The Strathcona building on the left of our 1973 image was once a laundry. There’s an earlier image (on the left), said to have been shot some time after 1960, showing that use. We think it’s probably as earlier image, from the 1950s. The Laundry was constructed in 1911 – there are three different permits, and the laundry operator’s name is slightly different in each. The permits were issued for 823 Barnard, but by the time they were built it was 823 Union Street. The street directory says it was operated as Yee Yat’s laundry, but George Dunlap was the builder for either To Lo Wang, or To Loy Wing (the more likely name).

Next door, at 827 was the Standard Glass Co, built in 1910. There are two permits here – an initial $1,000 proposal for a store and then a more expensive $3,000 version which added both a store and dwelling house, which was the developed building (still standing today). This was designed by E Stanley Mitton for H M Thompson, and built by F M Parr and Sons. Henry M Thompson was secretary and treasurer of the glass company, and lived on York Avenue.

Standard Glass actually did work that was anything but standard. The firm was founded in 1909 or 1910 by Charles Bloomfield, the most experienced glass artisan in the city at that time. Bloomfield, his brother James, and father Henry founded the province’s first art and stained glass business, Henry Bloomfield and Sons, in New Westminster in 1891. Burned out by the great fire of 1898 they moved to Vancouver. James was a talented artist and glass designer who trained in the United States and England between 1896 and 1898. In 1904 he decided that prospects for quality stained and art glass work in the city were limited and the firm broke up. Charles acquired some of the technical and artistic expertise of his brother and carried this experience into the firms which he subsequently worked for and the one which he founded and managed in this building, Standard Glass. Charles initially lived upstairs, over the production space, although not for long.

By 1914 there were ‘foreigners’ in the first two houses on the block to the west of here, Yee Yet’s laundry, and Rothstein Bros, junk dealers had replaced Standard Glass. Charles Bloomfield was working elsewhere as foreman of the Western Plate Glass & Importing Co, and living on Yew Street. By 1916 almost the entire north side of the block was vacant, except for Yee Yick’s laundry, and ‘foreigners’ at 817. The two buildings stayed empty for many years. By 1924 827 was occupied by W Coste upstairs, with the Atlas Rubber Co on the main floor, but the laundry at 823 was still vacant. (Lawrence Coste was a salesman with Atlas Rubber).

By the end of the 1920s the laundry had reopened as the City Laundry, Chinese were living upstairs, and the Buckingham Chair Works was in the back of 823. Next door was residential on both floors – listed as ‘Chinese’. Chinese residents continued to occupy 827; in 1955 it was Low Chew and Low Sing. In 823 BC Paper Excelsior operated: tragedy struck a year later when fire broke out in the living space behind the works: Oliver Beaulieu, the proprietor, died in the blaze, as well as Harvey Markel, a visitor. A third man escaped through a basement window. From the state of the property in 1973 it may never have been occupied after that. The narrow Vancouver special that replaced the building was built in 1974.

Image sources: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 808-27 and CVA 780-332

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