By 1910, Vancouver then
Will have 100,000 men
Move Her! Move Her!
Who? Vancouver!
In the background of this picture taken at Abbott and Hastings, you might be able to see a banner that reads “100,000 Club.” And if you lived back then in 1908, you might have been caught up in the boosterish promotion that characterized an age perhaps not all that different from ours, except in the use of politically incorrect nouns.
By 1910, Vancouver did indeed have 100,000 citizens. And exactly a century later we have reached an identical mark, according to Planning Director Brent Toderian: “We estimate the total population for the Downtown Peninsula today (2009-10) would be about 100,000, based on the residential completions since the 2006 census (which records 87,973 people).”
Brent also notes that the Downtown population doubled in 20 years (from 42,960 in 1986), and in particular the number of children under 18 living at home more than quadrupled (from 1,365 to 5,760) – not that the mercantile boosters of 1910 would have cared all that much.
By the way, the “Big Store” referred to on the forward banner in the picture above is Woodward’s. And in a nice bracketing of fortune and fate, it will be formally reopening in just a few weeks.
