A Permanent Farmer's Market?

I stumbled upon Gillian Glover's blog, This City Life, the other day and really enjoyed it. As a former Vancouver City Planning Commissioner, she writes about urban planning, and how urbanites interact with their city. In one of her posts I found this photograph. Can you believe this beautiful building used to be Vancouver's first Farmer's Market? Yup. This very cool building was situated in False Creek at the bottom of Main Street and opened it's doors for the very first time on August 15th, 1908. This spectacular building had 2 bell towers, a wooden promenade and a restaurant serviced by the Fraser Valley farmers who brought their goods by train. (Train! Where, oh, where have all the trains gone?) Clearly, permanent farmer's markets are not a new thing, many Canadian cities have them and now it might just be our turn again!  The Vancouver Farmer's Market Society is currently working on a business plan for establishing a permanent farmer's market.


What great news! It's not that I don't like the outdoor markets which have become a huge success since the first market opened at Trout Lake Park in 1995, but it's exactly that, they are very popular and now it's practically impossible to accommodate the vendors, the public, the dogs, the wagons, the strollers and the musicians. Did the original group of 7 market enthusiasts ever think that their $9000 start-up fund and their relentless lobbying with the city would come to this? A permanent market?

Gillian asks, of course, exactly was I was thinking: What's the difference between a permanent farmer's market and the market on Granville Island? She states:

"According to the Business Plan Lead, Darren Stott, “The intention is to only have or mostly have direct sales at the New City Market, very unlike Granville Island. This means only people who grew it, baked it or made it can sell it at our market. Also, the model we are proposing for the market is to have additional profitable generating functions that offset the extra costs of operating out of a building, such as office leasing, event space leasing, restaurant space leasing and meeting room rentals. We believe with the right location, these can not only generate revenue to keep stall rental fees down for example, but also compliment the food hub.”

No location has been determined, although there is hope it will be close to the original 1908 farmer's market. Construction is planned for 2013!


 

The Hidden Cottages

As I was walking back from Clark Park one morning, I took this photograph of two small cottages and wondered, is this how Cedar Cottage got it's name?

A quick internet search and presto! According to the Vancouver Street Stories, it was named because the first settlers of this neighborhood built small cedar cottages along the rough roads and forests. It's funny, because just the other day, I mentioned to a neighbor that it would be fun to apply for a small neighborhood fund to have a historic plaque added to Commercial street to commemorate the rich history of this working class neighborhood. Turns out Vancouver Street Stories have already placed one at Brewer's Park on Victoria and 26th which talks mostly about the Cedar Cottage Neighborhood House which started in the 1950's when 5 dads wanted to get their boys out of gangs and off the street. This youth group offered sports leagues, and school and family support on the the grounds on Lord Selkirk School and was later moved to it's current location near Brewer's Park.

While reading more about Vancouver Street Stories, I learned a few more tidbits about Cedar Cottage.

Maybe you already knew that in the 1880's Vancouver was home to 50 wild salmon streams, but did you know several major ones ran through Kensington-Cedar Cottage, such as China Creek and Brewer’s Creek, making it an ideal place to build a brewery at Knight and Kingsway? (Wouldn't be cool if there was still a micro brewery on that same corner selling China Creek Cider and Cedar Cottage Beer?)

Did you know that there was a theater on Commercial Street?

Spend some time on the Vancouver Public Library Special Collections Historical Photographs website for many other beautiful photos of the past.

Cedar Cottage Brewery at Knight and Kingsway- Vancouver Street Stories

Theater on Commercial Street 1913- Vancouver Public Library Historical Photos Database

Cedar Cottage Station 1913-Vancouver Public Library Historical Photos Database

1606 East 15th Ave

Thomas Bell House

As promised, I am sharing some of my new findings about our neighborhood, Cedar Cottage. It turns out there is a man by the name of James C. Johnstone who makes his living as a house historian (cool job eh?) who has researched the history of over 800 homes in Vancouver. He is also Chair of the Friends of the Vancouver City Archives Society and of the Strathcona Residents' Association. He has researched one Cedar Cottage house on the corner of 15th avenue and Fleming and if you've ever walked around Clark Park you would definitely notice it, the Thomas Bell House.  In his blog "When an old house whispers.." Mr. Johnstone shares some really interesting findings and photographs about it.

This beautiful home was built sometimes around 1906 for retired sheet metal company owner, Thomas Bell just across from John Fleming's house, a Cedar Cottage land owner and house plasterer (hence Fleming Street-neat!). Thomas Bell, born in Ontario, lived there for a while with his family until 1918 when it was bought by the Peden family and then by the Scottish-born lithographer Frank C. Smith and his wife Margaret in 1919.


Frank and Margaret lived there until the later '40s. After his wife's death, Frank remarried, but willed the house to his housekeeper Pearl Dixon upon his death. (oh, scandal!?) She lived in the house from 1954 to 1960 and married Roderick G. Mackenzie. When Pearl died the house was willed to the Catholic Church and was run as a home for children. In 1974, the government took over and from 1985 to 1996 in was operating as a group home. Luckily, the Thomas Bell house survived possible demolition since then and the current owner has lovingly restored it.

That's Pearl in the yard and the Catholic Church in the back.

17th and Knight-ca 1908

Wow!  The Vancouver Archives is a great way to see what Cedar Cottage looked like  more than a 100 years ago!  Click on the links to see more photos. There's a neat photo of houses and cars in the 80's which to some of us feels like more than a 100 years ago!

Cedar Cottage east of Knight [Road (Street)] and 17th Avenue

Cedar Cottage southeast of Taylor [Road (Welwyn Street)] and Fleming Road [Street]

[Houses along East] 11th Avenue at Victoria [Drive]

Cedar Cottage October 1909-Vancouver Archives

Cedar Cottage- a bit of history

When I first decided to move to Cedar-Cottage Kensington in East Vancouver, I couldn't find any information about what it's like to live here. Up from "The Drive",  I live in Cedar Cottage which is located North of Kingsway to Broadway, between Clark and Knight Streets and Nanaimo Street.(Kensington is located south of Kingsway to 41st Avenue, between Fraser and Nanaimo Streets.) I live on Commercial street which is really neat. Neat how? I think it has to do with the history.

Almost anyone who gets lost because Victoria Drive curves all of a sudden near 18th avenue (curving streets confuse us Vancouver grid drivers) says: "Oh, what a neat street! I didn't know this was here!" It's surprising to see a wide tree-lined street with businesses, even though some seem abandoned and graffitied when you expect rows of houses. Right away you wonder why and what this street was like before.

In 1888 , Arthur Wilson bought 16 acres of land near Knight and Kingsway which became known as the Cedar Cottage nurseries. He also purchased land around Trout Lake for farming. In 1891, the link between New Westminster and Vancouver brought more farmers and business to the area and especially around the tram stop at 18th avenue and Commercial Street. Lord Selkirk School, at 1750 East 22nd Avenue, was designed by W.T. Whiteway and built in 1908.  By 1910, there was a bank, 40 businesses, a school house, and a post office. You can still see the history of Cedar Cottage if you look carefully, although it's slowly disappearing. I was sad to see what seemed like a creepy farm house at 3845 Dumfries being completely gutted and squeezed by 3 new homes. It was the somewhat famed Wayside Inn, a place to rest before cars took over the Vancouver landscape in 1910-20's and slowly drew away business away from the neighborhood and toward False Creek and the city center.

There's always more to discover about the history of the area. The longer I live here, the more I hear things through the grapevine. I'll post more "insider" information as I come to learn it, but if you need general information, the City of Vancouver website posts good information about our neighborhood. Keep on reading!