Athletes and Updates

The Templeton Market is located on Templeton Drive North. Built in 1912, this was formerly the home of Bayly Bros. Grocery as well as an I.O.O.F. Hall.

Today I am going to continue my look at the 1920s in Vancouver and give you an update on an earlier story.

Local restaurant owner, Peter Pantages, was organizing the Polar Bear Swim Club. Pangtages, nephew of the Pantages of the Pantages Theatre fame, took a morning dip in the frigid waters of English Bay. After the swim, Peter and his friends would meet at Pantages Peter Pan Cafe on Granville.

The Polar Swim Club organized an annual winter swim for those who decided that once a year in the freezing water was enough. That event still happens every New Years Day. Not that I have ever participated or, at the moment, intend to get into that freezing water.

It was in 1928 that Vancouver's own Percy Williams became a national hero. It was at the Amsterdam Olympics that Williams took the world of track and field by storm, winning gold in both the 100 and 200 metre sprints.

In an earlier blog entry, I posted a photo of the home that Percy once lived in. When I wrote on the new BC Place, I showed photos of a statue of Williams outside the venue. It is obvious that Vancouver appreciates our hero.

Here is a photo of Percy Williams, thanks to the Vancouver Public Library. The Dominion Photo Co is credited with this May 8, 1928 picture.

I posted a link to an online petition a while ago to stop the destruction of a legendary live venue in town, the Waldorf. The developers have said that they are going to incorporate the building into the condominiums being built on that site.

Waldorf Productions though is not dead. The people involved in that have teamed with the Rickshaw owner David Duprey and his partner Rachel Zottenburg to run the Fox Cinema on Granville Street. A five-year lease has been signed with a five-year option to renew. However, it may be a while before the new venue opens since the Fox, a former porno theatre, is a disaster inside and needs a lot of work to clean it up.

To honor this event and in memory of what the Waldorf once was, I found some old photos of the interior from the Vancouver City archives. Enjoy.

Thanks goes to Aynsley Vogel and Dana Wyse for their book Vancouver, A History in Photographs where I got the information on the 1920s in Vancouver. 

I hope you find the beauty around you.

I have written on The Waldorf and its history before. If you want to read what I said, go here.


Karen Magill, Vancouver, 1920, history, Vancouver, A History in Photographs, Aynsley Vogel British Columbia, Canada, Dana Wyse,Percy Williams, Waldorf

Freedom and Talkies

This home at 2427 Franklin Street, has stood here since 1909.

World War I was over and there was a new attitude in the air. There was freedom, money being made and happy days. Women had shorter hair, and shorter skirts, and they had found a new sense of independence. During the war, they had gone to work in jobs held previously only by men. And these ladies had proven they could do it.

Vancouver saw a new age of expansion and progress. The stock market was helping the rich get richer while the newly opened Panama Canal - in addition to a dramatic increase in wheat exports - boosted shipping activities in Vancouver's port. During the years between 1921 and 1929, the total exports for the city quadrupled.

This green house, built in 1912, is at 2435 Franklin Street.

During this decade, Vancouver also started becoming more industrialized. Hundreds of small factories were started and helped to put to work those who were unemployed after the war.

The city started expanding, absorbing the suburbs of South Vancouver and Point Grey.  The population rose to almost 250,000 by the end of the decade.

This was also a decade of technological advances. By the end of the twenties, seventy percent of the homes in Canada had electricity. Electric irons and vacuum cleaners created more free time and something had to fill in the gap. The radio stepped in to accomplish this task as thousands of families across the city tuned in to American radio shows.

The latest house can be seen at 1847 Venables and dates back to 1910.

The biggest freedom though came from the automobile. In 1920, Vancouver recorded 650 cars. It only took ten years for the number to balloon to 36,500. Our first drive-in restaurant, The White Spot, catered to this craze. (I wrote on The White Spot and how it got started when I wrote on Nat Bailey, the company's founder.) In 1928, the first traffic light was installed downtown.

With the added free time, it was also time to go out on the town. The Pantages Theatre on Hastings brought in Duke Ellington and vaudeville acts. However, it was the 'talkies' that had everyone, well, talking. The first talking picture Mother Knows Best, was screened at the Capital on Granville in 1928. This area would become known a\s Vancouver's Theatre Row. In 1927, the Orpheum opened and it brought in stars like Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson. There were also ritzy places to eat like the Chanticleer Cafe or the Love's Grill.

(Guess what? I have written on the Orpheum Theatre as well.)

This photo I found at the Vancouver Public Library Online collection. The studio credited with taking it is the Dominion Photo Co. If you look to the one side, just behind the car there, it looks like that could be the Chanticleer Cafe. 

Thanks goes to Bob_2006 for the information on the houses and to Aynsley Vogel and Dana Wyse and Vancouver, A History in Photographs for the information on the 1920s.

Monday, I will look more at this precious decade in this history and until then I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Vancouver, 1920, history, Vancouver, A History in Photographs, Aynsley Vogel British Columbia, Canada, Dana Wyse,flickr.com