Watson Street – vanalogue

Local History Advent Calendar 2019 – Day 13 – Watson Street

December 13, 2019

Last year I took on the challenge of the first-ever Local History Advent Calendar! For 24 days in a row, I presented random historical tidbits I’d collected over the previous year and presented them in the form of “treats” for my 2018 Local History Advent Calendar. This year, the “Heart of Mount Pleasant” was number 1 on Heritage Vancouver’s Top 10 Watch List for 2019. So I decided to choose Mount Pleasant as the theme for the Vanalogue Local History Advent Calendar for 2019. Each day you can “open” a new historical treat. Think of them as holiday cocktail party fodder – 24 facts about Mount Pleasant history that can be used as conversation starters at your next social event.

Watson Street is a hidden oddity. Only 33 feet wide, or half the size of a regular city street, it is one of the few alleyways in Vancouver that is also a residential street. It serves as the lane for commercial buildings on the east side of Main Street and a regular street for residences and buildings on the opposite side. This duality is likely due to the fact that Watson served as the historical boundary between John Webster’s District Lot 302 and H.V. Edmonds’ District Lot 301. Originally named Howard Street ca. 1899, it was renamed Watson Street in 1950.

MAP 342b.22Watsoncrop — 1912 Goad’s Fire Insurance Map showing Howard St. (Watson) between 16th & Broadway. Photo: CoV Archives Map 342c

Watson Street was once home to several houses and cottages. These were homes for the working class population – BCER employees, teamsters, teachers, carpenters, shopkeepers – that made up the community of Mount Pleasant for much of its history. Only three of those early residences still stand today – one of them being the 1895 Abray House.

2913Watson — 2913/15 Watson Street in 2011, when Bert’s Restaurant was still in operation. Photo: Screenshot Google Street view 2011.

A duplex cottage built before 1909 is found at 2913/15 Watson. A building permit was issued to “Patton & McLean” in 1909 to repair and move this duplex house from the front of the lot facing Westminster Ave. (Main Street) to the rear of the lot along Watson Street. This was ostensibly done to make room for a commercial building facing Main Street. The building that now stands at the front of the lot (2904 Main) was built sometime in the 1920s and was once home to, local working persons favourite family cafe, Bert’s Restaurant (1948-2012) and is now home to Colony Restaurant.

2972Wat — 2972/2974 Watson Street. Photo: C.Hagemoen

On the same block but across the street at 2972/2974 Watson Street stands a butter-cream colored duplex that was built ca. 1907. This house is particularly significant, as it has served as housing continuously for over 110 years. It is the last example left on Watson Street that still serves its singular original purpose.

218e11 — 218 East 11th at Watson Street. Photo: C. Hagemoen

Early examples of multi-family apartment buildings can also be found along the Watson Street corridor. The oldest one is located at 218 East 11^th at Watson Street. A building permit was issued to carpenter Henry G. Taylor for this two-story frame apartment building in 1912 (above). It replaced an original single-family dwelling that was built before 1903 by C. G Taylor.

Another early apartment building is found across Watson Street from Heritage Hall. Located at 210 E. 15^th this two-story wood frame dwelling was built in 1919 by BC Fir & Cedar Lumber employee Alec Reid. Now sporting a coat of bottle-dash stucco, it was converted to a multi-family dwelling in the early 1950s.

I created this digital picture story on Watson Street in a one-day workshop at one of grunt gallery’s 2018 Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen Digital Storytelling workshops with Mount Pleasant residents. Consider it a historic stroll down Watson Street…

Source: Christine Hagemoen’s Watson Street – a history in 9 blocks – Digital Stories.ca

You can also view it on the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen (MPCAS).
Location: Intersection of Broadway & Kingsway, Vancouver, on the east side of the Independent Building
Screen Hours: Sunday to Thursday: 9AM to 9:30PM / Friday & Saturday: 9AM to 10:30PM

Local History Advent Calendar 2019 – Day 10 – Punk Rock on the Ravine

December 10, 2019

Arrow points to Brewery Creek Ravine & DOA practice space. Source: 58-74 Mt. Pleasant Vancouver, http://vintageairphotos.com

Jazz wasn’t the only genre of music that could be heard on the 2500 block of Watson Street (see LHAC Day 6). Punk rock also had its musical moment in this corner of Mount Pleasant. Before the current condo/retail building at Main & 10th Avenue was built, the ravine was still very open. A wooden catwalk going from Watson Street led people over the ravine to the backs of the buildings facing Main Street. In the photo (top) from 1958, you can see the ravine, the catwalk and the building (which looks like a pitch roofed house) that was the DOA & TT Racer practice space in the late 1980s and early 1990s. (Also visible in the photo is the Broadway Theatre and the 1895 Abray House.)

In the video clip below, DOA’s Joey “Shithead” Keithley reminisces about the time when DOA and TT Racer used this spot on the edge of the old Brewery Creek ravine as their practice space. Including how they would cross the “wooden walkway” to get to and from their old practice space, occasionally tossing an old beer can or two into the ravine along the way. [Ostensibly to be collected later and recycled.]

From Watson Street, on the south side of 1895 Abray House, one can still view a very thin slice of the Brewery Creek ravine between the two buildings.

The last visible slice of the Brewery Creek Ravine. (A little underwhelming, isn’t it?) Photo: C.Hagemoen, 2018

The Brewery Creek ravine was featured in the video for DOA’s cover of Terry Jacks’ song “Where Evil Grows” (below); recorded in 1990 as a benefit single to fight the pollution and contamination of Howe Sound.

Local History Advent Calendar 2019 – Day 6 – Mount Pleasant: Jazz Central

December 6, 2019

Inside the Cellar: March 21, 1961. Photos: Franz Lindner, CBC Vancouver Still Photo Collection.

For much of the second half of the 20th Century, Mount Pleasant was the neighbourhood for jazz in the city with establishments like The Hot Jazz Society Hot Jazz Club (1980s – ca. 2004) and The Glass Slipper (1988 – early 90s). All that jazz started with The Cellar – a co-operative founded and operated by members of the local bebop jazz scene. Opened in April 1956, The Cellar was officially located at 222 East Broadway, but the entrance to the basement bottle-club was at the side of the building at 2514 Watson Street. The subterranean space was built into the natural ravine of Brewery Creek, which ran across Watson Street between 10th Ave and Broadway.

The old Cellar Jazz building shortly before its demolition in 2014.

Until its closing in 1963, The Cellar was known as “one of the leading jazz clubs in North America”. It hosted local jazz musicians and international jazz greats such as Charles Mingus, Ernestine Anderson, Ornette Coleman, and Wes Montgomery. Some of the visiting musicians would stay at the City Centre Motor Inn or at the “bebop house”, located 3 or 4 blocks from Cellar, where a few core members of the Cellar resided. The Cellar wasn’t just a venue for jazz music; it also hosted plays, poetry readings, and featured artworks by Harry Webb.

While I was working at the CBC Vancouver Media Archives several years ago, I was fortunate to re-discover and digitize some of Franz Lindner’s photographs documenting the production of a jazz music programme filmed on location at The Cellar – a rare look inside the iconic jazz club.

“Jazz # 3” – CBC mobile unit on location. March 21, 1961. The Cellar (222 East Broadway – Entrance at rear off Watson St.) exterior. Photo: Franz Lindner, CBC Vancouver Still Photo Collection.

For more information about the Cellar and the Vancouver jazz scene, I recommend reading Marian Jago’s 2018 book, “Live at the Cellar: Vancouver’s Iconic Jazz Club and the Canadian Co-operative Jazz Scene in the 1950s and ‘60s”. It’s full of facts and great stories, like the night in 1961 when Charles Mingus hit a BC Lion over the head with a toilet plunger between sets.