Controversy over the future of inner cities is not a phenomenon unique to Vancouver. As the cycle of capital flight and reinvestment turns, inner city real estate markets across North America heat up. In New York City, between 2000 and 2007, 46% of inner city neighbourhoods switched from the bottom to the top half of citywide prices. In Seattle, 55% of inner city neighbourhoods made the same shift.

Changing demographics often drive rising land prices. Low-income and working class people are priced out of their apartments and shops. In their place, wealthier people move into renovated apartments and fashionable businesses. Called “revitalization” by proponents and “displacement” by detractors, these forces are transforming inner city neighbourhoods from Brooklyn to Seattle.

Vancouver’s situation, however, is in many ways unique. Struggling through decades of drug addiction, disease and crumbling infrastructure, something clearly must change for the Downtown Eastside. But a glance at the bustling United We Can bottle depot, or the many colourful street murals, shows a vibrant, healthy community. The question of whether the neighbourhood can improve while protecting this valuable community is an open one.

Layers of Meaning

In tenth century Europe, writing materials were considered so valuable that scribes would erase older manuscripts with a solvent and overwrite them with new text. The result is known as a palimpsest, and this practice was used throughout Europe for centuries.

The Archimedes Palimpsest, the subject of an intensive imaging study from 1999–2008

Today, using a technique known as multispectral imaging, researchers photograph palimpsests through different wavelengths of light. Different wavelengths reveal different layers, and the lost writings of ancient Greek philosophers have been discovered this way.

In many respects, the city of Vancouver is a palimpsest. The dreams, ambitions and fears of countless people have created layers of brick and mortar. Looking at these successive layers of development through different wavelengths reveals the tension between improvement and displacement.

The interesting thing about the site is that it is actually a hinge between the old historical grid and the modern city grid coming in at a different angle.

Coffee and History, part 1

A couple blocks west of Main and Hastings, I look up to see a soaring, flatiron condo tower rising above the four and five story brick buildings. An order of magnitude taller than anything around it, the tower dominates the skyline.

A few lonely green trees poke over the top. Ribbons of red steel trelliswork, emblazoned with a vine motif, run vertically up the building’s side. This is my destination: the Woodwards redevelopment.

An iconic department store for 100 years, Woodwards lay vacant and boarded up for a decade before redevelopment began in 2006. Now a mixed-use complex of market housing, social housing, a university campus, government offices and retail outlets, the project has sparked an economic renaissance in the neighbourhood. Today, many of the heritage buildings around Woodwards contain trendy new restaurants and clothing stores. Since Charles Woodward’s decision to build his flagship department store at the corner of Hastings and Abbot Street in 1903, the building has been a locus of neighbourhood change.

The redevelopment’s covered public entrance lures me inward off Hastings Street as I approach. Narrowing toward a row of glass doors, the red brick walls seem designed to guide pedestrians inside. Through the glass doors, a cavernous interior atrium shelters a basketball court and public benches from Vancouver’s omnipresent drizzle. Exiting through the far side of the atrium, I arrive at the JJ Bean coffee shop in the base of Woodward’s flatiron condo tower. I am here to meet Vancouver historian John Atkin, who has promised to help me peer through the layers of history that shaped this development.

Vancouver historian John Atkin outside of the iconic Ovaltine Cafe

The shop is bustling with activity as groups of sharply dressed young people discuss work or school projects. After grabbing our coffees, Atkin shakes the raindrops off his bright orange jacket — a necessity for those who live through Vancouver’s wet, dark winters. Under a green felt hat, Atkin’s brown eyes and rough stubble give him the appearance of a friendly father figure. We manage to squeeze onto a couple of stools at the front of the shop, looking over the outdoor atrium of the redevelopment complex. Atkin animates his story with vigorous hand gestures, revealing his obvious pleasure in unearthing the neighbourhood’s layers of history.

“I’d far rather go have a coffee at the Ovaltine,” says Vancouver historian John Atkin, “And listen to a bunch of guys talk about the horse races, than pay six bucks for a cup of coffee at some neo-retro place.”

Ordering the Chaos

One hundred and forty-five years ago, nobody could have imagined the cosmopolitan city I walked through to meet Atkin. Economic and social life in the young city, which was then still known as the Granville Townsite, revolved around the nearby Hastings sawmill. The mill, the first non-native settlement in the area, was owned by a group of investors from San Francisco, the largest buyer of British Columbia timber.

“The mill property in this area went as far as what is today Carrall Street,” says Atkin as we continue our conversation. “The mill manager was a bit of a stick in the mud, so no gambling, no drinking, no fighting. That’s why John Deyton, Gassy Jack [a nickname earned for his gift of gab], puts the wife, the dog, the mother, the cousin and the barrel of whiskey in the rowboat. He comes over here and puts it down on the beach.” Gassy Jack used the contents of the barrel of whiskey to pay some local loggers to build his saloon, just across the mill property line.

Gassy Jack’s saloon proved popular among workers interested in the more frowned upon pleasures of life, and a small settlement soon grew along the shoreline. The colonial government of the day was unhappy with this chaotic arrangement of drunken sailors and loggers, and sent a surveyor in 1870. The surveyor, says Atkin, “Lays out the six block town site and that’s what gives order, as [the surveyor] puts it, to the chaos in the forest.”

Using wooden stakes, rope, and hard labour, the colonial surveyor scratched out the first layer of the urban palimpsest in the earth. To this day, the influence of that first layer is visible through the coffee shop’s floor-to-ceiling glass windows.

Woodwards sits at the intersection of the old colonial and modern street grids. The original Cordova Street extends into the site, creating the outdoor atrium

In an interview with author Robert Enright, Woodwards’ architect Gregory Henriquez said, “The interesting thing about the [site] is that it is actually a hinge between the old historical grid and the modern city grid coming in at a different angle. The resulting flatiron building exists at the point where these two geometries coincide, and reconciles them: the Cordova axis comes sliding through into the center of the site, becomes the atrium and constructs the edge of the flatiron building.”

In Search of Easy Money

Arthur Ross was a realtor and land speculator from Winnipeg. Ross had made and promptly lost a small fortune in the 1880 Winnipeg real estate bubble. Chasing the same easy wealth to Vancouver, he was determined not to repeat his mistakes.

At this time, the CPR railroad was snaking its way across the country, and the company was deciding where to locate its terminus station. The accepted wisdom was that the terminus station would be located at Port Moody, then one of the largest towns, and speculators had been snatching up land in the area.