We looked at the street view of these Beatty Street warehouse a few years ago. This picture was taken 50 years ago, (in 1972) a decade before the stadium was built on the old rail lands between the buildings and False Creek.

The shorter building with the white finish has gone completely. The warehouse was the most expensive of the three. In 1912 a permit was issued for a building to cost $150,000. Designed by Parr, McKenzie & Day for John W Gibb it was pre-leased to the The Canadian Fairbanks Company, who stepped in and completed the building when Mr. Gibbs ran into cash flow problems. The case was resolved in court, Mr. Gibbs ended up losing his interest in the building (to his father), and Fairbanks, a machinery supplier, stayed here until the 1950s.

In the middle is a building that cost $140,000 for the National Drug Co, built by George Snider & Brethour in 1913, designed by H S Griffith. Today it has had a blue tile makeover, and like its neighbour is used as office space. The four bay warehouse was designed by Dalton and Eveleigh for F T Cope. The same builders as its neighbour completed it at a cost of $75,000.

The Fairbanks warehouse was demolished and became the plaza in front of the BC Place stadium, constructed in the early 1980s, (allowing windows to be installed in the side of the National Drug Co building). The Terry Fox memorial, designed by Douglas Coupland, is located here. The rest of the site was part of the land sold to Concord Pacific, and they in turn sold it to PCI Group to develop an office building, initially known for its lead tenant as The Pivotal Building, designed by Busby & Associates, and completed in 2002. A second phase was leased to the Federal Government. PCI developed the site ‘in partnership with high net worth private investor’.

On the right are trees planted at the time the stadium was built, and which will be cut down soon. The former Pacific Press printing works is located on the corner of Beatty and Georgia, built in 1949. It was converted in 1968 to the boilerhouse of Central Heat Distribution who established a centralized heating network throughout the Downtown. New boilers are about to be installed in conjunction with a large, S-shaped office building and entertainment pavilion that will replace the 1940s building while still retaining the heating system operations.

Image source City of Vancouver Archives CVA 780-5

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This former printing works has barely changed in appearance in the 40 years since this image was taken. The original ‘Brick Printing House’ was developed by the B C Printing & Engraving Company in 1907, and cost $15,000. They had previously been on the corner of Water and Abbott Streets, and C B Wainwright was manager of the lithography company. In 1912 there was a development permit for the Hon. H Bostock, who had Dalton and Eveleigh design a $10,000 addition built by Robert McCullough. (That may indicate who designed the original 1907 building as well – built in the few years that we have no permits to identify an architect).

Hewitt Bostock was an absentee owner, born in 1864, in Surrey, England. He had money, and a law degree. He arrived in Canada in 1886, and ranched in the Thompson Valley in the area that would be known later as Monte Creek. He returned to England in 1890 to marry, and only returned to Canada in 1893. He founded the Province newspaper as a weekly in Victoria in 1894, and invested widely in other businesses, including lumbering, mining companies, another newspaper and commercial buildings in Kamloops.

As far as we can tell this was his only Vancouver investment, and it appears he owned the printing business. He moved The Province to Vancouver in 1898, making it a daily paper, initially printed by BC Printing and Engraving. He had run for parliament and won, representing Yale-Cariboo in 1896, but didn’t run again in 1900. In 1899 The Province became an independent business, with Hewitt Bostock retaining a minority interest until Walter Nichol bought him out in 1901. In 1904, he was appointed to the Canadian Senate and became the leader of the Liberals there in 1914.  In 1921, he was briefly appointed the minister of public works in William Lyon Mackenzie King’s first administration. In 1922, he became the speaker of the Senate. In 1925, he was a Canadian delegate at the sixth assembly of the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.

In 1930, the year Hewitt Bostock died in Monte Creek, Bulman Bros. Ltd. of Winnipeg bought out BC Printing & Litho Ltd. They had printed a wide variety of material, including postcards and salmon can labels. From the printed samples that still exist, Bulman Bros. showed a similarly varied client list: picture postcards from the 1930s, a 1959 campsite map for British Columbia, apple crate labels for the Salmon Arm Farmers’ Exchange and even a school exercise book. In 1938 Thomas L Kerr carried out alterations to the building for the business, which closed in Vancouver in 1962 (and in Winnipeg in 1993).

In recent years there have been a variety of businesses in the building, with office space on the upper floors and an art gallery and coffee bar now replaced by an Italian restaurant.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 779-E09.07

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This side of Granville Street was demolished to make room for the extension of Pacific Centre Mall northwards. At the far end of the block in this 1953 image was the Colonial Theatre, a cinema converted in 1912 from an 1888 office building. We looked at its history in one of our early posts over 8 years ago. It was originally designed by New York architect Bruce Price for Sir William Van Horne. President of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Since then, the 1981 office tower that replaced the cinema has been reclad to a lighter colour, with double glazed widows.

Closer to us, just showing on the left of the picture was 679 Granville, a 1910 3-storey building designed by Dalton & Eveleigh for Henry Bell-Irving. In 1953 Purdy’s chocolate store was here, with the Devon Cafe. Next door, at 665 Granville, D’Allaird’s lady’s clothing store had obscured the facade of their building. It appears to have been built in 1904, with the St Louis rooms above retail, initially occupied by R J Buchanan’s crockery store, and Cicero Davidson’s jewelers. We think the site was owned and developed by Jonathan Rogers, who applied to build a $24,000 building on the three lots here in 1904 – described (somewhat inaccurately) as a ‘frame dwelling’. The whole building included both the D’Aillards lot and the building with mis-matched windows to the north. (It’s hard to see in the image, but one has a curved cornice, and the other a shallow pyramid). Mr. Rogers was a builder and identified himself as the architect too (although the mismatched window style is how G W Grant liked to design buildings). D’Aillards Blouses Ltd carried out work to 651 Granville (just to the north) in 1925, so had been in this area for many years.

The next building appears to have two identical facades, but was developed as a single structure, also in 1904. It was designed by Parr and Fee for ‘Mrs. Northgroves’, and cost $15,000. We’re not completely sure who she was. She doesn’t appear in any street directory, or census, although she was listed as attending a function with many other women in 1913. The most likely was Miss Alice Jane Northgraves, who lived on ‘income’, with her sister (and her sister’s husband, William Walsh, who was listed as a ‘capitalist’ under occupation in the 1911 census). In 1905 and in 1908 Mrs. Walsh and Miss Northgrave left the city to spend the winter in Southern California. Mr. Walsh developed a number of properties in the city, including some designed by Parr and Fee. Miss Northgraves died in Vancouver in 1922, aged 63.

The building with the four Roman arches beyond also dates from the early 1900s, and we’ve failed to identify the architect or developer. In the early 1920s it was owned by B. Holt Fur Company, who spent over $5,000 on repairs and alterations. In the 1910s P W Charleson carried out repairs to 641 and 657 Granville on several occasions, and ‘Charlson & Abbott’ to 665 Granville. (Percy Charleson also owned 800 Granville, two blocks to the south). Fraser Hardware also paid for alterations to 641 Granville in the mid 1910s, and were tenants here. Brown Bros appear to have owned the properties in the mid 1920s.

Down the street, the narrower four storey building was approved to be developed as an apartment building in 1912. Charles Williams of Acroyd & Gall claimed to be developer, architect and builder of the $29,000 project. This was one of very few building lots that had originally been developed before 1901 (when the only other building that had been developed was the 1888 office on the corner). Richards, Ackroyd and Gall were an Insurance, Finance and Real Estate agency and there was a civil engineer called Charles Williams who might have managed the development. It’s not clear if the project was for the company, or whether they were representing a client when they submitted the plans.

Next door, there’s a modest 2-storey building. It was developed in 1910 by W F Huntting, who hired Thomas Hooper to design the $13,000 investment. William Foster Huntting was the wealthy president of the Huntting-Merritt Lumber Company, and he had a Shaughnessy mansion built in 1912. He was born in Iowa in 1879, and was successful in business at a young age, founding his lumber company in 1902, the year he arrived in BC. He died in 1930.

There’s another small building to the north, designed by W T Dalton for Edward Bros, who spent $7,000, hiring E Cook to build it in 1902. Beyond that, (just before the cinema), is a building on two lots. It has a shallow bay window on the second floor, and was apparently called The Bower Block in 1907, when it was developed by G Bower, who hired Hooper and Watkins to design the $15,000 investment. George Bower built other Granville projects including a much larger investment on the next block to the north two years later, using the same architects.

Image source: Leonard Frank, Jewish Museum LF.00308

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We’re looking north on Howe from Dunsmuir in 1936. On the left is the Angelus Confectionery store, in a building dating back to at least 1889. We looked at its history in an earlier post. The corner on the left today has a 1976 fourteen storey office tower, but an earlier proposal (in 1971) would have seen a nine storey parkade, with a basement restaurant/cabaret. That project was rejected – the architect who proposed the building was Frank Musson and Associates, so it’s quite likely that they also designed the office tower that was subsequently approved, known as The Good Earth Building. While it’s a candiadate for redevelopment one day as a bigger office building, it underwent a 2006 retrofit of heating, cooling and lighting systems that saw a 32% improvement in energy efficiency – at a cost that has already been paid back today.

Down the street on the west side were (and are) a series of low-rise low density buildings which surprisingly have yet to consolidated and redeveloped. Past the Angelus Confectionery premises was an office and store designed by Dalton & Eveleigh and built in 1921 for E Bloomfield by H A Wiles. It replaced two earlier houses. The developer was probably Edgar Bloomfield, a barrister, who lived in Point Grey.

In 1912 J J Grey hired architect A E Cline to design a single storey retail store on the next lot north. John J Gray was a real estate agent who had developed other investment property in the city. Given the amount of change in the Downtown in the past century, he and Mr. Cline would probably both be rather surprised that the store is still standing today.

On the right in the 1936 picture is the Hambro Building built around 1923. Before it was built, there was a house here that was the Japanese consulate. At 572 Howe was an office & store designed by Gardiner & Mercer for J Adam in 1929, costing $45,000 to build, and in the same year R T Perry designed 540 Howe costing Branson, Brown & Co. $37,500 to develop.

Today this is the northern part of the Pacific Centre Mall, completed in 1990 with an 18 storey office tower designed by Zeidler Roberts Partnership. Beyond it is Pender Place, a pair of identical towers designed by Underwood, McKinley, Wilson & Smith and completed in 1973.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives Str N283.

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If the 1913 police station on East Cordova was relatively short-lived (from being built in 1913 to demolition in 1956), its predecessor fared even worse. It was built in 1903, and was on the same spot that the 1913 building was constructed. As far as we know there was nothing actually wrong with the earlier building (seen here in 1910), but the city grew dramatically in the early 1900s and a larger building was needed very quickly.

It was designed by Dalton & Eveleigh and had cost a not insubstantial $38,000. It included the Police Court and jail, and was on the same block as the fire hall. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that it would be demolished once the decision was made to build a new facility; initially some on the City Council favoured using a Powell Street site that the City had finally obtained title to, after a long court battle. It was where the first City hall had been built, immediately after the fire. After some debate it was decided the existing location was a better choice. We’re not sure what the part of the building to the west side was – perhaps the coroner’s laboratory, but the design is surprisingly similar to the 1978 Kiss and Harrison police station that sits on the site today.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 371-2129

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Two of the warehouse buildings seen in this 1981 image are still standing, and one has disappeared. At the far end is a 1914 building, designed by Dalton and Eveleigh for F T Cope. George Snider & Brethour built it at a cost of $75,000. In the middle is a building costing $140,000 for the National Drug Co, and also built by George Snider & Brethour a year earlier, designed by H S Griffith. Thomas Hooper was hired to make $1,500 of alterations in 1914. With replacement windows it looks much more recent, and since our 1981 image was taken it’s had a blue tile makeover.

The third warehouse was the most expensive. In 1912 a permit was issued for a building to cost $150,000. Designed by Parr, McKenzie & Day for John W Gibb it was to be occupied by The Canadian Fairbanks Company.

Cope & Sons were electrical suppliers. Frederick T Cope was company president, an Englishman (from Oxford) who emigrated to Manitoba at 19, and arrived in Vancouver in 1895 when he was 35, and established the business two years later. In 1914, when they built the new warehouse, Frank R Cope was company treasurer and Bert F Cope company secretary. In 1911 both were still at home with Fred and Marjory, their mother, who was born in Ontario, but had their own homes three years later.

The National Drug and Chemical Company of Canada started in business in 1905, initially in Montreal, then rapidly across the country through expansion and buying out other businesses. David Bole was already a successful drugstore operator from Manitoba, and established the national wholesaling and manufacturing business with six million dollars of capital. State-of-the-art factories were established for both pharmaceuticals (in Montreal) and by 1908 125 items, including cough syrup, skin cream, shampoo, and toothpaste were manufactured in Toronto. The Vancouver distribution centre was opened soon after Calgary and Regina. In 1920 National Drug reorganized its administrative structure, as business had increased by 250 per cent in the previous 10 years. The business still operated here in the 1950s, and is still in business today as Canada’s leading drug wholesaler (now part of US business McKesson).

The Canadian Fairbanks Company was created in 1905 by Henry Fuller, who bought out the Canadian interests of the US parent company, at the time the largest machinery and mill supply company in Canada. They immediately occupied a new warehouse on Water Street developed by McLennan & McFeely. They had a warehouse and machine shop in the building. Within ten years they were looking for larger premises, and moved into the Beatty Street warehouse.

The developer, John Gibb, was a broker with an office in the Rogers Building and a home in the West End. His father, David Gibb, was a retired contractor with an excellent reputation. A 1915 court case shows his son’s business scruples weren’t quite as pure. It referred back to the 1912 deal with Canadian Fairbanks to occupy the building, with lease payments of $242,000 over 10 years, (starting at $22,000 for each of the first 3 years).  The building had to be ready for 1 August 1913, and if delayed no rent was due. Walter Meuller was hired to build the warehouse for $106,000. It became clear in May 1913 that Mr. Gibb was suffering “financial embarrassment” (to quote the judge), and it also transpired that he did not own the land outright, as he had claimed, but rather held an equity stake. That meant banks wouldn’t advance him a loan to complete the building. Mr. Gibb actually needed over $200,000 to complete the building and obtain tiitle – he had a deal with Harvey Haddon to advance $106,000 on completion, but that wasn’t going to solve his problem. He was willing to sit back and seemed to think that, as the agreed rent was a bargain, he might get out of his predicament. Fairbanks weren’t willing to wait, and paid the contractors to finish the job, in October.

This was highly unusual, and as the judge noted “Failure of Gibb to satisfactorily carry on construction or to complete within the time specified did not entitle the plaintiff to enter on the premises and proceed with the work.” Trustees were appointed immediately after the 1 August date was passed, and the interest in the property was transferred to David Gibb, John’s father. A Fairbanks manager was initially a trustee, but his head office forced him to withdraw, and launched the case to try to obtain a significant sum that they had paid to complete the building. The judge didn’t agree, but imposed the $20 per day pre-agreed fine for missing the August 1st deadline, and another $800 because the building didn’t use equipment sold by Fairbanks in its construction, as the lease agreement stipulated. Fairbanks also received their costs.

Despite this rocky start, Canadian Fairbanks were still occupying the building in the 1950s. It was cleared to become the plaza in front of the BC Place stadium, constructed in the early 1980s, allowing new windows in the side of the National Drug Co building. The Terry Fox memorial, designed by Douglas Coupland, is located here. The other warehouses have been converted to office use; one is home to a private school.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 779-E18.04

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This building on Main Street at Keefer had seen better days when this image was shot in 1978, and we’ve looked at it from the Keefer side in an earlier post. We identified several different businesses who operated on the corner in that post, and we’ve found several more that we note here. Our after shot was taken a couple of years ago, before HSBC Bank moved out, and Vancity Credit Union moved in, but the building there today looks exactly the same – just the signs have changed. Wayfoong House was built in 1996 and designed by W T Leung. It has four floors, with offices above retail and a double height corner atrium. When HSBC moved out Vancity took over the second floor office space and banking hall and Tim Horton’s opened around the corner on Keefer Street.

The original building, at least in part, may have dated back to the 1890s. There were stores here as early as 1889; a single storey building with a dress maker, a ‘notions’ store, and a cobbler. At the time this was Westminster Avenue, and this was the 400 block. By 1901 there was a 2 storey building here, (probably the one in our picture), and this was the 600 block, but still Westminster; it became Main Street after 1910. In 1892 Alexander Hogg had a grocery store at 600 Westminster (on the corner) and in 1895 lived at 606 Westminster (presumably upstairs). Mr. Hogg was still here in 1901, with J T Brown, a shoemaker, at 608. Alexander Hogg was aged 50 that year, and from Ontario, as were his entire family. His wife, Mary J, was 46, and William, their son, was aged 26 and still living at home, working as a CPR Official. Their daughter, Mary E, was 23, and sons Alexander, 21 (born in Gore Bay, Manitoulin Island) and Perry, 19, (born in Gordon Township, Manitoulin Island), were both working as clerks. Ida and Mabel, who were 13 and 9, were still at school. A decade earlier, in the 1891 census, Mr. Hogg was shown as aged 48, and Mary was 40, so they had managed to age less than ten years in a decade.

Mrs. Charles Burns, in conversation with Major Matthews, the city Archivist, in 1938, remembers delivering eggs from her chickens late in the afternoon to Vancouver grocers, and Mr. Hogg arranging for a man to put her groceries on the Interurban for her to be able to take them home to Grandview. Her family lived in a cleared area that today would be Kitchener Street, but at the time it had no address. “There was a water well, but no electric light, sewer, sidewalk, and the road was a trail from the Vancouver-Westminster interurban.”

In 1903 the corner unit was occupied by Quigley & Co who sold dry goods, with Mr. Brown’s shoemaking business was still next door. Harry Franklin sold stationery in the third unit. That year ‘Mr. Martin’ built $500 of alterations to the premises, designed by Dalton and Eveleigh. Robert Martin, an Ontario-born importer hired W T Dalton to design repairs to several properties, so we think he was the likely owner at the time.

In 1905 the corner store was vacant, with Frank Murphy’s stationary store at 608 (and another store selling the same goods next door to him). In 1910 J K Campbell was selling clothing from the corner store, the middle store was shared by George Snyder, a jeweler and the Western Investors Co, and the third unit was occupied by the F Humphrey of Humphrey and Stone, sewing machines, sharing their unit with Chilcot and Dorais who sold real estate. Mr. Humphrey carried out repairs to the building in 1913. Clement & Haywood carried out repairs in 1916 (which would be Clements and Heywood, a local real estate investment company part owned by Herbert Clement, an MP at the time). and Joe Grosslee a year later. In 1919 Mrs. Soda paid for more repairs. Dominick Soda (an Italian) ran a confectionery business in the corner store in 1916, with David Morris making shoes next door and Frank Spatari a tailor in 608 on the right. He shared the space with Rose King, a barber.

In 1921 G Cadona obtained a permit for further repairs, although there’s nobody with that name in the street directory. The only Cadonas in British Columbia were Louis and his wife Ada, originally from England, who were in the Cariboo. At the beginning of that year Garden Taxi (run by Pete and Paul Boury and Pete Angelo) were operating from the corner store, with A Morris selling second hand goods next door and Solomon Harris in 608 also dealing in second hand goods. By the end of the year Joseph Cilona, another Italian, confectioner, was running the corner store, and we’re guessing that’s who carried out the changes from a cab office back to a store.

By 1950 Tom’s Grocery was here, and it was still here in the early 1970s. Continuing a use that had appeared many years earlier, the A1 Western second hand store was next door, and Mrs. E Tyer sold new and used furniture next to that. In our 1978 picture Harry James Agencies sold real estate and insurance from the middle unit, with Joe Eng representing the Manufacturer’s Insurance Co in the other half of the unit. Both of the other units were closed, although it looks as if a Chinese business might have been fitting out 608.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 780-483

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Here’s a view south from West Georgia of the east side of Richards. Today it’s one of the more obvious candidates for a commercial tower, with a temporary surface parking lot on most of the site. In 1981 it still had buildings, and the user of the corner was the same then as up to last year. Budget car rental was operating in a 1948 art deco building originally designed as a car showroom for Colliers Motors.

Collier’s were a Chevrolet-Oldsmobile dealership, and Watson and Baxter were the architects; (Joseph F Watson and James Baxter). The building was one of the most flamboyantly designed streamline moderne buildings the city had seen, as this 1949 VPL image shows.

Collier’s Motors closed down in the late 1950s, and by 1981 when our phote was taken Budget car rental had taken over the lot, and the building became their office. Budget later moved across the lane, and the Colliers building became a Fido cellphone store, before it was demolished in 2007. The demolition permit was issued while the City’s workforce were on strike, and so a potential heritage designation was never considered. Ironically, that ensured that only commercial uses can be considered for the site in future, as heritage or existent non-market housing buildings are the only justifications for allowing residential development in this part of the CBD.

Next door to the 1948 building, down Richards, was the Burrard Hotel, at 712 Richards. It was designed by Dalton and Eveleigh for E E Hewson (who was an absentee owner, working as a lawyer in Nova Scotia) which opened in 1910 as the St Regis Hotel. Beyond that was a smaller hotel at 722 Richards. It was developed in 1923 by John Murchie, a tea merchant who ran his business here, while his family lived upstairs. In 1964 it became home to the William Tell restaurant, run by Swiss-born Erwin Doebeli. The restaurant moved to Beatty Street in 1983, and the site has been cleared for many years, although surrounded by new office towers it probably won’t stay that way for too long.

Image source City of Vancouver Archives CVA Str P23

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Today, this former warehouse is an architect’s office with six generously sized (and expensive) strata residential units upstairs. First developed in 1910, it was converted to residential in 1991. Dalton and Eveleigh were hired by Pilkington Brothers, a British based glass company to design the $80,000 warehouse constructed by Smith & Sherborne.

The design is an early example of a concrete frame, allowing the creation of large spaces without internal walls. Pilkington’s were already on this block, as from the early 1900s they also occupied the warehouse buildings to the west, including the corner building that had been developed in the late 1880s by the Oppenheimer family for their grocery business.

The sale of 120 Powell Street in the late 1950s followed the completion of Pilkington’s new glass factory on Vancouver’s Southeast Marine Drive. In this 1985 picture it was being used as a warehouse by Army & Navy Stores, but was being offered for lease.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 790-2417

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Wayfoong House was built in 1996, and was home for 20 years for the Chinatown branch of the HSBC Bank. They recently moved across Main street, and it now looks as if VanCity Credit Union will take some of their space over. Back in 1973 when Art Grice photographed this corner there was an old building here. Quite how old isn’t clear: in 1903 Dalton & Eveleigh were hired by Mr. Martin to design stores here, but the cost was only identified as $500, so they were unlikely to be the building seen here (unless the figure was inaccurate). We suspect there was an initial building in 1889 that was altered or rebuilt with the addition of the upper storey around 1892.

We make make an educated guess at who Mr. Martin was. Robert Martin owned the Martin and Robertson warehouse on Water Street, with an addition designed by W T Dalton in 1903; he was listed as Mr. Martin for that work. He also hired Dalton to design another building on Westminster Avenue (as Main Street was then known) in 1903, a block north of here. We looked at Mr. Martin’s background when we featured the Water Street warehouse.

A variety of different businesses occupied the space: Quigley and Co, dry goods in 1904, E H Roome’s real estate offices in 1906, J Donald’s grocerery in 1909, J K Campbell’s clothing store in 1910, Krasnoff Brothers in 1912 (when it had become Main Street). Max and Samuel Krasnoff sold clothing in two different location. Max had a legal problem the year before, reported by the Daily World. In the police court Max Krasnoff was charged by the health Inspector with keeping his premises at the rear of 621 Main street in a filthy condition. “The Inspector vividly unfolded a tale of garbage cans and bountiful dirt, the most of which Max did not deny. At the end of the Inspector’s story, Max, who coma from Russia where there are no garbage cans, agreed to do anything that the inspector might suggest. “I’ll do It, I’ll do It,” he fervently replied to the magistrate’ question as to whether or not he would carry out the Inspector’s Instructions. It was on that understanding that he was allowed to go.”

Max retained his store until 1913, but a year later this was a branch of the Imperial Bank of Canada. In 1916 Clement & Haywood, who owned the building carried out repairs, and in 1916 Dominick Soda, a confectioner was occupying the space and seems to have owned it, as Mrs Soda paid for repairs in 1919. As with many of the area’s residents, Dominick was from Italy: in 1921 he was living in Burnaby with his wife Rosina and their children; he had originally left Italy in 1909. In 1921 G Cadona was listed as owner for more alterations, although the street directory shows Joseph Cilona, another Italian, and also a confectioner, although his wife, Leontine, had been born in the US.

By 1973, although Harry James had claimed much of the building’s brickwork for his advertising for his office up the street, Tom’s Grocery occupied the main floor, offering a wide (and broad) range of goods. In the background, on the other side of the street, the Vanport Hotel offered a night out for a colourful clientele, as we discussed in an earlier post.

Image source, City of Vancouver Archives CVA 70-70

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