Changing Vancouver

SFU history professor Allen Seager discussed the early part of Vancouver’s history yesterday in a lecture chock-full of great anecdotes. Example: In the 1890s, the CPR proposed a smelter on False Creek. As Seager said, we could have been Tacoma, where heavy industry shaped the core of the city for a century. Instead, the railway centralized smelter operations in Trail.

He also had a historic video – After 50 Years – done by the precursor to the National Film Board for Vancouver’s 1936 half-century celebrations. (Can’t, unfortunately, find it on the internet.) And yes, it’s unintentionally absurd in the affected style that characterized British-colonial Canada, right down to the accent of the narrator. Sanitized too: even MayorMcGeer couldn’t be acknowledged since he was an opposition MP at the time. Seager notes, however, that the Federal Government funded the addition to the post office (now Sinclair Centre) as a consolation prize for McGeer when his party formed the government but he didn’t get a cabinet position.

The documentary captures Vancouver in all its aspirational and optimistic glory (despite the Depression) – a city where the Marine Building and Hotel Vancouver dominate the skyline. As much as the city has changed, though, it’s remarkable how much is the same. A shot looking west down Hastings Street isn’t that much different than today, save for the change in the cars, the absence of the streetcars and the density of the crowds.

Coincidentally, Mike Klassen sent along a few historic images today. Here’s a shot, looking east from Burrard or Hornby, of the now-demolished second Hotel Vancouver at the southwest corner of Georgia and Granville, with the Birks Building behind:

The entrance to Stanley Park, after the Causeway through the park was constructed to the left of the City-Beautiful allee (still there but with fully-grown trees):