The Hastings Great White Way

Two views of hotels. This was taken in the 1900s by Philip, Timms. The Astor Hotel was at 147 Hastings and the Commercial Hotel at 330 Cambie.

Stuart Thomson took this photo in 1925 at the corner of Hastings and Carrall Streets. The rounded building on the right is still there.

The circus comes to town! In the 1900s Philip Timms took this photo of either the Ringling Brothers or the Barnum and Bailey circus.

The Pantages Theatre at 20 West Hastings, the Army and Navy Store is at 40 West Hastings. Stuart Thomson took this photo sometime in the 1920s.

Nowadays, people crowd the nightspots on Granville Street when they are looking for some adult fun.  But it wasn't always that way. At one time, Granville Street was considered elite with its opera house. When someone wanted to have fun. they flocked to "The Hastings Great White Way" - nicknamed that after the "Great White Way" of New York City. The lightbulb-covered way stretched from Victory Square to Main Street.

It was five blocks of theatres, cinemas, pool halls and restaurants, featuring entertainment for the everyday man. Vancouver was, after all, a working town at that time and on Hastings, people could see more down home entertainment like vaudeville and skits. Stuff like that. More theatres than you can imagine were crowded into the five block area.

Southeast corner of Hastings and Carrall Streets. Philip Timms took this 1900 photo.

 1915 photo at Hastings and Carrall Streets. Taken by R. Broadbridge

Leonard Frank took the above photo of the Beacon Theatre in 1932. It is in the location of the Pantages Theatre.

The Bailey Bros took this photo in 1890s of the Vancouver Club on Hastings Street.

For those of you who may be wondering, vaudeville was a live variety show. And it wasn't only for the evenings. Sometimes a vaudeville theatre could be open for 12 hours a day. The stage was seldom empty as the acts rotated throughout the day. 

These acts contained entertainment we see today such as singers, dancers, comedians and musicians. There were featured child performers, animal shows, minstrel and "freak" shows. 

Imagine walking through the street in the 1910s and 1920s. Light bulbs, thousands of them, light up the night. Little bulbs highlighted theatre marquises and doorways. Streetcars thundered by, their bells clanging.  At that time, the theatres didn't have lobbies. A person would buy a ticket then enter the theatre and the music would blare out over the street.

What fun! What excitement! It must have been so exhilarating to walk the Hastings Great White Way.

This photo was taken by Philip Timms in 1915 of two posters advertising vaudeville acts. 

 

Another 1915 photo of a vaudeville bill taken by Philip Timms.

The ceiling at the Pantages Theatre, October 4, 1922. Taken by the Dominion Photo Co. 

October 7, 1922. The ticket booth at the Pantages Theatre. Dominion Photo Co. 

But everything must come to an end. Including vaudeville and with its demise, so did the Hastings Great White Way. It is said that vaudeville came to Vancouver to die. We did hang on to the form of entertainment long after the rest of the world moved on. 

Circuit Vaudeville came to town well into the 1940s. That was around ten years after everyone else gave up on it. One theatre manager even tried to run a live vaudeville show in 1958 from noon until 5 am. It didn't last long.

However, for years Vancouver held on to a piece of that era, the Pantages Theatre. Whereas other grand theatres had long disappeared, the Pantages was still there. Sadly, the area of town it was in has decayed as well as the building and it was torn down in 2011. If you want to know more about the last vaudeville house in Canada, you can go to an earlier entry.

 A March 26, 1926 photo of Hastings Street at night. Taken by the Dominion Photo Co.

Another March 26, 1926 photo taken by the same company but this time of the Pantages Theatre. This is the one which was demolished in 1967 to build a parking lot.

The date of this photo is unknown but it is the first Pantages theatre at 144-156 East Hastings. It was demolished in 2011 along with a few neighbouring buildings.

A 1923 photo of people walking by an advertisement for a Houdini performance at the Orpheum Theatre.

I would like to thank an article in the Vancitybuzz for the above information and the Vancouver Public Library for the photos.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

A Star Begins to Rise

June Roper was still a minor when another Belcher studio graduate, Jack Kinney, approached her to go out on the road with him. Kinney was beginning to find bookings on the East Coast nightclub tour, including a six-week tour with the Pantages theatre for himself and his partner. His partner was unable to perform the occasional classical ballet number that was required. Originally it was trio - Kinney, Roper and Lee - who started a tour of nightclubs in Denver and Chicago. After a performance at Chicago's Lyric Theatre, Lee left the trio.

Because June was so young, you needed her mother's approval to perform. She urged her mother to tour with them as a chaperone and mentor. Elizabeth Roper was sixty-five years old but she gave up her comfortable life in Los Angeles to travel with her young daughter for the next seven years, living a nomadic lifestyle in the United States and Europe. The elder Roper embraced the world of show business - after all, she had longed for that existence for herself in her younger years - and became a good friend and confidante to June's associates and peers in the theatres.

June and Jack operated without the services of an exclusive agent and their bookings in the United States were for short term engagements. After performing at the Lyric Theatre in Chicago, the duo moved to Billy Gallagher's Monte Carlo Club in New York. There the press said they were "one of the best whirlwind posture and classical dancing teams that has hit the East in months."

A talent scout from England saw June Roper and Jack Kinney and signed them for a spot at Ciro's Club in London. From that came a three-week engagement at the Kit Kat Club. Every performance they booked opened the doors for others and the duo had few breaks between performances. They accepted engagements in southern France and Spain. They were signed by the Dutch Impresario Tuschinski for the Gaite Theatres in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. Jack and June's dancing perfected and their confidence grew - so did their fees.

The stages the duo performed on were those of lavish casinos and night clubs in Europe. June and Jack presented innovative, characteristically American dances, which they created and those of the popular music hall. The pair added acrobatic embellishments to their adagio creations. June often incorporated ballet techniques into her own performances, some of which were done partly on pointe.

June Roper must have been living a dream. A hard working dream, but something she had imagined since she was a child and had seen Anna Pavlova dance. The young lady was doing what she wanted - dancing - and was now gaining fame and recognition. It must have seemed like light years away from the days when she had babysat for money so that she could take two streetcars to attend dancing lessons. And from the days when she had performed at charity bazaars to get noticed.

Are you getting inspired by this young woman's story? I sure am! The dedication and determination June showed throughout these early years, paid off. It reminds me that if I want to realize my goals, I have some big work to do!

I am getting my information from the book June Roper Ballet Starmaker by Leiland Windreich. 

I hope you find the beauty around you.

The Mural

Master designer, Tony Heinsbergen, wanted to put a mural on the ceiling of the newly renovated Orpheum but that wasn't in the budget. Tony kept arguing that the ceiling needed a mural and the architects kept having to say no. Finally Heinsbergen made them an offer they couldn't refuse so the architects paid for the mural out of their own pockets. (Eventually they were able to get the Vancouver Foundation to reimburse them the monies.)

During the winter of 1975/76 the mural was painted on 24 large canvas panels in his Los Angeles studio. Heinsbergen and his 61-year-old cousin and associate of 45 years, Frank Bouman, oversaw the work.  The panels were then shipped to Vancouver where they attached to the dome. Heinsbergen, Bouman and their assistants then added final details and background on the site.

The mural that Heinsbergen and his staff created may be mythical but some of the people in the painting are based on real people. There is a bearded man serenading a muse and that man is architect Paul Merrick. Merrick supplied Heinsbergen with photos of his children and they are up there in different guises as well. There is a tiger in the mural and that is to represent Heinsbergen's Nova Scotia born wife who Tony referred to as his 'little tiger'. Project architect Ron Nelson is the man conducting the orchestra.

Leonard Frank took this photo on February 9, 1928. From the Vancouver Public Library.

The mural was 75 feet by 50 feet. The technique that Heinsbergen used to attach the canvas to the dome, to make it flexible enough, was a formula that his master in the Netherlands had used. Before sailing to the United States, Heinsbergen had asked his master for his secret. As Heinsbergen went to board the ship that would take him to his new land, his master gave him an envelope he was to open once at sea. In it was the formula and Heinsbergen used that for over seventy years.

Heinsbergen told a Los Angeles interviewer that he was most proud of the mural he created for the Vancouver Orpheum. (He celebrated his 82nd birthday while working on it) His previous decoration that he had done in 1927 had been covered with felt and plastered over. This time though his work should remain for people to see for many more decades.

Leonard Frank January 2, 1929. Vancouver Public Library.

Leonard Frank, August 1932. Vancouver Public Library.

The Mural.

The Orpheum wasn't Heinsbergen's first foray into Vancouver. He had worked on the former Orpheum in 1918. From 1916 to 1924, he visited three times to work on the first Pantages Theatre, which was at 20 West Hastings.

On June 14, 1981, at the age of 86, Tony Heinsbergen died. However, the work has left behind will be admired for generations to come.

This blog entry first appeared in May of 2012.

For those of you who have read my book Missing Flowers, the house that Devon and Darius rented an apartment in was inspired by the house in the back.

Thank you goes to The History of Metropolitan Vancouver website for the above information.

I hope you find the beauty  around you.