Vancouver Historical Society NEWSLETTER ISSN 0042 - 2487 October 2015 Vol. 55 No. 2 Vaudeville: The Great White Way October Speakers: John Atkin and Tom Carter

ancouver had its own Great in contrast to the more tony, upscale thus became a natural anchor for less VWhite Way of vaudeville that Opera House of Granville Street, part classy but highly entertaining acts in was active and thriving not long after of the old CPR concession which ran Vancouver. (The painting of artist and the city’s incorporation. from Cambie to Burrard Streets. (That speaker Tom Carter, “The Hastings The moniker Great area was for the Sarah Bernhardts Great White Way” attests to this White Way and Mark Twains). Even the vibrancy). These performance theatres had been Opera House would eventually often changed ownership and names borrowed give way to the popularity of during the brisk years of the early from New vaudeville and become an 1900s; however, when vaudeville died York City elsewhere because of the Great where Depression and “the talkies”, they that city’s persisted in Vancouver for some theatre row time attesting to the resilience (between of the owners and the unique 42nd and character of the city. 53rd Streets) had glowed When artists arrived to perform, brilliantly from the they were handed information early 1900s with incandescent and sheets of where to stay, eat, drink, later, from the early 1920s, neon etc. Their performance venues lights. Vancouver, having tapped often had short lives and were into the North American vaudeville more speculative than long term. mixed variety entertainment circuit On the other hand, the Pantages in those early years, saw a wealth of Theatre of 1907 lasted until quite itinerant singers, dancers, comedians, recently before being demolished. musicians, minstrel shows, etc. who Laurel and Hardy played there. stopped off in the city to strut their The same theatre, renamed Royal, stuff before they moved on elsewhere. was bombed for what it did or didn’t do. Each theatre had a rich Given the nature of vaudeville, it was but short history. entertainment for the everyman. As Gallagher and Sheen from the Zeigfield such, this vibrant entertainment found Follies (top left) and the LaBelle Sisters Civic historian John Atkin a home in five blocks along Hastings (bottom right). has spoken many times to the Street from Main Street west, an area VHS but this is a first time for which was originally the development important venue for acts. The small historical artist Tom Carter. territory of the Vancouver area along Hastings Street comprising Bruce M. Watson Improvement Company. This was cinemas, pool halls and restaurants,

Next Meeting at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015 at Museum of Vancouver An Art Deco Masterpiece Opens President’s Notes Continued from back page o Fun Vancouver” is one of those tropes, city he envisioned becoming a major world port. His Toronto- “Nlike NIMBYism, that never stays out of the based employer agreed. Eager to strengthen their presence on popular dialogue for long. A few years ago, the ker- the West Coast in the midst of the 1920s boom, the Marine fuffle over the fate of the Waldorf Hotel and its Tiki Building project was given the green light. (Read more on Lounge – the nightspot of the day, as it were – caused Hobbs in Eve Lazarus’ Sensational Vancouver, Anvil Press, the mayor to invoke a temporary demolition morato- 2014) rium on the building. However, the scene apparently moved on, over to Main Street; the hotel is still there McCarter and Nairne went all out in designing an architec- and the lounge is still open, but the Beautiful People tural showpiece. The opening day crowds were dazzled by the found new pastures to plough. marine and transportation motif. There were decorative ships, trains, biplanes, zeppelins, fish, seahorses, King Neptune’s Anyone with a long memory knows how ephemeral crown and trident and much more. The glittering brass main the entertainment scene can be in a city like Van- entrance with a stained glass feature above the doorway was couver. A block from the Waldorf on Hastings is the breathtaking. Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre in a building that was Baceda’s – the hottest nightclub in town in A Vancouver Sun special multi-page advertising supplement, the late 1970s and the successor to Oil Can Harry’s at published a day earlier, gushed: “The building suggests some Thurlow and Alberni, itself the site now of an anony- great marine rock rising from the sea, clinging with sea flora mous highrise office building. and fauna, tinted in sea green, flashed with gold, at night a dim silhouette piercing the sea mists.” The study and recording of Vancouver’s entertain- ment history has been led recently by VHS member But the same newspaper was already carrying stories with Aaron Chapman, whose book on the Penthouse Caba- ever more dire financial news. The Vancouver Board of Trade ret and the Filipponi family was followed last year by and other business groups had tied the opening of the Marine a history of the Commodore Ballroom, which won Building to “Prosperity Week,” an initiative to stimulate the the Duthie Prize as the best book published in BC local economy. in 2014. Both were popular commercial successes, in- dicating a deep interest in cultural memory – perhaps While the building had several major tenants including the a touchstone in a city that’s been better at demolition Vancouver Merchants’ Exchange, McCarter and Nairne and than anything else. companies involved in transportation, there were still many empty offices. Construction cost overruns coupled with the John Atkin and Tom Carter’s study of Vancouver sluggish economy meant trouble. Mortgage holders were vaudeville — so far presented just as lectures — fo- already pressing Stimson and Company for payments just cuses a vintage cultural lens primarily onto belea- months after the building opened. Hobbs offered the building guered East Hastings Street. As was the case in the to the City of Vancouver for $1 million as a possible new City 19th century with the Vancouver Opera House and Hall. The city declined. The British Pacific Building Company visiting artists such as Sarah Bernhardt, the city’s finally ended up buying the building in 1933 for $900,000 vaudeville theatres were stops on a North American ($16.1 million in today’s money), roughly a third of what it had circuit, ensuring that locals got a large dose of Ameri- cost Stimson to build. cana to counter the Britishness of the city’s institu- tions. It began before the radio era and continued into Alfred James Towle (Fred) Taylor was the man behind the Brit- the 1950s and the triumph of TV. A serious historical ish Pacific Building Company (along with investment from subject, indeed. the Guinness family of beer fame). Born in Victoria in 1887, A.J.T. — as friends called Taylor — came to Vancouver at age 16, two years after his widowed father had died. Taylor lived Michael Kluckner, President in a shack at Burrard and Hastings rented from the Canadian [email protected] Continued on Top Left of Page 3 Marine Building Opens 85 Years Ago Upcoming Speakers Continued from Page 2 Pacific when he started working at a local shipyard. Thirty-four The VHS invites everyone (including non-members) years later, business success for the self-taught engineer meant to attend our monthly talks. The talks are free and he could now look down from his office high atop the Marine are held at the Museum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestnut Building to the spot where he had started. (A.J.T. would go on Street (close to Vanier Park) at 7:30 p.m. on the to build the Lions Gate Bridge and the British Properties.) fourth Thursday of every month except June, July, August, December). Originally planned as an observation deck, the penthouse above his offices were turned into living quarters where he and his Thursday, November 26, 2015 family lived before moving to West Vancouver (Taylor Way is Habitat Forum and the United Nations named for him). His wife wasn’t keen on living atop the office Conference of 1976 building because they would be marooned after hours. With el- Speaker: Lindsay Brown evators operating during business hours only, leaving the build- At the end of May 1976, Vancouver was abuzz with ing or coming home after hours meant a lot of stairs. A.J.T. the opening of the United Nations Conference on once brought a pony up to the penthouse for his sons to ride Human Settlements, the largest UN conference at that around the penthouse galleries. time. Focusing attention on the city, the conference drew 10,000 people from 150 countries, a big event for small Vancouver. Luminaries in attendance were A Mrs. Mary C. Fisher lived there in the early 1940s. By the Margaret Mead, Mother Teresa, Buckminster Fuller, late 1940s, the penthouse was converted to offices. Today the Paolo Soleri, Pierre Trudeau, etc. Habitat Forum, penthouse offices are rented to Urbanics Consultants Ltd., a a parallel utopian gathering of non-governmental company dealing with land economics. organizations was organized by community activist Alan Clapp and others. For this, thousands of While taller buildings surround it and its views of the water- volunteers and local artists transformed the former front are somewhat diminished by the addition of streets and miltary base at Jericho Beach into an extraordinary buildings north of it, the edifice still maintains its command of “happening.” The conference closed on June 11th but a Hastings as you view it from the east. The Marine Building’s strong if often unacknowledged legacy remained. classic looks have often been featured in various Thursday, January 28, 2016 film and television pro- Cǝsnǝʔǝm, the city before the city ductions. Speaker: Viviane Gosselin The current five-year joint Museum of Vancouver- The current owners — Musqueam First Nation exhibition (Cǝsnǝʔǝm, the city Oxford Properties, the before the city) asks “Whose home is Vancouver?” The real estate arm of the Musqueam First Nation’s willingness to share their Ontario Municipal Em- history gives us a chance to look at bone, stone and ployee Retirement System shell objects of Cǝsnǝʔǝm, the city before the city, an (OMERS) — have almost important ancestral village for the indigenous history finished building the new of the Musqueam. The artefacts come from what is MNP Tower just behind more familiarly known as the Eburne Midden, Great and west of the Marine Fraser Midden and Marpole Midden. These artefacts Building. Although not as are important to native people as an ownership of apparent in a black and the past — the deep past. They are equally important white photo, the glass to Vancouverites in driving home the point of the tower seems to act as a long time pre-colonial presence of the First Nations complementary backdrop people and this adjunct talk to the exhibition gives the to the brick and terra cotta Musqueam a chance to present history from their point Art Deco classic at 355 of view. Burrard. Peek into the Past with Jim McGraw

large crowd gathered to watch the official opening at 12:15 P.M. by Mayor William Harold Malkin. During the cer- emony, Lieutenent-Governor R. Randolph Bruce unveiled an autographed portrait of King George and presented it to the Merchants’ Exchange (one of the major tenants) as a gift from Lloyds London. John Y. McCarter of McCarter and Nairne, the designers, also spoke. On behalf of the owners (G. A. Stimson and Co. —“Canada’s oldest bond house”) and contractors (Ramsay-Ryan), Colonel Edward John Ryan presented the Mayor with a silver casket in which to keep the gold key that opened the building and the gold whistle with which he had signalled the steam shovel to turn the first sod just 18 months earlier.

While the 18-month construction period was fast, the Oc- tober opening was actually six months behind schedule. Due to the New York City stock market crash on October 29, 1929 and the ensuing financial crisis, the Stimson com- pany was having a hard time financing the building. As the number of workers was cut, construction slowed costing the company an additional $1.1 million over the $1.5 mil- lion projected cost of the project. The opening was delayed from March to October.

Lieutenant Commander J.W. Hobbs, Vice-President of Stimson and Co., a Toronto-based finance house, had to arrange last minute financing so the building could be fin- A 1946 photo of the Marine Building taken from the ished at all. The arrangement was to haunt the owners. 1918 Abbotsford Hotel, at 921 West Pender still there today as a Day’s Inn. Hobbs had been instrumental in convincing his company Photo: Don Coltman, photgrapher, Steffens-Colmer Studios, City of Vancouver Archives to take on the project in the first place. He believed there CVA 586-4384 would be a need for a great office building on the harbour- n Wednesday, October 8th, 1930, 85 years ago, a front that would house the many shipping companies, com- Ogrand celebration marked the opening of what today modity brokers and allied businesses serving Vancouver, a is considered one of the finest examples of Art Deco archi- tecture — the Marine Building in downtown Vancouver. A Continued at top right of Page 2

Vancouver Historical Society Executive Board: 2015 - 2016 (Elected May 28, 2015) EXECUTIVE APPOINTED POSITIONS President Michael Kluckner Archivist Alexandra Allen Vice President Eve Lazarus Info Line Jeannie Hounslow Treasurer Scott Anderson Newsletter Mailing Mary Gavan, John Gadsby Recording Secretary Kellan Higgins Tour Coordinator Jo Pleshakov Director Robert McDonald CONTACT INFORMATION Director (Newsletter Editor) Jim McGraw Vancouver Historical Society Information Line: 604-878-9140 Director Brenda Peterson Mailing Address: P.O. Box 3071 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X6 Director (Programs) Bruce M. Watson Website: www.vancouver-historical-society.ca Director Stevie Wilson Newsletter Editor: [email protected]