| 2007
Top Ten Endangered Sites
This is the seventh annual Heritage Vancouver Top Ten Endangered Sites, now recognized as the authoritative list of Vancouver’s threatened heritage resources. It is, as always, difficult to keep the list to ten.
Back this year in the No. 1 spot is Burrard Bridge, now even closer to desecration by the City’s current disregard. Also back are Malkin Bowl, the Vogue Theatre, St. Paul's Hospital, the iconic 2400 Motel on Kingsway, and our endangered schools. And, while we were so pleased to strike several sites — Evergreen, Kogawa House and Firehall No. 15 — off the list as saved, a host of new sites rushed into the vacant spots, including the apartments of South Granville, the 100 block of East Hastings, the 900-1000 block of Main Street, and old Japantown. Underlying the entire list is a significant theme — endangered districts and neighbourhoods.
You can also view our previous Top Ten sites from 2001 to 2006 here.
 |
|
Completed in 1932 to provide a high-level crossing to the western neighbourhoods, Burrard Bridge is a triumph of civic architecture and a key gateway structure.
> see full details
|
 |
|
(Updated)
Dozens of Vancouver’s historic schools could be demolished under current plans to institute the provincial seismic mitigation program.
> see full details
|
 |
|
The 15 square-block area — located roughly between West 11th and West 16th Avenues and Fir and Birch — is one of the only intact pre-WWII apartment neighbourhoods in the city, but only about 15 apartment blocks are listed on the City's Heritage Register — an average of only one per block.
> see full details
|
 |
|
Stanley Park has been big news since the catastrophic blow-down of trees during a recent windstorm. But the vulnerability of many of Stanley Park's cherished heritage landmarks goes unremarked: only two of its heritage sites have legal protection and the Parks Board has not shown any willingness to protect anything else.
> see full details
|
 |
|
2400 Kingsway
The future of the 2400 Motel, Kingsway's iconic landmark, is up for grabs. The 2400 site, which the City purchased some years ago as an investment for future re-sale as a development site, is probably next in line.
> see full details
|
 |
|
An isolated vestige of early development still exists south of the Georgia Viaduct, featuring everything from miraculously intact boomtown structures, such as the 1907 Main Sheet Works with its detailed wood façade, to substantial brick and masonry buildings.
> see full details
|
 |
|
Once the commercial heart of Vancouver, the south side of East Hastings between Cambie and Carrall is one of the city's best surviving turn-of-the-century streetscapes. Since the 1993 closure of Woodward's, almost the entire block — dubbed “Vancouver's worst block” — has sunk into a deep malaise noted for its derelict buildings, boarded storefronts, and dodgy street scene.
> see full details
|
 |
|
(Updated)
1081 Burrard Street
Political debate continues to boil around the issue of whether or not St. Paul’s Hospital should be moved from its original site in downtown Vancouver to a completely different location in the False Creek Flats. If so, what happens to the venerable redbrick hospital building on Burrard Street, a landmark in downtown Vancouver?
> see full details
|
 |
|
916-920 Granville Street
Heritage Vancouver continues to be concerned about the future of the Vogue Theatre – our civic treasure that is both a Vancouver Heritage Register A-listed building and a National Historic Site.
> see full details
|
 |
|
(Updated)
It seems as if Japantown is fading away — without anyone caring or noticing. This distinctive area, centred on the 300-400 blocks of Powell Street, was the community’s historical centre. Thriving businesses lined these blocks.
> see full details
|
|
