This 1930 building, designed by W M Dodd was built towards the end of a wave of West End development, when family houses were replaced with multi-unit rental walk-up apartments. J W Fordham Johnson had built a house here in 1904, which by 1928 had been split into five suites. The contents were sold off in June 1930, and the new apartments were complete by April 1931. This Vancouver Public Library image was probably taken later that year.

While some buildings of the era were fairly simple, this block has a patterned brick facade, an ornate stepped brick parapet and a gothic arched entry. The Journal of Commerce confirms the architect, and said that a ‘local investor’ was developing the $62,500 project. The building permit confirms the identity of the builder, J Galloway, and also identifies him as the developer. John Galloway also developed and built the Kenmore Apartments on Gilford Street, as well another apartment building on West 14th Avenue.

John, and his son John jnr. lived on East 7th Avenue, and James L Galloway on West 27th. Fortunately for us, he had been living on East 7th a decade earlier, so we can find him in the 1921 census. John and Margaret were both shown arriving in Canada in 1888. In 1921 they were both aged 57, and John was listed as a builder, and they were both born in Scotland. John Galloway had married Margaret Logan in Lanarkshire in 1885, and they had eight children, five of them girls. Margaret, the eldest daughter was born in Scotland in 1885, Sabina, Mary and Jean were born in Quebec from 1889 to 1894. The family headed west for a while, with Jean born in Vernon. A Daily World news story shows the family had previously been in Vancouver – and why they might prefer big city life.

“John Galloway, late of this city, but now a contractor at Vernon, had a rough experience last month. He left Granite Creek on Tuesday, May 14th, intending to make the west side of Okanagan lake that night. In endeavoring to make a short cut over the mountains he lost his way. On the following day while attempting to cross a canyon his horse fell with him. The animal got so badly used up that he was not able to walk, and In trying to get him to a more open part, he kicked out and broke one of Mr. Calloway’s arms, close to the shoulder. After wandering about he at last made Granite Creek on the Saturday, having to swim very deep rivers. He was without food all this time, and suffered untold pain from his broken arm. Dr. Sutton, of Nicola, happened to be at Granite Creek that day and set the limb, after which the plucky contractor secured a new horse and rode on to Vernon by way of Nicola and Grand Prairie.”

John, the oldest son (who joined his father in the contracting business) was born in Montreal in 1896, and Florence was born in Scotland in 1900. James was born in Vancouver in 1902, and the final son, William, in Scotland in 1905.

In 1932 the building was in receivership, at the request of Halifax Investors Ltd. In 1937 the ownership question got really complicated. The Sun reported “Judge Declares Property Deal “Conspiracy”. Declaring that the transaction was part of a conspiracy to defraud the creditors of Joseph Francis Langer, Justice Murphy, on Friday, dismissed the suit of Langer’s wife, Jennie Louise Langer, 3138 West Fifteenth Avenue, for an interest in the Chatellaine Apartments, 905 Chilco Street. Another action, in which Langer joined his wife, for a declaration that they are owners of the Chatelaine subject to a $39,000 mortgage, also was dismissed for the same reason. 

DEPRIVED OF COSTS
James Torrance Armstrong, broker, Armstrong & Laing: Halifax Investors Ltd., and Mrs. Armstrong, as defendants, were deprived of their costs because they, too, were parties to the “illegal transaction,” the Judge declared. In a Judgment, Mr. Justice Murphy referred to a $78,000 Judgment obtained against Langer in 1932 by McTavish Bros. He recalled also that Mrs. Langer won a decision from the Court of Appeal restoring to her the furnishings of her home after they had been seized by McTavish Bros, for costs in that case; that Langer placed mortgages totalling $31,000 on their Granville Street home; that he sold the Orpheum and six other Vancouver theatres, admittedly, at great sacrifice, for $110,000 cash; all before he left British Columbia on Dec. 26, 1931, not to return until this year to assist his wife in this litigation.

LOST A FORTUNE
Langer testified at the trial that he sacrificed a fortune in South Africa to return to Vancouver. The Judge stated that not only did Langer invest $5,000 In a second mortgage on the Chatelaine in the name of Halifax Investors Ltd. in a plan to cover up his assets, but he and Armstrong carried out a scheme to defraud Mrs. Langer of money to which they both knew she was entitled. J. Edward Bird and Ronald Howard conducted the Langers’ case; J. A. Macinnes and Percy White appeared for the defendants other than Kapoor Singh and his wife, who were represented by W. B. Farris and Ernest Bull. The latter obtained a dismissal with costs at the close of the plaintiff’s case on the ground that they were innocent purchasers for $2500 of stock in Halifax Investors.”

For decades this was the home of Percy Williams, an insurance agent. Percy was better known as the double gold medal winner at the 1928 Summer Olympics. On his return there was a homecoming parade, ending at Stanley Park where awaiting him was a new car, $500 in gold and a $1600 trust fund. In 1930 he set a world record in the 100 meters, followed shortly with the gold medal victory in the 100 yards at the first-ever British Empire Games. At the Olympics in 1932 he had an injury, and wasn’t as fast. He never liked the spotlight and later claimed he hated running. He never again attended a track meet, even as a spectator, from the day he retired until the day he died In 1982, following a decline in his health, including two strokes. He took his life in his apartment with a shotgun he received as a prize for winning the gold medals.

The Chatelaine, 40 years after his death, still offers classy apartments in what is now a heritage building.

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This rooming house has been on Powell Street for over 100 years. Designed by W M Dodd, and built by J J Frantz & Company for $30,000 the developer was Japanese businessman K Tsuchida in 1912. Press reports earlier that year initially suggested the building would be designed by Parr Mackenzie and Day, and would cost $40,000.

For such an apparently wealthy individual, who had been in the city for some time, there’s surprisingly little to find about Mr. Tsuchida. He ran a general store on Powell Street in 1911 a block to the east of here. He was here in 1907 when he built a house on Powell Street, and also claimed $225 chiefly for loss of business during eleven days he kept his store closed after the anti-Asiatic riots. As owner of both the store, and the building, he was questioned at the Inquiry as to why he stayed closed for so long, and replied that he expected another attack. He estimated that he did a business of $100 a day, of which $20 a day represented the profit.

He was still here in 1921 when he carried out some repairs to the building. and was living at 620 Alexander although he was no longer operating his Powell Street store. We can’t find him in either the 1911 or 1921 census records, and his last entry in the street directory is 1922. These were called the Crescent Rooms, with I Godo running them in 1923. The name changed in the late 1940s to the York Rooms, a name it still holds. It offered welfare rate housing for decades, although in later years to increasingly troubled tenants. A freedom of information request showed that in 19 months in 2008 and 2009 there were 101 police calls to the property, costing at least $25,000 in police time.

Several years ago new owners replaced the long-term tenants, charging much higher rents in what is now advertised as “a hip, artistic rental space for moderate-income residents”.

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Remarkably, this single storey retail building has remained undeveloped for a century. Today it’s a “Irish” bar, but in 1922 (three years after it was built) it was the showroom for Dodge Brothers motor cars. We saw it in the street context in an earlier post, in 1926, when it had become a store selling stoves and ranges. An earlier building had been erected in 1913, designed by Parr, McKenzie and Day for Union Welding Co, but that only cost $500. This building was designed by W M Dodd and cost $6,300. Their client. was McQueen, Mrs. M. J. (of 1455 Laurier Ave). It’s helpful that we know the home address, as there were two McQueen families living on Laurier Avenue. 1455 Laurier was slightly inaccurate, but 1453 was home to James McQueen, and his wife Mary Jane. When she developed this building she was aged 70, and James was ten years older. Two daughters were living with them, Annie and Kate (who was a teacher at King Edward High School). Mary Jane McQueen had also developed two houses on Granville Street in 1903, while James had carried out several developments, also mostly on Granville Street, but also in the West End.

The entire family had been born in Ontario, and Kate bequeathed some of the family papers to the City Archives, which tell us how James made the family fortunes “File includes a traveller’s descriptive account entitled Trip to Vancouver, by James McQueen (1891); correspondence and other material concerning McQueen’s real estate holdings, including receipts re: building at Bute and Haro Streets (1895); and miscellaneous personal papers.” There’s also a 1970s radio interview where she discusses how the family moved from Ontario to BC in the 1890s to settle her uncle’s estate. The uncle was James Whetham, a doctor who developed several important early Vancouver buildings, so Mary Jane had a lifetime experience in property development.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA Trans N20

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This 1918 picture shows a car dealership built in 1913 for H A Bowers and designed by William Dodd, built at a cost of $10,119. It wasn’t the first building here with that use; in 1909 T W Fletcher hired M D Campbell to design a $9,000 garage here, and two years later Mr. Bowers was the owner, obtaining a permit for $6,500 of work to add to a building here and reconstruct part of it. We’re not sure if he followed through on that idea, or whether it’s more likely that the Dodd building was built as a replacement. It closely matches an adjacent garage for McLaughlin, that was built in the same year, next door. It looks like the project was scaled back from an earlier version: The Pacific Coast Architect, an American publication had announced in 1912 that “Architects Doctor, Stewart & Davey prepared plans for a two-story reinforced concrete garage, for H A Bowers”, but those architects never obtained an permit.

Thomas W Fletcher, the developer, was shown in the 1911 street directory as retired, and had moved to a home in the newly built and up-market Shaughnessey sub-division, but he was only aged 43. The census said he was in real estate, but we don’t know if the garage he apparently built in 1909 ever had an occupant before Mr Bowers acquired it. In 1921 Mr. Fetcher had Mackenzie & Bow design a new home in Shaughnessey, and was shown as working again, as an adjuster. A year later McCarter & Nairne designed another house for him, on Minto Crescent.

Herbert Bowers was an American, aged 31, and only recently arrived in Vancouver. In 1911 he lived two blocks west of here with his wife Hazel and their three children, Robert, Alice and Herbert junior. They has recently lost another daughter: the Press Democrat of Santa Rosa, California reporting that year that “Mr. and Mrs H. A. Bowers, who removed from here to Vancouver, have suffered a sad bereavement in the death of their little daughter Doris, who is well remembered here by many friends both young and old. The child’s death was due to pneumonia, which occurred March 6.”

Herbert ran the Central Auto and Supply Co, and the family had apparently left Vancouver and returned to California by 1913. In 1922 Herbert junior died in perculiar circumstances in Vancouver. The Daily World reported “A coroner’s Jury, with Dr. Sutherland of Port Coqultlam as coroner, sitting this morning at Murchie’s undertaking parlors, brought in the following verdict on the death of Herbert Bowers, whose body was found on the Pipe Line road In the bottom of a ravine under an automobile on Sunday: “We find that the death of Herbert Bowers was accidental, he not being familiar with the road, which is dangerous at this spot.” Mrs. H. A. Bowers, mother of the dead man, and Mr. W. D. Woods, manager of the Barron Hotel, Vancouver, Identified the body. Mrs. Bowers stated that her son was 18 years of age. The family reside at Santa Clara valley, California, and were here on a vacation. She said that she had no idea how her son came to take the car. They had been staying at the Barron Hotel and he was away visiting friends In South Vancouver on Saturday night. She had four other children, who are at present at their camp on Howe Sound. Bowers had several letters on his person addressed to “My dear wife” and the contents were of a peculiar nature. The mother said that the initials that appeared in the letters were not those of her son. W. B. Dishman of Bellingham, who was driving the car at the races the day before, gave evidence to the effect that the auto was In good condition. He said that he had never seen Bowers in his life. In Richmond police court yesterday Dishman, charged with driving to the common danger after an accident in which Mrs. David Buchan was injured, forfeited $100 ball when he failed to appear. Oscar Olsen, also of Bellingham, has reported to the police that he also had never known Bowers nor knew how he came to have the car.” Herbert and Hazel Bowers was still living in Santa Clara in California in 1940, with their son Thomas, who was born in 1920 in California. The family’s new life wasn’t that of a garage owner: Bowers Park in Santa Clara is named for Herbert, a pear grower in Santa Clara who was also an organizer and director of the Santa Clara Pear Association. He also served on the Jefferson Union School Board in the 1920s and early 1930s.

The replacement garage operator was the Franklin Motor Company, who moved in by 1913 and manufactured a luxury vehicle in Syracuse, New York. The Franklin was very reliable, being air-cooled (and so unlikely to be frozen up in the middle of the night). It also had extensive use of aluminum in the body, and some models offered better gas mileage than some vehicles today. They moved out after two years, and had no showroom in the city until 1918 when a Franklin dealership opened on Granville Street.

In 1915 Dominion Motors briefly occupied the building. There’s an unidentified early 1910s image of this building in the archives that shows a Packard, Hudson and Baker Electric dealership. Those were all brands sold by Dominion, but the economy was in a bad way, and they went out of business in less than two years. In 1918 the Sigmore Motor Co Ltd, selling Studebaker cars were operating here. Studebaker of Canada moved into the building in 1917, and out again in 1923 briefly to West Pender, then back to West Georgia in 1923 to a new garage less than a block from here.

By 1925 Southard Motors (with the MacDonnell-Scott Garage and Vancouver Auto Towing Service sharing the address) were selling Essex cars here – a part of Hudson Motors of Detroit. They moved to a new garage on Burrard Street, and in the 1930s they had relocated to Granville Street, where in 1938 they were selling Chryslers. For a brief period in the early 1930s this wasn’t a garage; the B C College of Arts were using the building.

From 1936 to around 1942 Walmsley Motors moved in, (seen on the right in selling Cord, Auburn and Willys. Soon after, like the adjacent garage, the building became used as the Canadian Government Ordnance Machine Shop. By 1950 Canada Dry were using the building as a warehouse, and by 1955 Maynard Auctioneers were here. Pictures from the 1980s suggest the buildings were still standing, although with a new façade.

Where 1233 West Georgia stood today there’s a condo tower called Venus, designed by Howard Bingham Hill and completed in 1999.

Image source City of Vancouver Archives CVA 99-5332 and CVA 99-4851

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We’ve seen several car dealerships that were developed along West Georgia Street in the early part of the 20th century, including Consolidated Motor Company who were located on the other side of the street from here. On the north side the showroom of the McLaughlin Carriage Company, seen in an image that’s undated, but which we’re guessing might be 1918. McLaughlin started manufacturing automobiles in Oshawa in 1907. They had previously been a carriage company, so it wasn’t a dramatic shift. When they were unable to get their own engines designed, they used Buick drive trains, built in Flint, Michigan. McLaughlin became part of General Motors, and car production under the McLaughlin name continued until 1942.

Before this garage was built there were several houses, dating back only a few years, but demolished for this 1912 building, designed by W M Dodd for H W White who spent $30,000 on the new investment. Harry W White was the manager for McLaughlin Motor Cars, so we assume they paid for the development. As well as McLaughlin, the building was home to the Pierce-Arrow Motor Co, a US car manufacturer based in Buffalo, New York, from 1901 to 1938.

In 1911 Harry was 63, and from England; his wife, Lydia was from Ontario, and they lived on West Pender Street with three daughters and a son still at home, aged from 14 to 37. Their journey west can be traced in their province of birth; the eldest, Rosa was born in Ontario, but Ethel, Mabel and Percy, the youngest were all born in Manitoba.

McLaughlin moved from here in 1926, to new premises on Burrard Street, where the vehicles were sold by Clark Parsons Buick. Gray Campbell Ltd took over this showroom as a Chrysler dealership. By the mid 1930s A E Stephens Ltd were based here, run by Alfred Stephens, selling used cars. During the war the building became used as the Canadian Government Ordnance Machine Shop. By 1950 Clarke Simpkins auto dealership was here. Clarke Simpkins was Ford of Canada’s vice-president, and he sold their cars here, and repaired them on Seymour Street. He had moved a block to the west by 1955, when BC Garage Supply Ltd ‘auto jobbers’ were using the building.

Today the site is the garden of Venus, a 36 storey residential tower designed by Bingham Hill Architects and completed in 1999.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 99-5178

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We looked at the buildings to the north of here in the previous post. Here are several modest buildings, of which two (for now) are still standing. On the left is a three storey commercial building, 726 Richards, built in 1923 by B C Stevens Co. They were a medical supply company who had operated in the city for many years, and more accurately they were the Stevens (B.C.) Company Limited. Before they developed this building they were based in the main floor of the Passlin block, three doors down the street. The company opened its first office in Western Canada in 1889 in Vancouver under the direction of George Stevens, a son of the founder of the business. The Contract Record of 1 August 1923 referenced that “Work is to start at once on a store and warehouse, to cost $20,000, at 730-748 Richards St.; owners, B. C. Stevens Co Ltd., Vancouver; architect, Franklin Cross, 448 Seymour St., Vancouver”. The address was a bit inaccurate; the building permit identifies 730 Richards. It’s possible that the single storey 738 Richards was part of the same development – the two structures share a single lot. Next door at 742 Richards was another single storey commercial building. In 1920 owner A L Hood hired A E Henderson to carry out alterations to the property there costing $2,500, but we don’t know if the single storey building is the result of that investment, or a later development.

The four storey building on the right of the picture (748 Richards) was developed by Albert J Passage and Oliver Tomlin (hence Passlin). Albert was President of the Western Canada Trust Company, worth over $300,000 before its collapse in 1913. He was an American, born in Clairmont, Minnesota, and he moved to Canada in 1892. In 1901 was in Yale, working as a clerk in the railroad office. In 1909 he was in Vancouver, working as an accountant for the Great Northern Transfer Co. His success in real estate was fast; he only formed the Financial and Real estate brokerage with Oliver Tomlin around 1910. By 1911 he was living with his wife Mary, from New Brunswick, their 3-year-old son, Victor, her father, Goodwin Passage, and her brother, Ray Passage.

With the collapse of the real estate business, and a war hitting the national economy, Albert, Mary and their son emigrated to the USA in 1916. By 1930 they were living in Mount Vernon, Westchester, New York, and had another son, Douglas, aged 8, who had been born in New York.

We’re reasonably certain Oliver Tomlin was from England, although he appears to have been missed in the 1911 Census. He shows up in Vancouver around 1908, when he was a shipper with the Albion Iron Works. A year later Passage and Tomlin were in the real estate business, with a series of permits for houses, and just one in 1910 for a larger building, this four storey apartment building on Richards, costing $35,000 and designed by W M Dodd. They sold their development to a real estate syndicate they had put together, with significant British money involved (shown by this article in the London Daily Standard from 1911). The headline shows that property bubbles are not new in the city.

By 1911 Oliver Tomlin was living in the Atlin Block on West Pender. The building in our image was known as the Passlin Hotel. (Given the conjunction of the names for this building, it seems a reasonable conjecture that Mr. Tomlin might have also developed the Atlin Block with a different partner). In 1917 Oliver Tomlin, and his English wife Louisa also emigrated to The USA, and in 1930 were living in Los Angeles. We’re reasonably confident this is the same Mr. Tomlin who was working as the Manager of a Real Estate Finance Company (and that’s why we think he was originally English)’

The Passlin block was demolished and redeveloped in 2007 as part of the L’Hermitage development which also has a hotel, two-storey retail and a condo tower. The Passlin, which was operating as an SRO hotel, was redeveloped as Doug Story Apartment residences, with 46 units managed by Coast Mental Health, named after an SRO resident who was a member of the Coast Resource Centre from 2001 until his death in 2006. The City of Vancouver made a small grant (of $720,000) to help fund the building, but most of the capital cost was carried by the developers, who received additional residential density for the tower. They then gave the building to the City of Vancouver as an air right parcel.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 779-E09.36

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This is a building now incorporated into the Sunrise Market, but when it was first developed in 1931 (when the picture was taken) it was part of Japantown. It was a restaurant which served an early fusion cruisine: Fuji Chop Suey. The Nikkei Museum says  that from 1936-38, Ichiji Sasaki started the Fuji Chop Suey restaurant with Mr Wakabayashi at 314 Powell Street. As the restaurant opened in 1931, that’s clearly not accurate, and during those years Ichiji Sasaki was caretaker of the Howard Apartments on East Hastings, and later proprietor of the World Hotel on Powell.

The Vancouver Archives have a copy of the architect’s drawings from late 1930. William Dodd designed the building, and thanks to Patrick Gunn’s diligence we know it cost $17,000 and was built for somebody recorded as Sasika Maikawa Kaino by Harvie & Simmonds. Hikosaburo Kaino and Taj and Ichiji Sasika operated the restaurant with Sannosuke Maikawa. He was one of five brothers who had a number of businesses on Powell Street. Sadakichi Maikawa owned a grocery business across the streets, and a few years later Nippon Autos a little further west. The family have written about the restaurant as ‘Maikawa Fuji Chopsuey’.

Before it was built there was, we think, a single storey retail building here. In the early 1920s the street directory shows Samuel E Williams running a shoe shine business here alongside several other retail stores for a number of years. He carried out repairs to the building several times between 1917 and the early 1920s. Samuel added a different ethnic mix to the neighbourhood. He was aged 58 in 1921, married to Effie, and they had both been born in the US. Samuel’s father was born in Cuba, and his mother in the West Indies, and the couple were recorded as racially African, having arrived in Canada in 1912. They lived further west on Powell where they rented a four room apartment for $15 a month.

When it first opened in 1931, the street directory says I Murakami was running the Fuji restaurant, but by 1934 S Maikawa was shown as president of the restaurant company. We think this was Sadakichi Maikawa who we believe developed the building, and at this time also running a grocery, meat and fish store at 333 Powell. His name was listed as the restaurant owner through to the early 1940s when all Japanese were forcibly removed from the coast, and their property confiscated.

Audrey Kobayashi recalled how the restaurant operated. “The second floor was rented as a private dining room for weddings or other large gatherings, and opened onto a balcony overlooking Powell Street. This was one of only a few restaurants where Japanese-Canadian women and children could go. Most of the Japanese restaurants in the area were the domain of men, and restaurants in other parts of Vancouver usually would not serve Asian customers. In 1942 the banquet hall was used by the federal government to administer the uprooting of Japanese Canadians”

The building remained vacant through the war years, and only in 1946 were there new businesses; Orloff’s Ltd wholesale drygoods and Hemenway’s Ltd display letters. By 1955 View-Master distributors and A D T Sales, manufacturers agents were here. In the mid 1970s Sunrise Market opened here, expanding from the adjacent building. Arriving in Canada in 1956, Leslie and Susan Joe began making small batches of fresh tofu in the back of their grocery store. As demand for tofu grew throughout the 60’s and 70’s, so did the business and in 1983 factory space was purchased nearby to transition the small operation into a large scale manufacturing plant. Sunrise Market still operates here, and Sunrise Soya Foods is now Canada’a largest manufacturer of tofu.

Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 99-3873

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We’ve got two views of this small warehouse building squeezed in between the rail tracks and Alexander Street as it curves towards the tracks. In 1919, when the picture above was taken the newly arrived owner was the H G White Manufacturing Company who were the home of White Seal products. There were White Seal apples in Tasmania, White Seal lard in the US, White Seal beer and White Seal tinned salmon in British Columbia, but H G White didn’t sell any of those – the company was described as ‘manufacturers agent’ in the street directory – but what they manufactured wasn’t identified. Harold G White lived on Cardero Street, and we’ve discovered that White Seal was a brand of fur mittens. Originally, when the premises were built in 1913 this was occupied by the builder and developer, E Cook, designed by W M Dodd, an architect who designed a series of automobile-related buildings in the city as well as apartment blocks. Edward Cook built warehouses on Water Street and Woodward’s big new store on Hastings, so this investment was a relatively modest piece of construction for him. While he occupied the building he also ran his other business from here, the Columbia Clay Co. who had a brickyard located on Anvil Island at the north end of Howe Sound. He was born in Perth, Ontario, and after learning his trade as contractor in Manitoba arrived in Vancouver in the spring of 1886. By 1891 he was responsible for building around 40 of the city’s new business blocks.

By 1915 this was the warehouse for Jacobson-Goldberg, a fur trade business. (Isaac Jacobson was a furrier who lived on Ontario St and L Goldberg lived in the London Hotel; before they moved here they were in business on Main Street.) In 1916 they shared the building with B C Grinnell Glove Co, a company who also made sealskin gloves, for loggers, steel workers and lumbermen. (In 1914 they were located in Coquitlam). Nelson and Shakespeare (Arthur Nelson, of North Vancouver and W B Shakespeare who lived in the West End) wholesale confectioners took over the premises for three years in 1917. That year H G White was partnered with Benjamin Harrison, who lived in West Vancouver, and they were importers with premises on Hornby Street (he initially worked for Harrison, and then became a partner). In 1920 Nelson and Shakespeare moved to another warehouse across the street and H G White moved in, manufacturing sealskin gloves again, although still in the import and export trade.

Harold White claimed in some records to have been born in England in 1889. That seems to be the correct year: he arrived in Canada in 1906 with his parents who had apparently initially emigrated from England to Canada in 1881. However, in the 1911 census Harold and his sister Eliza (still living with their parents) are shown as being born in Michigan, USA, so presumably the family moved south of the border for a while. In 1919 he was living on Nelson Street, and in 1923 he had moved to Cardero and was listed as Consul for Peru, and Harrison’s company was once again BR Harrison and Company, now based in 325 Howe Street. By 1924 Harold White was no longer in the directories; in 1940 he appears to have moved to San Francisco with his family – an easier move for someone born in the US.

The image above was taken in 1929 when the building was for sale. The more substantial building to the east beyond the narrow gap that was a track that crossed the rail lines has apparently been masked off. You can see the adjacent warehouse a little more clearly in this 1933 Archives shot that we can’t reproduce these days as it’s taken from inside the Port security area. Gordon and Belyea had been using 157 Alexander for some years – they were listed as ‘Mill, Mining, Railway, Marine and Waterworks Supplies’, and had been in a building across the street earlier in the 1920s. They moved to a larger property in 1929, and the sale offering suggests they might have acquired the building rather than tenanted it. In the 1933 image Burnyeats and Co were occupying the building – they were ship’s chandlers.

Scout Magazine outlines the building’s more recent history: In later decades, the address’ upper storeys were converted into offices, and by the 1970s the ground floor was known as the Banjo Palace, a 20’s-themed club, supposedly boasting the country’s largest circular barbecue. The owner, George Patey, had purchased pieces of the brick wall involved in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and had it re-constructed in the men’s room (the wall was shipped from Chicago in 7 barrels, and after the nightclub failed it was removed again). Prior to the Alibi Room who still occupy the space today the building was home to the Archimedes Club, a watering hole for Vancouver’s taxi drivers where a signature on the membership book got you access to $5 pitchers (or so go the legends).

Image source: Vancouver Public Library, City of Vancouver Archives Str P30.2 and CVA 99-253

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