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2005
Top Ten Endangered Sites
This year marks publication of the fifth
annual Heritage Vancouver Top Ten Endangered Sites.
This is a celebration of sorts - our "Top
Ten" list is now recognized as an authoritative overview
of the city's threatened heritage resources. As well, its
effectiveness has prompted the sincerest form of flattery,
and we welcome New Westminster Heritage Preservation Society's
publication of its own Top Ten list.
It was difficult to keep the list to ten: the
explosive real estate development market is placing even designated
sites once thought safe - like Chinatown and Gastown
- in extreme jeopardy. That designated heritage sites are
on our list is cause for great concern, as is the state of
the Heritage Register - itself endangered and urgently requiring
rescusitation! The sites finally chosen are either already
in critical danger or likely be so shortly.
This year's No. 1 is a new entry - the houses
of Yaletown. Woodward's remains
on our list as Number 2, while another new entry, Arthur Erickson's
Evergreen Building, is in third place.
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With booming
redevelopment in Downtown South, anything left standing
from the city's earliest development will soon be splinters.
This part of downtown was initially nick-named "Yaletown"
as the original CPR employees came from the former shops
at Yale in the Fraser River canyon.
> see full details
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(Updated)
There is
still work to be done to ensure that the redevelopment
of the Woodward's Building honours the building's heritage
within its community.
> see full details
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(Saved - updated)
1285 West Pender Street
This modern
landmark by architect Arthur Erickson, is a new addition
to the HV Top Ten list and requires prompt action by
City Council to preserve.
> see full details
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(Updated)
2004
saw no resolution to the status of the Burrard Bridge
and it continues to be of primary concern to HV. Completed
in 1932 to provide a high-level crossing to the western
neighbourhoods, the bridge is a triumph of civic architecture
and a key gateway structure.
> see full details
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The future
of Chinatown & Gastown is again uncertain - but it's
not due to lack of heritage incentives. Property owners
and developers are indeed rushing to the trough - not
to rehabilitate, however, but to demolish all but street-facing
facades.
> see full details
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(Lost - updated)
1669 East Broadway (at Commercial)
The
City's 1986 Heritage Register is out-of-date and full
of holes; that means Roselawn Funeral Home may soon
end up in one - in a landfill site. As this exquisite
1941 Mission-style building is not listed on the Register,
it has no protection against demolition.
> see full details
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(Lost - updated)
Another
gap in the Register, another building under threat.
Best-known for his design of the Park Board offices
at the Beach Avenue entrance to Stanley Park, Percy
Underwood was one of Vancouver's earliest practitioners
of the International Style.
> see full details
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(Updated)
Concern
for Firehall No. 15 persists: Firehall #15 is the last
remaining of its kind still in use - Firehall #13 was
demolished in 2002. Built in 1913, Firehall #15 features
extensive interior woodwork, ornate pressed-metal ceilings,
and the original brass pole.
> see full details
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(Updated)
PNE grounds
2004
was a year of much debate about the future of Hastings
Park and the PNE; yet many issues remain to be resolved.
One of them - the future of the Livestock Building -
returns the site to the HV 2005 list. The Livestock
Building has national significance as the marshalling
facility for the internment of Japanese-Canadians in
1942.
> see full details
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(Lost - updated)
3351 Glen Drive
Already
front and centre in 2005 are the implications of seismic
upgrading for Vancouver's heritage schools. Charles
Dickens Elementary School, on the 2004 Top Ten list,
is under serious threat and a final decision to replace
it is imminent.
> see full details
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