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.