Vancouver History

[mbarrick]

Last Friday valerian and I cashed in some free tickets _disdain_ gave us and went to Storeum. After watching an hour of glossed-over, politically-corrected history we went for a very Vancouver dinner at the White Spot and got to talking about the less politically correct bits of Vancouver history and how it would be fun to offer a historical tour that get into the guts of the city built on a foundation of booze and opium and from which the term "Skid Row" originates. Then along comes contrasoma with this thread. Must be some weird zeigeist.

Here's another one for you, Bruce:

What was BowMac?

Comments

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

i know where the oh canada horn was previously and i've read about the nine o'clock gun...

and i remember sea fest because i used to live on burnaby street...

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

and i know bowmac too...maybe i should think up some questions from when i was a kid in the late '60s and early '70s and see if anyone knows them...ha ha...

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Do it. Remember the Christmas Tree on the Hydro building?

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

yep i remember that too...i used to like that...too bad they didn't keep that one...

[contrasoma.livejournal.com]

That's the sign on Broadway that's now Toys R Us, right? Is it still there? No clue what it means...

...And I'd be very into just such a tour. I hear odd stories here and there and am intrigued but still know relatively little. A friend who did a post-Pickton feature for the Straight on the DTES prostitution trade told me that a virtual red light district was created just after the turn of the century by fining prostitutes less money if they were caught soliciting in what is now the DTES. We don't learn this shit in social studies...

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

BowMac was a car lot for decades, Bowman Maclan Autos. The sign was put up in 1959.

Similarly, the hubcab decorations on the Capers at 4th And Vine are there because that location was a Ford car lot that opened in 1903 and stayed in business for 99 years.

Typo

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Maclean

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

i remember the car lot when i was young...they had two tiers of cars...

[sovietnimrod.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't have been that long ago, the Toys 'R' Us was built around 10 years ago. It was still a (vacant) car lot when I started working a block from it in 1994.

The BowMac sign is has a heritage plaque on it but I think it's kind of pointless because they have the Toys R Us sign overtop obstructing it. Kind of defeats the purpose. They'd been better to relocate the BowMac sign elsewhere.

Speaking of neon signs, Chapters on Granville still has the Aristocrat "Risty" sign inside their store. That was another landmark now no more.

[(Anonymous)]

well i remember bowmac from the early '70s when there wasn't much else on broadway of particular note...

[sovietnimrod.livejournal.com]

After watching an hour of glossed-over, politically-corrected history

No doubt. That's a big reason why I won't go and see it as I hate seeing history all taken out of context of the times.