Browsing “Vancouver Was Awesome Series”

A Vancouver time travelogue brought to you by Past Tense.

A big headache for early Vancouver commuters was the CPR’s right-of-way that cut a diagonal line from Burrard Inlet to False Creek and created an annoyance and hazard at several street crossings. After years of mulling over the problem, the solution came in 1932 with the construction of the Dunsmuir Tunnel.

Submerging train traffic freed up land for other uses and a proposal for a new pocket park on the triangular patch at Carrall and Cordova was well received for an area with little green space. The Sun argued that such parks were “breathing spaces for the masses” and that it would “add new value and a new tone to every piece of property in that district.” The mayor thought it would be a great “green spot” for the itinerant workers mulling about waiting for work from the many employment agencies in the area. The Pioneer Association took an interest in the proposed park site because it was adjacent to the first City Hall after the Great Fire.

Somewhere in the negotiation process, the park site changed from Cordova and Carrall to Hastings and Carrall, likely because a building stood on the Cordova site and because the CPR had promised the bank operating in the old Merchant’s Bank building that nothing would be erected to block their sunlight. The City later realized it couldn’t afford to buy park space and forego property tax revenues during the Depression. In 1938, the CPR deeded the land to the City anyway, and Pioneer Place was born.

By 1960 the park was a popular hangout for “immigrant laborers, old age pensioners and bay rum drinkers” who came to socialize and feed the pigeons. There was also a move to “do away with the littered, pigeon-killed grass behind the battered wire fence that now wastes the space and depresses the area,” and so what locals had come to call Pigeon Park was paved and planters and benches added. Twelve years later, the City gave in to merchants who complained that the frequenters of Pigeon Park were not “worthy people,” but “objectionable” derelicts and bad for business. The planters and benches were removed and the park was no more.

The barren concrete triangle didn’t last and eventually benches and planters came back and locals continued to use it as a watering hole. The last controversy was when Pigeon Park was renovated in 2009 and some neighbourhood residents took exception to a construction sign referring to it as “Pioneer Place.” It turned out the City wasn’t trying to name Pigeon Park out of existence, but rather that most people had never heard the park’s official name. The park is still heavily used by people with no place of their own to socialize, and on Sundays is the site of a hugely popular outdoor market.

Source: Photo from City of Vancouver Archives, #780-769

A Vancouver time travelogue brought to you by Past Tense.

Con Jones came to Vancouver from Australia in the early 1900s. He opened a chain of billiard halls/tobacco shops using this brand as his signature. His advertising slogan was “Don’t Argue – Con Jones sells fresh tobacco,” which was accompanied by the vaudevillian image shown above. Jones’ “Don’t Argue” signs were a familiar sight around town, and his brand could also be found on tokens, match boxes, and other products sold in his stores. He’s also credited with installing the first neon sign in town.

Con Jones was also a major sports promoter in Vancouver, particularly of lacrosse and soccer. Callister Park on Renfrew was once owned by and named after Jones, and was the city’s top soccer field. In the 1910s, Jones was determined to bring the Minto Cup to Vancouver, at a time when lacrosse was far more popular – and lucrative – than hockey in Canada. Jones succeeded, and in 1911 Vancouver won both the Minto and Mann cups, in part because he used buckets full of money to lure top players from the east, including hockey legend Newsy Lalonde.

Con Jones had a seizure and died in 1929 while watching a soccer game at Con Jones Park.

Source: Don’t Argue trimmed wood cigar box lid, Canadian Museum of Civilization #CNC 2001.185.37, Tony Hyman Collection

A Vancouver time travelogue brought to you by Past Tense.

In 1971, an American showbiz entrepreneur named George Patey opened a 1920s-themed restaurant and club called the Banjo Palace at 157 Alexander Street, where the Alibi Room operates today. In the men’s room behind the urinals, he installed, brick-by-brick, the wall against which Al Capone’s goons massacred the Moran Gang in 1929 in what became known as the St Valentine’s Day Massacre. Public outrage at the massacre was intense and led to the empowering of the FBI to wage its so-called “War on Crime” against Scarface and other 1930s gangsters.

Patey bought the wall in 1967 after hearing that the Chicago warehouse where the massacre took place was being demolished and had the bricks shipped to Vancouver. The wall was a popular Gastown attraction, although it made for some awkward moments when women peeked in to view it while male patrons were trying to pee.

The Banjo Palace, which also featured Canada’s largest circular barbecue, only lasted until 1976. Unfortunately, Patey took his infamous bricks with him. Some have been sold individually and the rest now reside in a mob museum in Las Vegas.

Source: Photos by George Patey via My Al Capone Museum

A Vancouver time travelogue brought to you by Past Tense.

Stanley Park zoo staff noticed something was up with the ducks in Lost Lagoon back in the swingin’ seventies. “Something has to be done,” zoo curator Larry Lesage told the press. “It’s a real problem. We’ve taken up the issue with the [Canadian] Wildlife Service and I would like to see them program the ducks to create a balance.”

What was the problem? Not only were the ducks mostly male for some unknown reason, but they were also having sex with each other. And it was spreading, according to Lesage: “I first noticed the mallards were gay about three years ago but now the wood ducks have picked it up.”

A technician with the Canadian Wildlife Service explained that the phenomenon couldn’t be interpreted in human terms: “If they are gay, it’s not because ducks are becoming decadent. Ducks have aggressive tendencies and a lack of females could make them turn to each other … This sort of thing is not unusual among waterfowl [or humans in prison, for that matter] — particularly when they are densely populated.”

I don’t know what, if any, remedies were tried to cure the gay duck phenomenon, but hopefully the government eventually learned it has no business in the watery bedrooms of the nation’s ducks.

I wanted to keep this post family friendly, so instead of a duck sex pic, I found this 1973 installation of a duck that was the other-kind-of-queer by contemporary artist Max Dean. It was a ten-foot long rubber ducky-style yellow duck that the Parks Board gave permission to float in Lost Lagoon. Apparently the other birds weren’t too impressed by it, so it’s unlikely that Dean’s duck influenced the behaviour of the others.

Source: Max Dean, Large Yellow Duck, via the Centre for Canadian Contemporary Art  

A Vancouver time travelogue brought to you by Past Tense.

Before the hippies discovered LSD, an eccentric and enigmatic millionaire, “Doctor” Al Hubbard, was giving it out like candy to influential people, including Aldous Huxley, local Catholic church big wigs, and researchers. Hubbard believed the psychedelic drug had enormous therapeutic and spiritual potential, and he set up Dr J Ross MacLean to use it for treatment at Hollywood Hospital in New Westminster. MacLean found the drug effective in treating alcoholism, but less so for treating homosexuality. Some high profile patients rumoured to have received LSD treatment at Hollywood Hospital before it shut down the program in the early 70s include BC Socred cabinet ministers and Cary Grant. For the full story, see “Acid Al.”

Source: Todd Brendan Fahey, “Captain Tripps,” via declarepeace.org.uk

A Vancouver time travelogue brought to you by Past Tense.

Here’s one that speaks for itself. It was the most popular 2012 post over at our tumblr blog, and it is pretty awesome.
Source: Dominion Photo Co., Vancouver Public Library, Special Collections #30424