We’re talking about the second Granville Bridge – on the north end.
To acknowledge the 60th anniversary of the opening of the third Granville Bridge on February 4, 1954, John Mackie featured the structure in “This Week in History” – the remaining archival column, once daily, in the The Sun.
The steel and concrete bridge was “designed for the future” with eight lanes, “the only (eight lane bridge) on the continent outside of New York City.” It was 5,000 feet long, soared 90 feet above the creek, and came in at double the projected cost when construction began Sept. 10, 1951. …
Some businesses balked at moving to make way for the new bridge. The downtown approach for the bridge ran directly above the Cecil Hotel’s front entrance. The city couldn’t come to an agreement with the building’s owner for compensation, so wound up expropriating it.
Another downtown hotel, The Continental Hotel, was literally encircled by the new bridge’s off-ramp onto Pacific. But you could still get to the hotel from an open area underneath the ramp.
The online story has a gallery of great photos, including this one:
It shows both the new and old bridges, the latter apparently not lining up with the existing end of Granville on the downtown peninsula.
Here’s another view, looking south:
.
Now why would that be? The second bridge was opened in 1909, and Granville at that time was main streetcar route. Surely they could have extended the bridge without having to do a jog. Was it because they didn’t want to displace the first Granville Bridge before opening the second? Why not have built it another block or so north, as they presumably did on the south?
There’s a story there – and I expect we might soon get an answer.
The current Granville Street Bridge is the third bridge that crossed False Creek at this location, with the second bridge being the one pictured in the images above. My guess is that the original Granville Street Bridge did connect to Granville Street on either side of the creek and the second bridge was built alongside it (above what is now called Old Bridge Road on Granville Island) while the original bridge was still in operation. The second bridge could not connect directly to Granville Street at either side because of its configuration parallel to the original bridge. Once the second bridge was operational the first was removed, in much the same way that the third (current) Granville Street Bridge was built while the second bridge remained in operation. Should a fourth bridge ever be built to replace the current third iteration, it would also not necessarily line up with Granville Street on either side of the creek.
Makes sense –
That’s also why the current Cambie Bridge does not line up with Cambie on the south side – so when a 3rd Cambie / Connaught Bridge is built… but wait there are now condos in the way…
The 1889 bridge did indeed line up with Granville.
Looking north http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/granville-street-bridge-under-construction;rad
1932 “Coast for Granville” The Continental would be a good place to stay if you were town to go to a baseball game at Athletic Park at 5th and Pine
http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/looking-north-from-granville-bridge-towards-pacific-street-2;rad
BCER maps from the 1920/30’s show a ‘straight through’ Granville connection south to the private-right-of-way of the BCER/CPR’s False Creek trackage. This connection would also have been used by the route 12 Kitsilano streetcars to gain access to the trestle across False Creek. The jog to the Granville Bridge is obvious on these maps.
The jog may have assisted BCER operations to merge southbound service from Richards Street with southbound service from Granville (and vice versa northbound) without forcing Richards Street service to actually travel on Granville.
Richards was a much more intensively served transit routing then that it is now and, following the route numbers on the map, actually provided more streetcar routes to the bridge than Granville Street.
http://bcer.trams.bc.ca/pics/downtownlq.JPG
Of course, none of this explains why the jog was there in the first place. Would the BCER have had enough political clout to demand an alignment of the 2nd Granville Bridge that better suited its operational needs?
Who has the power?
Vancouver? Victoria? Easterners? Government? Business?
Sandon: December 16 1895, men from the K&S “armed with tools of every description” attacked the N&S…
http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/sandon-b-c-3;rad
Midway: November 9 1905, a brigade of CPR workers armed with shovels, picks and axes …
Vancover: April 9 1913 L.C. Gilman of the Great Northern Railway and J.J. Warren of the Kettle Valley Railway emerged from the Hotel Vancouver and announced that the battle for Coquihalla Pass was over.
http://youtu.be/RiONq7ktj80
Coalmont. Copper Mountain. Silverton., New Denver
Who has the power?
Vancouver? Victoria? Easterners?
Coalmont. Copper Mountain. Silverton.
Sandon: Decemeber 16 1895, men from the K&S “armed with tools o every description” attacked the N&S…
http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/sandon-b-c-3;rad
Midway: November 9 1905, a brigade of CPR workers armed with shovels, picks and axes …
Vancover: April 9 1913 L.C. Gilman of the Great Northern Railway and J.J. Warren of the Kettle Valley Railway emerged from the Hotel Vancouver and announced that the battle for Coquihalla Pass was over.
http://youtu.be/RiONq7ktj80
============
Beside the still water lay steel rails and ties
an old water tower stood by,
so I asked my father, “What is this I see?”
He turned and he said with a smile,
It’s the Kettle Valley Railroad, my son,
the Kettle Valley Line.
From Hope through to Princeton, Penticton, past Trail,
to the Crow’s nest on out to the plain
— Dave Baker
=======
John Hendry and the Vancouver, Westminster and Yukon Railway: “It Would Put Us on Easy Street”
PHYLLIS VEAZEY
[Reader’s Digest version]
Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, CPR President, told the BCER that the CPR had fought hard to maintain its control of the peninsula on which Vancouver was situated and that the Vancouver-Lulu Island line must never get into the hands of any other transcontinental railway.
[And to this very day, there is no railway line to Canada on the Arbutus Corridor :)]
http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/aerial-view-of-vancouver-8;rad
[Control? Who owns this townsite? ]
The city gave up its foreshore rights along the south side of the creek to the VV&E ; the VW&Y gave up its foreshore rights at the eastern end in return for railway yards there which were to be reserved for some other railway-— the Northern Pacific was mentioned in discussions. The bylaw approving the agreement passed in January 1908.
Hill, warned Hendry, was “throwing bouquets at the CPR and Victoria and all round.”47 In retaliation Hendry threatened to stop Great Northern trains from running over the VW&Y tracks.
Near the end of the campaign the Province made the Carrall Street foreshore an issue; Hendry reprimanded Mclnnes, whose election promises had inspired a cartoon showing him pulling down plums in the shape of street ends for the city.
Although Laurier won a large majority overall, the Liberals lost four seats in B.C., a fact which considerably undermined Hendry’s influence in Ottawa.
[John]Hendry’s involvement with the VW&Y offers a close to classic example of the manner in which business and government interacted in the early years of the twentieth century.
It shows, in particular, how a businessman might seek through lobbying, campaign contributions, the cultivation of political friendships, and the securing of high office for associates and supporters to influence the decision-making process in his favour.
It reveals, too, what sort of business moves — those, for example, Hendry made in his efforts to acquire the property he needed to run the VW&Y into Vancouver — might be necessary to secure a given objective.
Most of all, however, it makes clear to what extent even the most self-made and independent of businessmen and entrepreneurs was dependent on a network of support and assistance without the existence of which he simply could not have functioned.
In doing that, finally, it reminds us once again of the by now familiar truth that businessmen, no less than other people, seek to control the environment in which they operate.
[Promises and Piecrusts are made to be broken]
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/bcstudies/article/viewFile/1165/1209
Street Ends
John Hendry and the Vancouver, Westminster and Yukon Railway: “It Would Put Us on Easy Street”
PHYLLIS VEAZEY
[Reader’s Digest version]
Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, CPR President, told the BCER that the CPR had fought hard to maintain its control of the peninsula on which Vancouver was situated and that the Vancouver-Lulu Island line must never get into the hands of any other transcontinental railway.
[Control? Who do the CPR think they are?..To this very day, there is no railway line to Canada on the Arbutus Corridor :)]
http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/aerial-view-of-vancouver-8;rad
The city gave up its foreshore rights along the south side of the creek to the VV&E ; the VW&Y gave up its foreshore rights at the eastern end in return for railway yards there which were to be reserved for some other railway-— the Northern Pacific was mentioned in discussions. The bylaw approving the agreement passed in January 1908.
On False Creek, which the council wanted to develop as a secondary harbour, the CPR also claimed extensive waterfront; the city had title to the remaining foreshore there but to confuse matters its title was from both the provincial and federal governments.21 To get a footing on Burrard Inlet, the council decided to extend certain streets in the business area northward to the water’s edge, beyond the CPR tracks, so that it might expropriate the street ends for public purposes. The CPR refused such access, and after many years of litigation the council lost its street-ends battle.
Hill, warned Hendry, was “throwing bouquets at the CPR and Victoria and all round.”47 In retaliation Hendry threatened to stop Great Northern trains from running over the VW&Y tracks.
Near the end of the campaign the Province made the Carrall Street foreshore an issue; Hendry reprimanded Mclnnes, whose election promises had inspired a cartoon showing him pulling down plums in the shape of street ends for the city.
[John]Hendry’s involvement with the VW&Y offers a close to classic example of the manner in which business and government interacted in the early years of the twentieth century.
It shows, in particular, how a businessman might seek through lobbying, campaign contributions, the cultivation of political friendships, and the securing of high office for associates and supporters to influence the decision-making process in his favour.
It reveals, too, what sort of business moves — those, for example, Hendry made in his efforts to acquire the property he needed to run the VW&Y into Vancouver — might be necessary to secure a given objective.
Most of all, however, it makes clear to what extent even the most self-made and independent of businessmen and entrepreneurs was dependent on a network of support and assistance without the existence of which he simply could not have functioned.
In doing that, finally, it reminds us once again of the by now familiar truth that businessmen, no less than other people, seek to control the environment in which they operate.
[Promises and Piecrusts are made to be broken]
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/bcstudies/article/viewFile/1165/1209