Vancouver Voyager: One Person's Treasure

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

One Person's Treasure

This is the Arco Hotel located at 81 West Pender Street. It has also gone by the name of the Patricia Lodge and other times been known as 2-Jays Cafe.

Owner John Walker had this six storey, two bay wide brick building built in 1912 to the designs of Braunton and Leibert. It stands on the border between the Chinatown district and the Downtown Eastside.

This tall, narrow structure is an elegant exercise in the Edwardian commercial style with an ornamented base and cap sandwiching a relatively plain central portion. The tall proportions are emphasized by the use of bay windows. In contrast side and rear are simple and unadorned. Perhaps someone was anticipating that other tall structures would be built next to it?

Originally there was retail on the lower level and lodging, presumably for single men, on the upper floors. That was typical of this area as you have seen from some of the other places I've shown you.

This building occupies the entire lot and is constructed of brick bearing walls spanned by steel beams over the ground floor and wood beams above. Natural light is allowed to reach every room with the recessed light well along the east side.

Located at 208 East Georgia Street - on the corner of East Georgia and Main Streets - this is the London Hotel. AKA the Pacific Hotel. It was constructed between 1903 and 1910.

(note on the name. It was originally known as the London Hotel and when the article I am getting my information from was written the building was known as the Pacific Hotel. But the photos in the article show the building as being grey. Last summer this building was redone and the name of the pub is the London Pub.)

This is another building that catered to the working man, in particular the seasonal working man. The upper floors were used for lodging while there was retail and a pub on the lower floor.

Noted contractor, Daniel McPhalen, not only acted as a contractor for this hotel but also owned it.

Historic Places.ca has a bit of information on this hotel but the problem is that it has been remodelled since the write up and I am not sure which parts are still valid. Like I know that there are no longer separate entries for men and women - that has been changed - and I am not sure what else has been. So I'll just show you a couple more photos.