A Davie Street history
Question: The Shoppers Drug Mart building on Davie Street. What was it originally? Was it a bowling centre, was it a roller rink?
Answer: Oh, I was dearly hoping it was a roller rink. Or at least a bowling centre. I have fond memories of the block from the 1970s, when the only French bookstore in town operated out of one of the old West End houses right next door. When I used to go there to get exotic items en francais at the purple? house, I remember there being an electronics store of some description next to it.
Once again, I relied on my crack team of investigators to find the history on this. John Atkin looked up the history of that block online through the Vancouver Public Library, which now has all city directories from the very first one in 1860 up to 1940 digitized. Can you believe that? That was the most exciting thing I found out on this whole expedition.
All he found up to 1940 was addresses that were residences. Here’s the link to 1939 for the 1100-block Davie, where a G. Robinson lived, along with a lot of other people on the street, at 1125 Davie, the current address of the Shopper’s.
But what about after 1940? I happened to mention this question to former city planner Trish French. Well, wasn’t that lucky? Here’s what she found out.
The first question on your list intrigued me because I did my architectural thesis on the West End, and it was bugging me that I couldn’t recall what was in that building in 1972 when I did a full land use mapping of the area. I checked the tax files on VanMap which said the building dated to 1950. (I am assuming the question is about the Shoppers Drug Mart at 1125 Davie, just west of Thurlow.)
So I went to the library to check the old directories. In 1955 the property was still a bunch of old houses, some with rooms or apartments in them (i.e., the tax files are incorrect about the date of construction). I found the first listing for a tenant on the large consolidated property in the 1956 Vancouver and New Westminster Directory. It was Super-Valu Grocery and Meats. In 1972, when I did my thesis research, it was Miller’s which was an electronics store, as I recall. In those days electronics meant stereos and TVs, not computers and smart phones! The Super-Valu is now located in the block west of this, between Bute and Jervis. The tax file says that the development it is now in– highrise apartment with one storey podium–dates from 1970, although I haven’t checked if that’s the correct date. From the building style, it’s about right. So that’s approximately the time the Super-Valu would have moved.
So, as you can see, no bowling alley, no roller rink. But I think we’ve all learned a little bit from two experts here about how to do research on Vancouver city streets.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Blair Petrie // Feb 12, 2012 at 12:58 pm
The Millers were two brothers who were friends of our family in the 1960s and 1970s. One brother owned a jewellery store on Granville, I believe, downtown, and the other owned the electronics side of the business. I got my first stereo record player from Del Miller. Del’s part of the family business also sold records — vinyl recordings — at one time over half of what is now Shoppers was full of albums. That was the heyday of music recording availability in Vancouver. We had a massive amount and cross-section of stores that sold recordings of every genre and type of music you could imagine. Vancouver stores like A&B, Kelly’s, Millers, Opus ’69, the guy with the little shop on the south side of Robson where Robson Square is today, et cetera, et cetera. Vancouver also had the best prices, better than Tower Records in LA and pretty close to the same selection.
This is just another small example of the rich cultural history of Vancouver that we have lost as we think we are becoming a ‘world class’ city.
2 gmgw // Feb 12, 2012 at 4:06 pm
The store was Miller’s until at least 1978 and probably beyond. Miller’s of course, was originally a well-known chain of jewellry stores around town (their main store was on Granville across from the then-Eatons store, IIRC) before they ventured into the (as they hoped) more lucrative field of electronics, and later, records (in the late 70s the Davie Street Miller’s had an LP selection second in quality and range only to that of A&B Sound). A close friend of mine, a graphic designer, was doing the in-store graphics for Miller’s in those days and through him I met several members of the extended Miller clan, whom he befriended. I can’t say I miss Miller’s, but it was nice to have around while it lasted.
gmgw
3 gmgw // Feb 14, 2012 at 12:57 am
The “little shop on the south side of Robson” (see Blair Petrie’s post) was the long-gone and much-missed Record Gallery, located on Robson between Hornby and Burrard, across from the former site of the equally-missed Duthie’s flagship store. The Record Gallery, run by one Fraser Nicholson, was small but for many years was *the* place in town to go for jazz and blues LPs, with a dedicated hipster clientele. Not sure when it closed but it must have been in the mid-to-late 70s; I remember shopping there as late as 1974, when I was greatly excited to find the then-new 2-LP Charley Patton collection on the great Yazoo reissue label (as Louis Armstrong used to say, if you have to ask, you’ll never know). An interesting discussion about the Record Gallery can be found on Brian Nation’s invaluable vancouverjazz.com website: http://vancouverjazz.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-1466.html.
As a serious record collector of 45 years’ standing, I patronized all of the stores that Mr. Petrie lists (’bout time you wrote your memoirs, Blair– I’d love to hear your Retinal Circus stories), and in fact I could add a few more to his list. However, I must gently take issue with his claim that Vancouver was a good shopping town for records in all musical genres. Then as now, Vancouver’s conservative tastes were reflected in its record stores. If your tastes primarily ran to the conventional– rock and pop– you could usually find what you wanted; but for those of us who were (and are) seeking more esoteric fare– blues, obscure folk musics, old-time country & bluegrass, worldwide ethnic musics, non-mainstream and avant-garde jazz– the search for recordings was generally much more challenging in staid old Vancouver, save for a few rare and brave exceptions like the Record Gallery or, later, Black Swan Records (RIP). Said search has always been much more rewarding in Toronto, Montreal and large American cities then it ever was here (although given the ongoing tsunami-like disappearance of record stores across both North America and Europe, this is now changing).
In that sense not much has changed since the 70s. Note that I excluded classical music from the list; the opening of the (again, much-missed) Magic Flute record shop on 4th Avenue in the mid-70s was a huge boon to those of us looking to increase their classical holdings. The ever-excellent Sikora’s on Hastings continues to proudly fly the classical flag today, but in these rapidly digitizing times, how much longer they will be able to survive remains an open question.
Topics like this would make for interesting open-ended discussions. Someone oughta start a website for just that purpose… or is there one out there that I don’t know about?
gmgw
4 F.H.Leghorn // Feb 15, 2012 at 1:45 pm
Retinal Circus stories? Don’t get me started. What do we have instead? Third-rate CanCon pop acts and un-dance-able hip-hop comedy music. In the 70′s you had to have some talent to get up on stage or make a recording. Nowadays any fool can top the charts.
5 Andrea Coutu // Feb 15, 2012 at 11:41 pm
Those online directories are AMAZING. I am on the PAC at Henry Hudson Elementary and I’ve used them to look up former students/teachers who were in photographs. We’re researching for Hudson’s Centennial – a huge June party, which should be of interest to anyone interested in West End, Vancouver and Kitsilano history. You can learn more at http://hudsoncentennial.com/. We were able to identify Nat Bailey and the sons of several well known Vancouverites in a photo of the school rifle club from 1915 or so. (I guess having a rifle club was de rigeur during the Great War.)
6 Frances Bula // Feb 16, 2012 at 8:49 am
@Andrea. Thanks for sharing the enthusiasim.
7 The Other David // Apr 21, 2012 at 3:35 pm
Stumbled on this photo of the 1100 Block in the 20s.. The Renovatory is listed in the 1928 directory at 1133 Davie http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/uploads/r/null/8/7/873397/6479c5cb-fda9-4692-a022-b8e75dee610f-A09804.jpg
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