|
 Welcome to the 8th Annual Heritage Vancouver Top Ten Endangered Sites. Released during National Heritage Week, our Top Ten list is anticipated by many as the 'word on the street' for the city's threatened heritage resources.
The list includes sites in danger of demolition or serious alteration, or in some case horrible neglect. Each of these sites also illustrates a larger pattern of danger to heritage, based on inaction, conflicting agendas or bureaucratic policies.
Our list of ten cannot begin to do justice to the scores of heritage buildings in harm's way: the explosive real-estate development market exerts mounting pressure on our vulnerable historic places, and hastily-wrought policy initiatives such as the City of Vancouver's EcoDensity initiative could do more harm than good.
Meanwhile, opportunities for preservation are missed because the City has frozen density transfers pending a policy review. But the malaise runs deeper: As the City fiddles with density transfers, its outdated heritage incentives are increasingly inadequate to address the economic challenges of heritage rehabilitation. The promised Heritage Register Upgrade gave a glimmer of hope, but it's now on the back burner indefinitely because funding was diverted to the density transfer review. Many sites may not survive the wait, and others have already bit the dust, most notably the destruction of the Moderne landmark 'Fido' building (1948 Colliers Showroom) at 450 West Georgia.
Among repeat sites from last year's list are Burrard Bridge - and the still-proposed desecration by cantilevered outriggers - and Vancouver's schools, headed one-by-one for demolition as part of a seismic 'upgrade' program. Surprise, surprise, a new host of landmarks are endangered, including the houses of lower Mt. Pleasant, the Dal Grauer Substation, the York Theatre (Alcazar), and Erickson's Robson Square – which could soon be trapped under a giant clamshell.
Download the Top Ten 2008 press release (PDF, 88k)
You can also view our previous Top Ten sites from 2001 to 2007 here.
 |
|
(Updated)
Now over 75 years old, the venerable Burrard Bridge is one of Vancouver’s true landmarks. The current City of Vancouver’s re-purposing initiatives threaten to significantly compromise the Bridge’s original design.
> see full details
|
 |
|
(Updated)
2896 West 6th Ave (1911-13; 1922-25); plus many other schools
One of the most striking elements of Vancouver’s Heritage landscape is the sprinkling of landmark heritage schools throughout the city.
Many of these treasured schools will soon be disappearing — General Gordon Elementary and Dickens are both slated for demolition in 2008 with more to come in the near future.
> see full details
|
 |
|
800 Hornby Street
Robson Square is home to the Arthur Erickson designed provincial buildings that put Vancouver on the map. The Provincial Government recently announced plans to build a giant wooden “clamshell” spanning Robson St. between Hornby and Howe.
> see full details
|
 |
|
If proposed initiatives go ahead, the weakening of the transfer of density tool and the increase in heights, they will effectively gut the Gastown Heritage Management Plan and more insidiously could destroy the character of Vancouver’s historic neighbourhoods.
> see full details
|
 |
|
970 Burrard Street
A local landmark, B.C. Hydro’s Dal Grauer Substation is one of the great early works of the Modern movement in Vancouver, and an 'A' on the Recent Landmarks Inventory.
> see full details
|
 |
|
(Updated)
639 Commercial Drive
The York Theatre holds a significant place in the history of Vancouver theatre.
It is the only purpose-built theatre with a fly tower and proscenium stage on the east side of the city and one of only two or three such early theatres left in Vancouver.
> see full details
|
 |
|
3003 East 22nd at Nootka
From its position on a prominent rise in this eastside neighbourhood, Firehall 15 commands a view of the city and a special place in the hearts of local residents. This well-loved community landmark is known for its striking hose tower, complete with brass pole, its Craftsman detail and distinctive bracketed eaves, its handsome interior woodwork and its ornate pressed-metal ceilings.
> see full details
|
 |
|
(Updated)
44-68 West Hastings Street
The north side of the zero block W. Hastings is one of the city's most intact historic
streetscapes — completely unprotected save the 'B'-listed Paris Block.
> see full details
|
 |
|
Shadowed by towering construction cranes above the athletes village languishes remnants of
one of Vancouver's oldest neighbourhoods. The present commercial/industrial area bounded by Cambie Street, West Second Avenue, Main Street and Broadway, has its origins as a workers neighbourhood serving the water-based industries of
southeast False Creek.
> see full details
|
 |
|
684 E. Hastings St., Houses 405-419 Heatley St.
The Heatley Block, a well-loved Strathcona landmark, houses a cluster of local businesses cherished by the neighbourhood.
> see full details
|
|
