2004
Top Ten Endangered Sites
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(Updated)
Reputedly the oldest structure in Chinatown, the original Wing Sang
building is a tiny two-storey "Victorian Italianate" dating from 1889. Between the two upper-floor windows is a doorway through which furniture was winched to bypass narrow stairways.
Although a cornice still marks the original
roofline, the little building is literally enveloped by a
larger structure built in 1901 by owner Yip Sang and designed
by architect Thomas Ennor Julian (best known for Holy Rosary
Cathedral). The new building was three times the width of
the original (extending to 69 E. Pender); it featured a row
of bay windows along the second floor and added a third floor.
In 1912, Yip Sang built a six-storey brick building
across the alley behind Pender to provide a separate floor
for each of his families — he had three wives simultaneously
and 23 children — as well as extra room for social gatherings
and a warehouse. An elevated passageway connects the two buildings.
Beneath it runs Market Alley, once a thriving retail area
with small shops and services fronting on the lane and the
pungent aroma of opium wafting from the Wing Sang's factory.
The building housed Chinatown's first Chinese
doctor and two of its best-known restaurants — the BC
Royal and the Yen Lock. Except for a curio shop at street
level and a family association on the second floor, the front
building is vacant. The rear tenement has been abandoned for
decades and is deterioration. The Chinese Benevolent Association
considered converting the structures into a seniors' residence
but balked at the cost.
The buildings remain on the market , reportedly
with an asking price of $1.2 million. Meanwhile, the future
of much of Chinatown may soon be threatened by a plan currently
being developed by the City; the the intent is to jump start
the area's economic revitalization by encouraging large, out-of-scale
condo developments in much of the existing commerical area.
Updated 16 April
2006: Developer Bob Rennie has purchased the building
and plans a full heritage restoration of the brick structure.
The tentative plan is install his offices and an art gallery
in the front building and convert the six-storey building
in the rear to loft condos.
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