VANCOUVER EXPOSED
VANCOUVEREXPOSED
SEARCHING
FOR THE CITY’S
HIDDENHISTORY
EVELAZARUS
ARSENAL PULP PRESSVANCOUVER
VANCOUVER EXPOSED
Copyright © 2020 by Eve Lazarus
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any part by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in Canada, a licence from Access Copyright.
ARSENAL PULP PRESS
Suite 202 – 211 East Georgia St.
Vancouver, BC V6A 1Z6
Canada
arsenalpulp.com
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council for its publishing program, and the Government of Canada, and the Government of British Columbia (through the Book Publishing Tax Credit Program), for its publishing activities.
The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Yosef Wosk Publication Fund at Vancouver Heritage Foundation.
Arsenal Pulp Press acknowledges the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, custodians of the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories where our office is located. We pay respect to their histories, traditions and continuous living cultures and commit to accountability, respectful relations and friendship.
COVER IMAGE BY Canadian Photo Co., City of Vancouver Archives, Bu P726
COVER AND INTERIOR DESIGN BY Jazmin Welch
BACK COVER PHOTOGRAPHS TOP TO BOTTOM BY Tom Carter collection, John Denniston photo, NVMA 15806, courtesy Lisa Pantages
PHOTOGRAPHS FOR CHAPTER OPENERS BY Catherine Rose
EDITED BY Shirarose Wilensky
COPY EDITED BY Derek Fairbridge
PROOFREAD BY Alison Strobel
INDEXED BY Stephen Ullstrom
Printed and bound in Canada
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION:
Title: Vancouver exposed : searching for the city’s hidden history / Eve Lazarus.
Names: Lazarus, Eve, author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200211501 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200211552 |
ISBN 9781551528298 (softcover) | ISBN 9781551528304 (HTML)
Subjects: LCSH: Vancouver (B.C.)—History. | LCSH: Vancouver (B.C.)—Buildings, structures, etc.—History. | LCSH: Neighborhoods—British Columbia—Vancouver—History. | LCSH: Vancouver (B.C.)—History—Pictorial works. | LCSH: Vancouver (B.C.)—Buildings, structures, etc.—History—Pictorial works. | LCSH: Neighborhoods—British Columbia Vancouver—History—Pictorial works.
Classification: LCC FC3847.4 .L39 2020 | DDC 971.1/33—dc23
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I started my blog Every Place Has a Story in 2010 as a way to add to stories from my first book, At Home with History: The Untold Secrets of Greater Vancouver’s Heritage Homes. The blog quickly became my obsession, and I looked forward to digging into a new story every week. When people asked me what my blog was about, I told them it was about history and heritage houses and murder. But that really meant anything I thought was interesting—from street photographers to ghosts, research tips to legendary women, and others who are typically not found on the front page of newspapers.
Later I started the Every Place Has a Story Facebook page and soon I was connecting with bloggers, tour guides, artists, academics and amateur historians who shared a love for Vancouver’s quirks and the city’s often seedy history. Gradually people started to post comments and personal anecdotes from their own family histories, and little by little the stories took on new life. These observations and memories, as well as photos scanned from family albums, then helped shape the direction of this book.
Early in 2019, I mentioned to Arsenal Pulp publisher Brian Lam that my blog was approaching its tenth anniversary, and I was thinking of self-publishing a book of my stories. Brian said Arsenal might be interested and asked me to send him a proposal. I did, and I am thrilled that this is the result.
Vancouver Exposed is not meant to be read from start to finish. It jumps from walled-up sculptures to missing murals to repurposed buildings. There are crashes, explosions, scary institutions and crimes. There are amazing athletes, squatters, architects and a sea captain. There are stories of big plans that never happened, missing theatres, a fake house and not-so-secret tunnels.
The book is divided into six areas, starting with what’s always been one of the city’s most important intersections, Granville and West Georgia.
There are still regal old buildings dotting the area around that intersection, and over the years, I’ve been in and out of several of them—the Hudson’s Bay department store, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Hotel Vancouver and the Hotel Georgia. I may have even noticed the three nurses looking down from their eleventh-storey parapets on the Georgia Medical-Dental Building, but it wasn’t until the early part of this century that I gave any thought to these buildings, or what was there before them. Much later, when I fell in love with Vancouver’s sleazy underbelly and dwindling heritage, I found that our civic enthusiasm for pulling things down has always been with us. In fact, it’s astounding when you think in terms of not what we’ve lost but what we’ve struggled to retain.
The section about the Downtown Eastside includes stories that explore how Hastings Street evolved from the “Great White Way” to our current mess. It looks at Woodward’s department