435 West Pender - Connaught > Balfour > Niagara > Ramada Limited Hotel

Some years back I had a great opportunity to research the history of what is now the Ramada Limited Hotel at 435 West Pender. Most of us remember it as the Niagara Hotel and mourn the loss of its landmark neon sign. Anyone remember it being featured in X Files?

Anyway most of the data file for it is on my other PC and it will take a while to access it, but I did find this great article from when the hotel opened. It is from the Saturday, June 28, 1913 Vancouver World Newspaper.

One of the things I love about Blogspot is that when you click on uploaded images you can enlarge them quite a bit.

I get a kick out of the language used promoting the article; it's pure hyperbole! A lobby that is "as clean as the conscience of a child"--Wow! Can you imagine The Shangrila or one of the other newer hotels promoting themselves this way. This post is mostly for its entertainment value. enjoy.

Okay, I realize you still probably need a magnifying glass to read this. Let's see if I can crop the main text part for you. Hope this is better. Remember, click on the image below and it should show even larger.

And here is the rest of the article on Page 9.

Oh, and by the way, here is the picture of H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught, son of Queen Victorian and Prince Albert and the Governor General of Canada from 1911 to 1918. H.R.H. had recently visited Vancouver in 1912. The original Lumberman's Arch and a number of other commemorative arches were built at various locations across Vancouver streets to welcome him.

821 Keefer - The House That Harvie Built

You never know what you are going to find when you embark on the wonderful journey of house history research. Every house has a story. Some have secrets. And some, when you do the work, provide you with treasure of sorts.

A while back, some good friends of mine moved into the little red house at 821 Keefer Street. It was a charming little house with a nice back yard, with plenty of potential for a garden. My friends had plans to convert part of the main floor into a studio; one of them was an artist.

To help celebrate their move, I undertook a study of the history of their old house and gave it took them as a housewarming gift. There were about ten houses included in the study. Later, there was an opportunity to be interviewed about my work by the Vancouver Courier and I asked a number of clients and house history recipients if they would mind being interviewed. My artist friend was one of those who said yes.

Some weeks after the Courier article came out, my friend was contacted by Norah M., the great niece of Harvie Robertson, the carpenter who built the house. I was thrilled to know that there was family still around and asked my friend to ask if there might be any photos of the builder and his family. Norah very kindly invited me over to her home on the North Shore. There she showed me a number of photos of the builder and his strikingly beautiful wife, Hattie. She even showed me pictures of Harvie’s old carpentry tools. Her brother owned them. Norah and I talked about how those tools might have actually been used by Harvie to build his house at 821 Keefer.

Over the next weeks Norah was able to send me scans of the photos I had seen, and here’s the treasure part I alluded to earlier. Norah told me that her brother was not attached to the tools in the photo and that he had expressed interest in selling them, possibly at a garage sale. He heart leapt in my throat. I croaked, “How much does he want for them? I am interested if I can afford them.” Long story short, a few weeks later, I was the very proud and awed owner of a set of beautifully made hand-crafted carpenter’s planes of a variety of sizes.

I treasure these tools. They are a tangible link to the pioneer folk who built my neighbourhood. Over the years clients have given me an antique whiskey bottle found under the floors of a miner’s cabin on the 800-block of Dunlevy. I was even given a cleaver and a nasty looking tool with many nails sticking out of it used by Chinese butchers to move pig carcasses hanging on tracks downstairs at a sausage factory on the 700 block of East Pender. But Harvie’s tools will always have a special place in my heart.

Over the last month or so, I have guided a number of history walking tours through my neighbourhood, Vancouver’s old East End. And whenever the tour stops in front of 821 Keefer, I take out the two largest of Harvie’s planes and show them to the group. I think Harvie would be pleased with the looks of awe and admiration his tools receive from the people on the tour. I know I am.

An Overview of the History of 821 Keefer.
Ontario-born carpenter Harvie Robertson built 821 Keefer in 1900 shortly after he moved to Vancouver from Ontario via the United States in. He built the house without a proper cement foundation. Like many house builders in the neighbourhood at the time, he laid out logs in a row on the ground, trimmed them, and built the house on top of them.
The 1901 Canada census indicates that Harvie made $600.00 a year working as a carpenter. Prior to that he had owned a business in the unit block of East Cordova Street where he and his partner sold tents and awnings to prospectors leaving for the Klondyke Gold Rush. (See photo above). By the time Harvie got around to building his Keefer Street home most of the lots in the immediate vicinity had already been developed. The occupants of the neighbouring houses were mostly British or Canadian born, but included a sprinkling of Newfoundlanders, Americans, and a bit later, some Scandinavians.

In 1910, a Japanese family moved in to 828 Keefer, across the street, and in 1911 a Russian family moved into 800 Keefer. The first Italian family to move in to the immediate neighbourhood arrived in 1915. It’s interesting to see that even in the boom years of 1908 through 1910 that the house next door at 827 Keefer stood empty for a full three years.

Harvie and his wife Hattie continued to live at 821 Keefer until 1912, when a single woman named Mary Ann Trainor moved into the house. Mary Ann Trainor was originally from Ireland. She only lived at 821 Keefer for a year or so. Municipal laborer John A. McLeod followed her in 1914. Then in 1915, the family of metalworker Alex Robertson moved in—Alex was in the army at the time—and lived there until 1918.

During the war years the demographics of the neighbourhood began to change. Maronite Catholic Arabs from the former Ottoman Empire, Ukrainians from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Russian Jews mix in with the resident Scots, Irish and English. By the early 1920s a few Chinese families make their appearance. Victoria-born vegetable vendor Gow Yuen, who eventually ends up living in 821 Keefer from the late 1920s lives at 828 Keefer in 1921 and in 800 Keefer in 1923. The house that existed at 526 Hawks was listed as vacant from 1918 to 1920, and then seems to have been demolished around 1921.

In 1920, Scottish-born Vancouver School Board Assistant Attendance Officer Andrew Borland and his wife Annie move to 821 Keefer and live there until 1926. From 1927 on, the house is home to a Chinese family, possibly that of aforementioned vegetable salesman, Gow Yuen, who is officially listed from 1935. Although Gow and his wife Rose are officially listed as living at 821 Keefer from 1935 to 1945, they may have lived there from earlier on.

With the late 1920s came another shift in the demographics of the immediate neighbourhood with more Chinese, Jewish, Ukrainian, Yugoslav, and Italian families moving to Keefer Street. It is unfortunate that the information gathering customs of the time prevented the city directories from listing the name of the Chinese family that lived there from 1927 to 1934.

The immediate neighbourhood of 821 Keefer remained a pretty interesting social and cultural mix through the 1940s. Chinese, Jews, Italians, Poles, Croats, Swedes, Scots and Germans lived side by side. In 1946, the Wong family took over 821 Keefer from the Yuen family. Although Mrs. Kim Chow Wong is the only person listed, one can be sure that the house was home to a larger family. Perhaps a more careful checking of the Wong listings for each year will turn up more family information. The same year the Wongs moved in, the vacant lot on the Northeast corner of Keefer and Hawks became the site of the Western Cartage Company. It was the Western Cartage building that eventually became the better-remembered Koo’s Garage.

Even during the 1950s this section of the block maintained its social and cultural mix. During the mid-1950s a Japanese family moved into 827 Keefer and some Chinese families moved into 812, and 817. For a number of years 817 Keefer was home to the Priest serving the Good Shepherd Anglican Chinese Mission on the 700-block of Keefer.

There were changes though. 1955 saw the closing of the corner Montreal Bakery. Its old owners, the Zanon family continued to live at 800 Keefer and operated a corner grocery at the front of the house. In 1956, Austrian-born Willy Taferner opened Willy’s Bakery at the back of 800 Keefer.

While the sixties brought major disruption to other parts of the old East End, this section of Keefer enjoyed a period of stability. A number of newer Chinese families moved in but they stayed long term. Willy’s Bakery at 800 Keefer closed in 1967 and was succeeded by a series of food companies then was turned into suites in 1974. At 821 Keefer the Yuen family was followed by the Sam family, then by the Ng’s and then the Wu family. The city directories list Kam Lun Lum at 821 Keefer from 1971 to 1992.

In 1970 Western Cartage’s premises were taken over by Dave’s Auto Repairs. In 1973 Gordon Koo took over and ran Koo’s Automotive at 803 Keefer from 1973 up until the recent turn of the century.

After the Lum family moved away in 1992 it looks like the house at 821 Keefer was subdivided into smaller suites. This may have actually happened earlier, but the 1993 directory shows that there were at least four tenants in the house.

The 1990s brought new changes to the neighbourhood. The original commercial spaces at 800 Keefer were transformed into the Paneficio artists’ studios. One of the neighbourhood artists sharing studio space at Paneficio dreamed of having a studio of her very own—a studio that was spacious, art inspiring, garden surrounded, peaceful, and most importantly, her own…

In Memory of Diana Kemble

227 Union - An Encore

Shortly after I first posted my reflections on the history I knew of the little house that once stood at 227 Union, I received a number of e-mails regarding the house. It seems that the little blue house touched the hearts of a number of people. People seemed to really appreciate the fact that I had taken the time to study the house and post my findings.

One of the e-mails was from Vancouver poet, black community historian, and founding member of the Hogan’s Alley Memorial Project (HAMP), Wayde Compton. He actually ended up interviewing me about 227 Union for an article in the online Seven Oaks Magazine. Here is the link to that interview: http://www.sevenoaksmag.com/features/compton.html.
Another of the messages I received was from a man who regularly visited the little house on his infrequent trips to Vancouver from Seattle. Here is what he wrote.

“Mr. Johnstone,

I was in Vancouver on Wednesday and Thursday for the Canucks/Flyers game on Weds. night. Thursday I had planned to visit my usual spots around Vancouver before driving back to Seattle. Among my usual activities is a walk from my hotel around downtown, down the eastside and ultimately includes stopping at 227 Union St. For some years, maybe seven, I have been drawn to that house. I always make it a point to drive by it or walk past it.

About 4 years ago, fearing it would be demolished I photographed the front and back of the house. I even on several occasions went up and knocked on the door so I could meet the occupants or owners. Nobody ever answered. I did a little research and came up empty. Today, I sat at my computer after returning from my trip and typed in the address and was blown away when your website came up. I have spent hours reading it and enjoying your work. I guess my questions have been answered by you and your hard work. Needless to say, I left Vancouver bothered that the house had been torn down. In the back of my mind, where my dreams and fantasies exist I envisioned buying the house and restoring it. I have also been drawn to other properties in Vancouver, the Bank of Montreal around the corner from 227 Union has always fascinated me because prior to the condo/apartment project a few years ago I always compared the BOM as a "Fort Apache", solid building in a decaying area. It is hard to explain my feeling for that building as well, other than, in the back of my mind I would have loved to have purchased it and renovated it as my home. Other homes that interest me are some of the homes that still exist downtown. I have spent a fair amount of time photographing homes and hotels on the eastside and downtown area. I am a novice compared to you. I just wanted my own little history of the way things were in Vancouver.

About me, I am a 37 year man who lives in Seattle. My interest in Vancouver began in 1977 when my grandparents took my sister and I to the zoo and Stanley Park. In the 1980's as a teenager my buddy and I would visit Exhibition Park and the bars. I attended Western Washington University and would frequent the city as much as possible. Beginning in the early 1990's I started to develop an interest in architecture and as I have gotten older I have become interested in the people who lived in these homes. I love Vancouver and Canada and want to become a citizen, a dual citizen, because I love Seattle also.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I will continue to enjoy your work. Hopefully one day I will hire you to research my Vancouver house. Though, my dream is to buy a loft in an historic building in Gastown or around Beatty/Pender. -John P.”

During the course of Wayde Compton’s interview, I found out that there was a picture of the back of 227 Union on the cover of Event Magazine. I tracked down the photographer, Byron Barrett, and he very kindly gave me a copy of his photo.

Later on though, I hit an even bigger jackpot. One of the biggest frustrations researching the histories of houses in the East End is the way the city directories gloss over, well, actually they virtually obliterate, the Asian presence in the neighbourhood. In the early 1900s there was a forced segregation of Chinese and Japanese listings in the directory. They were relegated to the back. It was only in the 1940s and 50s that the listings were integrated, but even then, there were entire decades where the majority of listings for Japanese and Chinese residents were listed by their “assumed” nationality, either just as Japanese or Chinese, and even worse, later they were all lumped together as “Orientals”. One can assume that this oversight is the result of the disinterest, if not outright racism or the directory canvassers in the neighbourhood, but after I read Wayson Choy’s stunningly beautiful novel The Jade Peony I realized part of the problem was no doubt due to language difficulties, and often an innate distrust of any official looking white man knocking at the door. I remember one scene where the family in the novel actually hid behind the couch and pretended they were not home when an unknown white man came knocking.

Either way, it is lost history that I intend to try to recover piece by piece by whatever means possible for my East End Neighbourhood History Mapping Project. But back to the Jackpot…

As a result of the article I posted on Chuck Davis’s website and the interview with Wayde Compton, several descendents on one of the Chinese residents of 227 Union contacted me with their family’s story. The Shuen family lived at 227 Union from 1945 to 1968. The original directory listings for 227 Union for the period of 1945 to 1950 just listed “Orientals” Thanks to information and images provided by Wah Shuen’s descendents Nora Wong, Deborah Fong, and Bettina Shuen, this discrepancy and many other gaps in the history of 227 Union has been filled. Wah Fong Shuen was born in Heung Shan, Kwangtung, China on November 15, 1875. He was a Canadian citizen by local naturalization as of Jan 13, 1905 and got his Canadian citizenship certificate on July 23, 1947. His wife's name on the certificate was Ng Chew Lin (also called Mrs. Chew Shee on another document and Sook Yee by her children). Wah Fong and Chew Shee Shuen had three children: George Shuen, born in Vancouver on September 27, 1919, Rose Shuen, born in China, and Johnny Shuen born in Vancouver.

Wah Fong Shuen was a martial arts master and owned a lumber sawmill company, apparently one of the first Chinese in Vancouver to do so. Even more interesting is that Wah Fong Shuen was a cousin of Dr. Sun Yat Sen, the founder of the Republic of China, and played with him when he was a child back in China. Wah Fong "Johnny" Shuen and his brother George were among the first Chinese Canadian war veterans, and although these details have yet to be confirmed, they were most likely members of the elite corps of Chinese Canadians that trained to fight undercover behind Japanese lines.

The contact with Wah Fong Shuen’s granddaughters provided me with so many more interesting facts and stories, more than I can fit in this little article. Suffice it to say, they helped me to fill in so many blanks and restored the Shuen family’s history and the contributions its various members to their rightful place.

The internet is a wonderful thing. Online research may not provide all the answers immediately, but it puts us in contact with the people who have important pieces of the puzzle we are trying to solve. My experience with my research of this one little house, how it touched, and how its memory continues to touch so many lives, reminds me that every house has important stories to tell. It also reaffirms for me the fact that our built heritage is really important. That the often derelict old houses and buildings we see throughout this city are more than just tear downers and opportunities to make a buck building condos; that they are worth saving, restoring and preserving. They are important reminders of who we are and where we came from, and the struggles we went through to get to where we are today. It is these memories, locked inside our neighbourhoods’ old houses that give us a sense of neighbourhood pride and identity. When those things are in place, people tend to care more about their neighbourhood and their city. They tend to be engaged, excited and want to contribute. And that’s a good thing…

Thanks to Nora Wong, Deborah Fong, and Bettina Shuen for the information and photos regarding the Shuen family at 227 Union. Thanks also to Byron Barrett for the beautiful shot ofthe back of 227 Union.

History Walking Tours in Vancouver's Old East End

Some months back I was approached by Heritage Vancouver Society, to do a history walking tour of my neighbourhood, Vancouver's old East End, now known as Strathcona. Though I have researched hundreds of houses in the neighbourhood and have a background in tourism, at first I resisted. There were already a number of people and organizations offering tours in the neighbourhood: John Atkin, author of a number of great books, including Strathcona: Vancouver's First Neighbourhood, the UBC Department of Urban Geography, the Architectural Insitute of BC, the BC Jewish Museum and Archives, and even the Vancouver Police Museum. Ultimately, I realized that all of these people and groups have a different focus, and each of them show and talk about different aspects of this fascinating neighbourhood.

My route, first offered on August 15th to an oversold crowd of 44 people is the culmination of years of researching over 250 homes in the East End. Although architecture is a minor theme in the tour, my focus is more on the social history—the ebb and flow of different waves of immigrants who established themselves here before moving on to other parts of the city. Most people know about Little Italy, Hogan’s Alley, the East End’s early Jewish Community, and Japantown, but did you know that there were whole blocks of Newfoundlanders and a sizable Syrian colony here as well in the early 1900s?

The tour touches on the impact and influences of portside industries (BC Sugar, shipyards, etc.) prohibition, (the proliferation of bootlegging), the Oriental Exclusion Act (bachelor rooming houses, etc.), the Japanese Canadian internment, as well as the City Planning Department’s attempts to wipe out “urban blight”. It also gives participants the chance to see the locations of the previous homes of well-known East End residents, like pioneer female aviator Tosca Trasolini, premier Dave Barrett, champion boxers Jimmy McLarnin and Felice Di Palma (Di Palma boxed under the name Phil Palmer), Rabbi Nathan Meyer Pastinsky, award-winning authors Paul Yee and Wayson Choy, Ross and Nora Hendrix (Jimi’s grandparents), community activists Mary Lee Chan and Shirley Chan, and BC Supreme Court Judge, community leader Angelo Branca, and k.d. lang.

Even with 250 houses under my belt there is still so much I don't know and want to know about my neighbourhood. In an attempt to better prepare for a second set of tours offered on September 5th to two smaller groups I looked up some houses on a street I was researching in the census records and stumbled on a second house with a Hendrix family connection. Ross and Nora Hendrix don't actually appear in the directory listings for the year the census was taken so no one knew about this Hendrix house before. I introduced the house as a special surprise treat at the end of my tour.

I happen to know the owners of the house, and when I e-mailed them to let them know the exciting news, they were of course delighted, but more importantly, they told me another important pice of history associated with the house. The same house that the Hendrix family lived in earlier in the century was home to Charles Yip Quong and Nellie Towers, the first mixed Chinese/Caucasian married couple in Vancouver. Apparently Nellie was a well-known and much loved midwife in the neighbourhood. Here is a link to a Parks Canada page on Nellie Yip Quong.
http://www.pc.gc.ca/culture/ppa-ahp/itm3-/page02_e.asp

So there you have it. Piece by piece, this neighbourhood's lost history gets revealed and shared by happenstance and amazing coincidences. And I am sure that there is so much more to discover.

For information about my upcoming History Walks in Vancouver click this link.

Private tours are also available in English, Japanese and Italian for groups of 5 people or more, or a minimum cost of $100 per tour for groups of smaller size. For more information on my History Walks or to book a tour, e-mail me at historywalks@gmail.com.

Cost $20

Thanks to Lucille Mars, Gary McDonald, Emidio De Julius, and Norah McLaren respectively for the first, second, third and fifth photos above. The fourth photo is City of Vancouver Archives Photo Port N3.1 showing two portraits of Hogan's Alley resident Field William Spotts.

When An Old House Falls

In Memory of 227 Union (Barnard) Street

Everyone’s talking about the trees the wind knocked down in Stanley Park. People are wringing their hands—horrified that nature can wreak such havoc with nature. Yes, we lost some great old trees. It’s sad, but with time the forest will rise again.

It’s not the same with this city’s old houses, though. No one’s talking about how in the same month developers knocked down the last old house on the 200-block of Union Street, just north of old Hogan’s Alley.

227 Union wasn’t a mansion by any stretch of the imagination. No rich people ever lived there. None of its occupants ever made it into the news clippings. I know. I checked. So what’s the big deal?

That house was over a hundred years old. It was built in 1900 by a New Brunswick-born carpenter, John Bruce Smith, on a lot on which a smaller cabin had stood from 1894. Smith’s mother Isabella, his sister Ada and his brother Peter and Peter’s wife Martha lived there for just over a decade. Their neighbours were mostly working class immigrants from Britain and Eastern Canada: teamsters and laborers, laundry men and blacksmiths.

By 1913 the house was rented out to Joseph Lacterman, a Russian-born Jewish tailor, and his English-born wife Bessie. The rest of the block was undergoing changes as well. Union and Main Street had become the nucleus of a growing Italian colony in Vancouver. The Bingarra Block, which once stood on the southeast corner of Union and Main housed Vancouver’s earlier Italian consular offices. [Bingarra was named for a place in New South Wales, Australia.]

Back on the north side of the street, the house at 209 Union, built in 1891 and first occupied by New Brunswick-born dressmaker Mary Marion Myles and her trader husband Robert Johnson Myles, had been turned first into a boarding house, then into a restaurant by a man named Thomas A. Kelly. This same house would, by 1948, become the home of Robert and Viva Moore and as Vie’s Chicken and Steakhouse become a Vancouver icon.

During World War I many of the houses on the 200-block of Union stood vacant, as did hundreds of houses throughout Vancouver. Prior to the war there had been a building boom, but with the outbreak of war Vancouver’s population dropped by 30,000. During the war Bruce Smith moved back to 227 Union with his new bride Emma. By then Bruce had become a pile driver working for Evans Coleman and Evans, a large timber-exporting firm which built Vancouver’s first deep-sea dock. Bruce and Emma continued to live at 227 Union until 1923. In 1924 a Chinese family rented, then from 1924 to 1933 Kansas-born Elijah "Lige" Holman became the first black person to live in the house. Elijah Holman and a Mamie Holman owned and lived next door at 221 Union from 1922 to 1924. Elijah Holman was born in Kansas on March 8, 1875 and came to Vancouver in 1911 where he worked as a laborer for the city of Vancouver from 1932 to 1942. According to his death certificate he never married.

By 1934, Elijah Holman had moved back to 221 Union and from 1935 to 1942 227 Union was home to Italian-born laborer Alberto Barichello and his wife Angelina. During the 1930s and 1940s the block was a mix of Black, Italian and Chinese families.

From 1945 until recently 227 Union has been home to a number of Chinese families, first the Shuen and then the Jang families. Elijah Holman continued to live next door at 221 Union until his death on October 25, 1951 at the age of 75. He is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery.

A few years back at the time when I was trying to get my house-history research business off the ground I thought it was important to have a diverse selection of samples to show potential clients. In between paying jobs I chose a number of houses that I knew I never would be hired to research. I called these projects my orphans. They were mostly small, neglected-looking houses in my neighborhood, the East End, houses that I felt would soon face the wrecking ball, be knocked down and be forgotten. Obliterated from the landscape and our memory. 227 Union was one of those orphans. I thought that if I could research its history and show it had a story that the house would be saved.

The 227 Union project involved thirteen addresses—five on the north side of the street, and eight on the south. As I gathered and wove together the various strands and layers of data I collected I was fascinated with the various changes this little slice of the old East End had gone through. People came in waves, it seemed, from all over the world to find a new life on this section of East End Vancouver street. Digging deeper, I scrolled through hundreds of birth, death and marriage records for the people who lived in these houses. As I named their names in my head the feeling that I might be the only person who was remembering these men and women and their stories overwhelmed me.

To supplement the data I had collected I set out to find images of the houses I was researching at the archives and the library. In the end the only photos I could find were from the 1970s taken from atop the Cobalt Hotel just after Hogan’s Alley was demolished and the ramps for the new Georgia Viaduct were being built. One photo was taken while the Bingarra Block was still standing. The other, taken after its demolition, contains a clear shot of 227 Union and its neighbors, including 209 Union—Vie’s Chicken and Steakhouse. As far as I know it is the only archival photo of that Hogan’s Alley icon in existence.

On a cold January morning as work crews struggled to clear the jumble of fallen trees in Stanley Park and other workers raced to repair the torn panels in BC Place Stadium an ugly two-ton backhoe knocked down the last remaining house on the 200-block of Union. A perfectly solid house which could have been saved and moved just half a block to replace houses lost on Gore and Union to recent arson fires.

I know it was solid because I snuck inside the week before it was demolished. The stain glass windows had been taken out and some trim salvaged but what remained was sound. It didn’t need to be taken down.

A neighbour friend of mine, who is an architect and a carpenter and who, with his partner, had recently saved another old neighborhood house that was in much worse condition than 227 Union, went inside as well. He measured the dimensions of the entry hall, the living and dining room, the kitchen, pantry, the four upstairs bedrooms, and the bathroom and made an architectural drawing of the house and gave a copy to me. I will add this treasured document to the project I started years ago. 227 Union is gone, but the effort was not in vain. Something was saved if only on disc and paper. I remember, and others will too. When this project is completed I will give a copy to the Hogan’s Alley Memorial Project people, and some day—when I work out the funding—the information and archival images I have found and the architectural drawings we have been given will be used to resurrect, if only in virtual reality, the lost streetscapes of Hogan’s Alley and the old East End.

James Johnstone is an East End-based House Genealogist who has researched over 700 houses in Vancouver and New Westminster of which over 250 are in what is now called Strathcona. James is now actively looking for sponsors and other funding sources and support to allow him to research the entirety of Vancouver’s old East End (district lots 196, 181, and 182) and to put all the data and images collected on an interactive neighborhood history mapping website. Contact him at househistorian@yahoo.ca or check out his website: http://www.homehistoryresearch.com/