Description of Historic Place

This four-storey brick building at 291 East Georgia Street combines retail on the ground floor with apartments above. It is located on a busy corner in the south eastern part of Vancouver's historic Chinatown.

Heritage Value

Constructed in 1911 for Leon Way and Company, this building was designed by architects Edward Evans Blackmore and Samuel Buttrey Birds. Its heritage value is derived from its association with these architects and its history of ownership and use.

Blackmore and Birds, although not formally partners, worked together on a number of projects. Both were very active during the pre-1912 building boom in Vancouver and contributed to the creation of Chinatown, and Vancouver's, built environment. This building is a relatively simple commercial/residential block of the type built during this period. Features of interest include three bay windows (at the corner and at either end, on Gore Avenue and East Georgia Street), the cornice, and the fire escape. The corner entry makes good use of the site and is a common feature of buildings on corner sites constructed at this time. Both the association with architects Blackmore and Birds and the representative character of the architecture contribute to the heritage value of the building.

The combination of retail use on the ground floor with residential 'rooms' above is common for this area and for this time period more generally. The demographic structure of the Chinese community, with many single males, meant that there was a high demand for low cost, simple, accommodation. This demographic structure was a product of discriminatory legislation which made it difficult, and later impossible, for men to bring their wives and children to Canada. The location of this building illustrates the extension of Chinatown east of Main Street in the period before World War I. The quality of the building speaks to the housing reforms that took place at the time in Vancouver and the Chinese community's investment in new, higher quality housing, in part to replace housing lost to the expansion of the rail yards south of Chinatown.

The tenancy of the ground floor retail shops has changed over time but has, at different times, included a tailor, barber, and grocery stores. The latter use is typical for this part of Chinatown.

Source: City of Vancouver Heritage Conservation Program

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of 291 East Georgia Street include:
- location on a corner lot, filling most of the lot
- brick facade with three bay windows, cornice and arrangement of windows and other features, such as the fire escape, typical of residential/commercial blocks of the time
- strategic use of the corner, with entry into one of the retail shops and a bay window extending above it, emphasizing the location
- upper floors used for residential purpose
- division of ground floor for retail uses, especially services and groceries
- remnants of signs painted on the side of the building, advertising rooms and retail tenants