Georgia Viaduct, 1929 Speaking of dangerous Vancouver bridges, the old Georgia Viaduct was particularly notorious. Street car tracks were installed on the deck but were never used because of safety concerns, and at one point every second lamppost was removed to reduce weight. Vancouver’s bridges today aren’t as bad, notwithstanding the occasional chunk of concrete falling off. Source: Photo by Stuart Thomson, City of Vancouver Archives #99-1915
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Georgia Viaduct, 1929

Speaking of dangerous Vancouver bridges, the old Georgia Viaduct was particularly notorious. Street car tracks were installed on the deck but were never used because of safety concerns, and at one point every second lamppost was removed to reduce weight. Vancouver’s bridges today aren’t as bad, notwithstanding the occasional chunk of concrete falling off.

Source: Photo by Stuart Thomson, City of Vancouver Archives #99-1915

Source: searcharchives.vancouver.ca

Opening the New Viaducts, Sunday 9 January 1972 The one protest sign facing the camera says “STOP the Third Crossing/GO for Rapid Transit.” The viaducts were part of a larger plan that was to include freeways and a third crossing across Burrard Inlet.  Source: Photo by Walter E Frost, City of Vancouver Archives #447-373
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Opening the New Viaducts, Sunday 9 January 1972

The one protest sign facing the camera says “STOP the Third Crossing/GO for Rapid Transit.” The viaducts were part of a larger plan that was to include freeways and a third crossing across Burrard Inlet. 

Source: Photo by Walter E Frost, City of Vancouver Archives #447-373

Source: searcharchives.vancouver.ca

Vie’s and Viaducts, Friday 4 June 1971 The now apparently doomed Georgia and Dunsmuir Viaducts replaced the old Georgia Viaduct that was built in 1915. The original purpose was to connect the east and west of downtown by providing a route over what used to be part of False Creek and a rail yard. The new viaduct initially served the same function but was also conceived as part of an ambitious freeway plan that would have wiped out much of Strathcona, Chinatown, and Gastown. Fortunately, neighbourhood activists made enough fuss that the rest of the project was permanently shelved. Another legacy of the viaducts is that they obliterated what was left of Hogan’s Alley, which ran between Union and Prior, just east of Main Street (on the right in this photo). Hogan’s Alley was home to a lot of black Vancouverites and became notorious in the years before WWII for its speakeasies and gambling dens. One of the more popular spots in the area was Vie’s Chicken and Steakhouse, where people like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong would hang out when they came through town. Taken from the Cobalt Hotel, this is the only known extant photo of Vie’s. It was at 209 Union Street, the first house east of Main on the north side. It’s now a parking lot, but the small brick building beside it (which Vie’s used for storage) survives and now houses the Jimi Hendrix Shrine because Jimi’s grandmother once worked at Vie’s. Source: Photo by Campbells Studio, City of Vancouver Archives #216-1.23
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Vie’s and Viaducts, Friday 4 June 1971

The now apparently doomed Georgia and Dunsmuir Viaducts replaced the old Georgia Viaduct that was built in 1915. The original purpose was to connect the east and west of downtown by providing a route over what used to be part of False Creek and a rail yard. The new viaduct initially served the same function but was also conceived as part of an ambitious freeway plan that would have wiped out much of Strathcona, Chinatown, and Gastown. Fortunately, neighbourhood activists made enough fuss that the rest of the project was permanently shelved.

Another legacy of the viaducts is that they obliterated what was left of Hogan’s Alley, which ran between Union and Prior, just east of Main Street (on the right in this photo). Hogan’s Alley was home to a lot of black Vancouverites and became notorious in the years before WWII for its speakeasies and gambling dens.

One of the more popular spots in the area was Vie’s Chicken and Steakhouse, where people like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong would hang out when they came through town. Taken from the Cobalt Hotel, this is the only known extant photo of Vie’s. It was at 209 Union Street, the first house east of Main on the north side. It’s now a parking lot, but the small brick building beside it (which Vie’s used for storage) survives and now houses the Jimi Hendrix Shrine because Jimi’s grandmother once worked at Vie’s.

Source: Photo by Campbells Studio, City of Vancouver Archives #216-1.23

Source: searcharchives.vancouver.ca

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