Sebring and the Sport Racer

I was walking along Powell Street Friday when I noticed something interesting. I walked by then turned around and asked if I could take a photo. Not only did I get a photo but I also got some information. Want to see what I saw?

This is a 1957 Elva Sport Race MK III, one of twelve MK IIIs built.

This vehicle debuted at the Sebring Race in 1958 in Sebring Florida. Four such cars were sent.

When this car was built it had to be street legal. Therefore the manufacturer made it with two doors, or at least doors of a sort. It also has two small bucket seats and carries a spare tire.

The original engine for this make of automobile was a Coventry Climax engine but unfortunately that one blew at Sebring on lap 144. It was replaced with an Alpha Romeo engine, 1300 5 speed gear box. (I  think I got that right!)

Further research on my part led me to the Elva website and a mountain of information! Like the name Elva was derived from the German 'ella' and 'va' meaning 'she goes'. And the 1958 debut of an Elva vehicle at Sebring seems to have been the manufacturer's first appearance there. But not the last.

One of the interesting aspects of this entry is the gentleman I spoke with. His passion for the car and restoring it and his willingness to share information with someone like me who really doesn't understand much about cars was inspiring. Finding people who are so involved in what they love makes life seem a little better.

Just seeing this piece of luxury reminded me of old Hollywood, glamorous women with handsome men. Parties and champagne. I thought of Katherine Hepburn. Then Isadora Duncan.

As you may remember Isadora Duncan is considered the mother of modern dance and she was very flamboyant character who loved long scarves. She also loved the Bugatti sports car but didn't own one. One day, when she was fifty years old and in Nice France, she met a young man who sold Bugatti cars. She asked him to go with her on a test run and when she got into the vehicle she turned to her friends and said "Farewell my friends, I'm off to glory!" Then she threw her long scarf around her neck and when the car started the heavily embroidered silk got caught in the open spokes of the car wheels, snapping her neck and killing her instantly.  Not to be ghoulish but I think that was a perfect way for her to die - as flashy as she had lived. And in a very memorable way.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

TAGS:Vancouver, Karen Magill, Powell Street, Sebring,Elva Sport Race MKIII,1957,History,Isadora Duncan,1958

Ferguson and Chamberlain

This small, non descript building on Cordova Street in Gastown was probably built around 1928. It was originally an extension of the neighbouring Columbia Hotel and is referred to as the Boyd Building.

Thomas Boyd arrived in Vancouver in 1884 and took great pride in his status as a pioneer. He played an active role as a contractor in creating this city. He cleared the rights of way for Granville Street and Park Drive in Stanley Park; he purchased real estate and designed and constructed many buildings, including this one.

This brick building replaced an early timber building on the same site. After it was no longer used by the Columbia Hotel it was leased to a number of tenants. Including E.W. Grant and Son who operated a sheet metal works here.

For almost ninety years, from the late nineteenth century until 1989, this building was owned by the Boyd family - first Thomas Boyd then his widow and finally his daughter.

The Columbia Hotel, or the New Columbia Hotel, is located at 303 Columbia Street right at the corner of East Cordova and Columbia Streets.

It was built between 1910 and 1920 and reflects the importance of the single male workers to British Columbia's resource-based industry. Those in the logging camps would winter here when the camps closed.

This hotel is also historically significant due to the way it was built. The structure that is there today was constructed in two separate parts - the three-storey southern part sometime between 1910 and 1920 while the six-storey northern section between 1925 and 1950.

The New Columbia Hotel, like many other establishments in the area, earned an unsavoury reputation while enforcing the liquor laws in its beer parlour. I don't know the details though.

This is one of the many Ferguson Blocks in this city. It is located across the street from Maple Tree Square at the strange intersection of Alexander, Water, Carrall and Powell Streets. A two-storey masonry structure in the Victorian Italianate style, with a one storey retail extension to the rear, Ferguson Block was built in 1886 to 1887.

This one of the oldest buildings on its original site in Vancouver.(and one of the first examples of  Victorian Italianate style in Vancouver)  It is located in the same area as what was Vancouver's first gathering space in the core of Gastown.

(You may remember that the Byrnes Block that I wrote on last year is across the street. That is the building directly behind the statue of Gassy Jack.)


The first section of this building was built in 1886-87 prior to the arrival of the railway;  a one storey addition to the rear, housing three commercial storefronts, and a two storey addition to the side had been added by 1889.

Although Alfred Graham Ferguson had this designed by architect W. T. Whiteway it was sold almost immediately after completion to Hugh Whitmore Chamberlain who was responsible for the 1889 additions. The building was also known as the Chamberlain Block.

These buildings are in Gastown, as I am sure you have gathered. Now we are going to move over to Chinatown/Strathcona and take a look at the Vancouver Gas Company Warehouse.

Built in 1910 and located at 135 Keefer Street, this building is an early work of the architectural firm Sharp and Thompson. Although this was an industrial building, it was dressed up with glazed brick, small-paned windows, decorative spandrels, and a cornice to make it look more like an office building. However the large expanse of the facade windows and the unornamented red brick walls on the other elevations reveal the warehouse function.

This building is also valuable because it is one of the few remaining that belonged to the Vancouver Gas Company, the first coal gas manufacturing complex of this early Vancouver utility (established in 1886). (By 1910 the Vancouver Gas Company was a part of the British Columbia Electric Company which became BC Hydro.)

It is also one of a handful of buildings associated with the intense industrial use on the north shore of False Creek for nearly a century from the 1880s. It would be hard to tell today because the area has been filled and the relationship to the water is no longer visible but the complex was located here to unload coal barges from Vancouver Island.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

TAGS:Vancouver, Karen Magill, Vancouver Gas Company, British Columbia Electric Company,Sharp and Thompson,Strathcona,History,Gastown,Boyd

Jackson Avenue Houses

These are known as the Jackson Avenue Houses located at 230-248 Jackson Avenue between East Cordova and Powell streets. These four Edwardian-era homes were constructed in 1905.

These houses are almost identical - except for the green one which is situated on a raised basement that once accommodated a commercial space  - and retain their original cladding and windows. They are distinguishable by the prominent front gables and large verandas. I find them a special treat since they are located in a not so great part of town and across the street from Oppenheimer Park where a lot of homeless gather.

These houses are valued not only because they are over 100 years old but also because of their continuous use as rental properties. They were built as an investment and to supply housing for the lower to middle income residents of Strathcona.

William McRae and David MacDonald were business partners and were looking to diversify their partnership and earnings so these homes were built for their wives, Alexandra MacDonald and Amy McRae.

The Edwardian influence can be seen with features such as the front-gabled roofs with hipped roof returns, hipped-roof dormers, and closed eaves with wooden tongue-and-groove soffits; the wood-frame construction with wooden, double-bevelled lapped wooden siding, cornerboards, frieze boards and window casings; the open, full-width, front verandas with hipped roofs and square columns; the paneled front doors with single-pane glazing and classical detailing; the internal red-brick chimneys; and the typical fenestration pattern that includes double-hung 1-over-1 wooden-sash windows in single and double assemblies; bay windows on the front elevation; and front entrance sidelights with diamond panes.

I hope you find the beauty around you.
TAGS:Vancouver, Karen Magill, Jackson Avenue Houses, Edwardian,McRae and MacDonald,Strathcona,History,gable,Verandah