Gerald Hamilton and Associates for Dawson Developments. That 12 storey building, with pre-cast concrete panel walls, was demolished in 2019, with an adjacent parkade, and is now the site for the construction of a new 33 storey office tower.

On the left were the Crosby Rooms at 1054 W Pender, with Coffee Time Café and Ivan’s Barber’s Shop. We’re pretty certain this was developed by Leonard P Newton, an English-born real estate broker. L P Newton obtained a permit to build a rooming house in 1910 at 1054 Pendrell, but the legal lot recorded was this one, and the rooms here were completed in 1911, so it seems likely that the clerk made an error. Mr. Newton and his family were shown in Vancouver in the 1911 census, with his son, married daughter and her son living with Leonard and his wife Agnes who was from Ontario. The name of the rooms may have reflected Mr. Newton’s origins; a Leonard Newton was born in Lancashire in 1856. As with most investment rental properties, the owner didn’t manage the rooms. Initially that was Louana MacDonald. Over the years the proprietor (who was usually not the owner) changed many times; in the 1950s the rooms were managed by Victor and Lorna Zbyryt.

Next door, the lot runs all the way back to Eveleigh Street, and there were several buildings constructed over the years. Here, we think there was a house on the street that was moved in 1911 to middle of the lot, and this new brick 3-storey building replaced it. The architect was C O Wickenden, and the permit says the project cost $7,500. The architects fees were probably discounted, as the owner was also C O Wickenden. A year later he spent a further $8,000 on the property, making alterations (and perhaps adding the retail units). He made further minor alterations in 1913, and in 1917. His home address was here too, all the way though to the 1920s. We think he may have occupied the house that was moved to me centre of the lot.

Charles Wickenden, who was born in Kent, in England, practiced architecture in Vancouver from 1889, but this wasn’t his first city where he designed buildings. He first moved to New York in the early 1870s before moving to New Brunswick in 1876, where his work included Acadian College in Wolfesville, Nova Scotia. He may have met his wife, Clara there, as she was from New Brunswick. In 1881 he had moved west to Winnipeg, where he had several prestigious commissions including court houses and the Hudson’s Bay Company. He announced he was moving to Victoria in 1888, but instead started designing a long list of significant Vancouver buildings in 1889, including Christ Church. He retired from designing buildings around 1914, and died 20 years later.

At the end of the block there was a single house in the 1900s and early 1910s, with this retail addition appearing later. It was owned in 1923 by Credit Foncier, who paid for some minor repairs.

0967

Surprisingly, we haven’t published an image of the second Bay store that sat on a prime piece of CPR land at the corner of Granville and West Georgia. The first Bay store was closer to the early city, built on Cordova Street around 1887, a location they only retained for eight years. Presumably, once it became apparent that CP’s efforts to move the centre of the city’s action westward to Granville Street were paying off, the Bay decided to join in. In 1892 C O Wickenden was hired to build a new store on Granville Street, near the CP’s Hotel Vancouver, their opera house, and many other office buildings developed by CP Directors. Some were involved in the Hudson’s Bay Company – so that probably helped the decision, and the new store was much bigger, so a larger site was needed as well (although initially only two floors were going to be occupied).

The Daily World described the plans in April 1892 “As mentioned in The World a few days ago C. P. Shindler has been awarded the contract for the new building to be put up by the Hudson’s Bay company on the corner of Granville and Georgia streets. The designs prepared by C. Osborne Wickenden show what will be a very handsome structure, four storeys high. The building will be of brick with stone dressings and after what may be called the Romanesque style of architecture. The basement will be divided and half used as a store room with a small section taken off to accommodate the furnaces, and the other half as a liquor store. On the ground floor will be the grocery and dry goods departments, and in the second storey will be put the millinery and carpet departments. The third and fourth storeys will for the present remain unfinished. The dimensions of the building are 50 x 100 feet, which affords ample accommodation in every department. The contract price will total up to about $25,000, but it will take more than that if the third and fourth storeys are to be finished.”

This 1908 Vancouver Public Library shot shows the store had an array of large picture windows on both Granville and Georgia. Very quickly the growth of the city ensured that all four floors were needed – and then more. We’re unclear when the building became 100′ wide on Granville – it must have been after 1898 (when the image on the right was taken), but before 1901 when the insurance map of the day shows the building above, and it seems likely that Mr. Wickenden was still the architect. In 1913 a new addition, quite a bit bigger in scale and grander in design was added to the east, running down Seymour Street. Even that proved inadequate for the stores’ needs, and in 1926 the brick store was demolished and a further enlargement of the 1913 store was built, designed by Burke, Horwood and White (who had also designed the 1913 store).

The creamy white terra cotta design referenced the Selfridge department store in London, and similar buildings went up in Victoria, Calgary and Winnipeg, all designed by the Toronto based architects. The 1926 Vancouver store expansion took just six months to build after demolition of the 1893 structure; the five reinforced concrete floors were erected in just two and a half weeks.

Image source Vancouver Public Library and City of Vancouver Archives Bu N417

0513

 

 

This significant heavy wood-frame warehouse was one of the first in this part of Water Street. Built in 1894, it is said to have been designed by C O Wickenden for the Hudson’s Bay Company with three floors whose function included the storage of furs and liquor.

The Vancouver Daily World announced completion under the headline: A SUBSTANTIAL, STRUCTURE. “What is probably the most strongly constructed building in the city has just been completed ready for occupation. It Is situated on Water street and will be used as a warehouse, wholesale offices and liquor store by the Hudson’s Bay Company. The latter apartment will be taken possession of on Monday and the other at an early date. The binding has a frontage on Water street of 80 feet and a depth of 120, running lack to the C. P. R. tracks, where there is a covered way for the unloading of cars on the spur that is to be run into the building. There are two parts to the building all the way up. and there are practically two large cellars which promise to be the best storage apartments.”

While it may be a subsequent design, it’s possible that Mr. Wickenden only supervised the construction; the Winnipeg Tribune in September 1893 announced that George Creeford Brown had designed the building.

In less than a decade it was too small, and Dalton & Eveleigh were hired to add $8,000 of additional space on two further floors in 1903. (Dalton had designed the additional floors on both the warehouses to the east as well). Both the original design and the addition utilized the Romanesque Revival, with curved brick arches ending up appearing on alternate floors.

This 1941 Vancouver Public Library image shows the Bay continued to use the warehouse over many years, until the early 1950s. It was the company’s general office in the city in 1912, but reverted to warehouse use later. In the 1950s J F Mussenden took over the building as a shoe warehouse. The top floors were gutted by fire in the early 1970s, and the building was rebuilt with Werner Forster supervising the renovation. Renamed Hudson House, it is now used as commercial office space over retail and restaurant uses (like most of Water Street).

0456

Here’s the central part of the north side of the 100 block of Water Street, said to have been taken in 1920. In the foreground on the edge of the picture is a produce warehouse. F R Stewart moved here in the early 1920s from a few doors to the west – so we think this is more likely to be around 1921. The warehouse was altered for the company to move in 1920, and appears to have been developed by another produce business, J Y Griffin, in 1906, who also added an expensive Refrigerating plant and frame freezer in the same year.

Down the street at 141 Water Street is the large 1898 warehouse which the Heritage Statement says was developed as an investment by John Twigge. Major-General Twigge was born in Dublin but was a member of the British army (in the Royal Engineers). He arrived with his brother around 1897, and both invested in property throughout the Lower Mainland, as we noted in an earlier post. There’s no architectural attribution for the warehouse, or the additional two storeys that were built before 1906. It’s possible the Twigges acquired a recently commissioned building rather than acting as developers. In 1898 the Province announced the development of a ‘warehouse for the Estate of Hon. Theo Davies near the W.H. Malkin & Co. warehouse’ designed by C O Wickenden. Malkin’s warehouse was actually in this location, and the two businesses leasing space in 1898 who would both expand and build their own warehouses in a very short time were W H Malkin and Kelly and Douglas.

There had been a small building between the two warehouses predating them both; it was built as the Royal Hotel in 1888 by Benjamin Wood. He left England in 1882, followed by his wife and three children, arriving in Victoria before heading to New Westminster where Ben set up in the hotel trade. Hearing about the fire destroying Vancouver, it’s said the he established a soup kitchen for the firefighters (who would be the remaining residents of the newly created city). A year later the family moved to Vancouver: Ben set up shop as a tailor and built the Royal Hotel with 26 rooms, and his wife, Frances, (like Ben, born in Buxton in Derbyshire) as proprietor. He partnered to buy The Stewart House hotel in 1889, but sold it a year later and returned to running the Royal, now renamed the Albion Hotel. In 1891 he was back in New Westminster, as a brewer. Despite apparently being owned by Emma Gold, In 1894 the Albion was sold at auction by Mrs F Wood, after she won a court case against Emma and Edward Gold in 1893. In 1893 Emma had proposed to build an addition to the Albion Hotel, but she was refused; “a corrugated-iron addition to the Albion Hotel, Water Street being contrary to the terms of the Fire Bylaw”. In 1896 she asked for a street crossing to the Albion Hotel (that she would pay for). This suggests she either settled with Mrs. Wood, or acquired it back, and it became the Imperial Hotel in 1898 before being converted to one of the many fruit and vegetable warehouses on the street in 1901. Ben and Frances divorced at some point, and he remarried, but he stayed in the area and was still a tailor when he joined the Pioneer Association in 1923. He was living on Lulu Island when he died in 1933.

There’s a building permit from 1910 for a new building designed by Parr and Fee here. It was for E Gould, for a $10,000 building. We think that was Emma Gold, who we think had also developed the warehouse closer to us with the arched windows. It was completed before 1901 and as the Twigge block to the west of the Albion Hotel was built in 1898 it seems likely to be the 1890 ‘commercial block for Mrs. Gold adjoining the Albion Hotel’ designed by E A McCartney. Mrs Gold was Emma, the wife of Louis Gold, the owner of the Gold House Hotel across the street a block away. By 1910 Louis had died, and Mrs Gold was an active property developer in the city. An 1890 minute of City Council business confirms that Emma owned this lot, and was seeking confirmation of the site’s building line.

The Heritage Statement for the building, 131 Water attributes it to Parr and Fee for Emma Gold, and calls it the F R Stewart Building, once Stewart’s moved a few doors to the east, Swartz Brothers, another wholesale food company replaced them. In 1920 they obtained a permit for a new $12,000 building designed by Gardiner & Mercer, but there’s a mid 1920s photograph showing the building faced with white glazed bricks, suggesting a Parr and Fee design, so the new owners seem to have made the best of the 1910 building rather than redeveloping.

Like the Royal Hotel, The Twigge building is still standing today. It was converted to residential uses on the upper floors in 1996 (with two extra floors added behind a setback, designed by Merrick Architects) and called ‘The Malkin’. Both the other buildings were replaced in 1974 by the Henriques and Todd designed ‘Gaslight Square‘ for Marathon Realty.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives  CVA 99 – 3257

0351

We’ve made several references to one of the city’s earliest churches, but we haven’t actually given it a post. It dates back to 1889 – or at least, the basement floor does. The congregation of 52 first met that year in the basement – apparently nicknamed the ‘root house’ at the time, but took a while to get the necessary finances together to compl;ete the building.

Despite the presence of CPR Executives in the congregation, including Henry Cambie, the company threatened to have the sheriff seize the land as they considered the half-built structure was damaging their land sales nearby. A number of other prominent Anglicans helped out, including Lacey Johnson, Henry Ceperley and W J Salsbury. J.W. Weart – a law student at the time – came up with a complicated scheme to establish a company that issued $40,000 of stock, and on the strength of the $4,000 raised by the parishioners then borrowed $18,000 on a mortgage from the Sun Life Insurance Company to pay for the building.

C O Wickenden was given the job of designing the church – not bad for an architect who had only arrived in the city the year before. Once building of thev main structure started – in July 1894 – things went fast and the church dedication service was in February 1895. The completed church is shown in this early picture (around 1900), and today it’s quite a bit bigger. In 1909 the first addition was completed, designed by Dalton and Eveleigh. The building was lengthened and widened to the north and a balcony added, increasing seating capacity to 1,200.

In 1929 the Archbishop of New Westminster constituted Christ Church as the Cathedral Church of the Diocese, and the bishop’s throne was moved from Holy Trinity in New Westminster. A year later the cathedral planned to expand again – this time designed by Twizell and Twizell. The land was acquired using funds from the estate of E D Farmer – the Fort Worth based real estate baron who built the Farmer Block, and who had died in 1924. The actual construction didn’t take place until 1937, once the depression was over. That’s pretty much the building you see today – although there has been extensive restoration and the roof and floor have been restored to their original appearance.

A 1970s proposal to demolish the church and replace it with an Arthur Erickson tower (that would incorporate a new church space) raised massive opposition. Instead a scheme was devised to allow the development potential of the site to be added to the adjacent site (Park Place – completed in 1984) and the cathedral became a designated heritage building. This was the first of many similar density transfer projects that has allowed some of the city’s older buildings to be saved – and even somewhat ironically an Arthur Erickson office building.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 1376-174

0302

Here’s another of Harvey Hadden’s Vancouver investments – possibly his first. The corner of Hastings and Cambie was important – across the street from the courthouse and near the newspaper offices. C O Wickenden designed the new Hadden investment, a series of retail stores and offices called ‘The Arcade’. S M Eveleigh was working in Wickenden’s office at the time, and knowing that Eveleigh subsequently designed a number of other buildings for Hadden, he may also have been involved with this one.

Major Matthews, the city archivist, recorded his impressions of the corner. “On the corner, a wooden building is the famed “Arcade,” with thirteen small shops, cutting through corner from Hastings to Cambie St. The first office of the “Great Northern Railway” is on the corner… The “Arcade” was built about Dec. 1895. “Meet you in the Arcade” was a common expression.”

Donald Luxton, in Building the West, records the impressions of the Arcade when the economy was in the doldrums despite the arrival of the railway “the enterprise betokened temerity for what prospect was there for Vancouver? What was there to lead one to suppose that this far city in the west would ever develop into anything worthwhile?“. Just twelve years later the building was torn down and replaced over a two year construction period with, for a while, the tallest building in the British Empire; the Dominion Trust Building. Undoubtedly, as with the Royal Bank site, Harvey Hadden made a substantial profit on the sale of the site.

Designed by J S Helyer and Son, the unusual Beaux-Arts triangular terra cotta clad Dominion Building remains a landmark today, now set in the context of Victory Square across the street (the Courthouse having been removed many years ago). Our Archives images were both shot around 1900 when the city was growing, but at a slower pace than many had hoped. We already blogged an 1896 image of the street that showed how slow things were (there are cows being driven up the street)

Image source, City of Vancouver Archives CVA 371-2097 and CVA 371-2103

0247

By 1941 the Templeton Block was over 50 years old, but was still in a busy part of town, across from the BC Electric headquarters of the streetcar system. When we last saw it in 1926 it had a huge hoarding on the roof. By 1941 it was almost back to how it looked over forty years earlier. Dr Harry Dier had his offices here from the early 1930s – in 1935 his nurse was a relative (perhaps his daughter), Enid. That year there were five other doctors still here (as in the 1920s) but Dr Dier, a dentist, was the only one to advertise his presence.

The Seven Little Tailors and the Baltimore Cafe were in the building to the end of the 1930s, and the tailors were still there in 1941 right on the left edge of this picture. The cafe has become D Handel’s barber shop, and just as in 1926 the United Cigar Stores is still on the corner. Along East Hastings G A Govier is selling hats and the Howard Jewelry store had closed in 1940, replaced by H Frome’s OK Exchange Jewelry store. As well as doctor Dier there were two doctors and the ship’s chandler’s office of H T Nelson.

In 2001, much of the building was renovated by the Portland Hotel Society to provide a gallery space called The Interurban.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA Bu P297

0209

In 1926 this corner was buzzing. In the 25 years since 1901 (when our previous blog image was taken) the city’s population had risen from 29,000 to 200,000. The Seven Little Tailors had competition from the 3 Big Tailors in the next door building two doors down, while William Dick had paid for a huge billboard to try to get customers to his East Hastings store just to the east along the street where he claimed to have 4,000 suits ready-to-wear. The pressure to move from this earlier business district to the CPR’s Granville Street hub was apparent – by the end of the year Dick’s clothing store had moved five blocks westwards.

The building on the corner was already 35 years old when this picture was taken. We last saw it when McTaggart and Moscrop’s hardware store and the Mint Saloon had moved in around 1901, Both operations were still there in 1906, and William D Wood was still running the Mint. By 1911 Knowlton’s Drugs had moved into the building, and on Carrall there was a branch of the Bank of Toronto.  In 1916 it was the Olympic Confectionery store with a taxi office for the Big Five Auto and Taxi Service to the north, and Knowlton’s Drugs  were at No 9 E Hastings – a location the we think the same company still occupy today, although the numbering has changed a little). Upstairs were doctor’s offices as well as the Shipmasters Association. By 1920 Albert Doane’s clothing store was next to the Blue Funnel Motor Line, the Confectionery store and Knowlton’s Drugs are still there, with six doctor’s offices on the upper floors. Beyond Knowlton’s was a shoe store and the Hastings Lunch.

Our 1926 image shows that between the Seven Little Tailors (who also offered cleaning and pressing) and the United Cigar Store (who had replaced the confectionery store) the Baltimore Oyster Saloon had opened. The Dairy Maid was next door on East Hastings, the Howard Jewelry Company were next door and then Knowlton’s Drugs. The doctor”s offices were still upstairs, although one was vacant. Beyond Knowlton’s was the Acme Clothing Co. While the Seven Little Tailors appear to be owned by Philip Pearlman, his height (or his six partners) was not disclosed in the Directory.

Image Source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 99-2257

0208