A Year in Five Minutes: Vancouver 1960

In 1960, Vancouver got its first independent TV station, BC Ferries started to sail and a massive blaze tested the fire department as no other had done before.

By Chuck Davis, The History of Vancouver
Photos courtesy of Vancouver Archives

The New Crossing

On August 25, 1960 Premier W.A.C. Bennett officially opened the Second Narrows Bridge. The cantilevered span of the main arch, at 1,100 feet, was at the time the second longest in Canada. Because so many men were killed during construction of the bridge it has since been officially renamed the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing. See A Year in Five Minutes: Vancouver 1958 for details on the collapse that year.

Other Bridge News

The Queensborough highway bridge was built. “The City of New Westminster built this $4-million bridge over the North Arm of the Fraser,” wrote Robert Harris in The Greater Vancouver Book, “for access to its suburb of Queensborough at the east end of Lulu Island, and to the Annacis Industrial Estate to the south. It has since become a feeder to Route 91 and the 1986 Alex Fraser (Annacis) Bridge. Queensborough was a toll bridge until bought by the provincial government in November 1966.” An earlier Queensborough bridge had an interesting history. It was built in 1913 by B.C. Electric Railway for rail access to the industrialized end of Lulu Island. Cars could use it, too. The bridge continues in rail freight service to Annacis Island, but was closed to highway traffic in 1960, after the high-level, four-lane Queensborough Bridge was built a little to the west.

A Lulu Island-Sea Island bridge was demolished this year. The bridge was the first over the Middle Arm of the Fraser, built at the north end of No. 3 Road, joining Sea Island to the Bridgeport area of Lulu Island, as an extension of the first Marpole Bridge.

Five-alarm Fire

Vancouver Fire Department historian Alex Matches writes: “The first five-alarm fire, largest in the history of the department, occurred July 3, 1960, when fire destroyed the B.C. Forest Products plant and lumber storage facility on the south shore of False Creek. The fire covered an area equal in size to four city blocks and took many hours to put out. Every available firefighter and piece of equipment was called out, including both fire boats. Twelve firefighters were injured.”

One consequence of the fire: it spelled the end for that slice of Vancouver’s industrial landscape. The city chose to rezone the land for housing and parks.

Ferries

BC Ferries began life officially June 15, 1960 as “B.C. Highways and Bridges Toll Authority Ferries.” The authority began with two vessels—the MV Tsawwassen and the MV Sidney—which shuttled on the one route between Tsawwassen, near Vancouver on the mainland, and Swartz Bay, near Victoria on Vancouver Island. There were 225 employees. Today there are 35 vessels and 47 ports of call.

Highway #17 opened to provide access to the Tsawwassen ferry terminal.

CHAN-TV

At 4:45 p.m. on October 31, 1960 CHAN-TV/8 Vancouver signed on as Vancouver’s first independent TV station. Studios were temporarily established at Richards and Davie Streets until the main studios in Burnaby could be completed. The transmitter was on Burnaby Mountain. Initially, the signal was poor. Although it reached all of downtown Vancouver, it was inferior to that of incumbent stations CBUT (CBC) and KVOS-TV of Bellingham, Washington, across the border in the U. S. Lee Bacchus, in The Greater Vancouver Book, wrote: “A 34-year-old former newspaper photographer named Art Jones launched CHAN-TV (Ch. 8)—now better known as BCTV. Viewers could also watch All-Star Wrestling with Fred Asher and Brad Keene, Ted Peck’s Tides & Trails, Buddy Clyde’s Dance Party, a children’s show with the avuncular Ron Morrier and a prime-time schedule weighted down with such U.S. series as The Rifleman and 77 Sunset Strip.” Today the station is part of the Global network.

Opera!

The Vancouver Opera Association, founded in 1959, began its presentations April 2, 1960. Music critic Ray Chatelin wrote: “When conductor Irwin Hoffman gave the downbeat and the Vancouver Symphony played the first notes of the overture to Bizet’s opera, Carmen, on April 2, 1960, no one really knew if Vancouver was really ready for an opera company.

“Four decades later, Vancouver Opera has not only survived, but is thriving. Through good years and turmoil, the company has grown from one-opera-a-season into a multi-million dollar enterprise that is in economic and artistic good health and is giving every indication it will stay that way.”

A Belated Monument

A statue of Lord Stanley, after whom Stanley Park was named, was unveiled May 19, 1960 by Governor General Georges Vanier in the park . . . and thereby hangs a tale. On October 19, 1889 a letter was written (we’re not sure by whom) promising a suitable monument to commemorate the naming and dedication by Governor General Lord Stanley of Stanley Park. The city archivist, J.S. Matthews, discovered that letter in 1950, more than 60 years after it was written, and realized the promise had not been fulfilled. So he began a fund-raising campaign. It took another 10 years, but finally he raised enough money to commission the work.

An observer at the 1889 dedication wrote: “Lord Stanley threw his arms to the heavens, as though embracing . . . one thousand acres of primeval forest, and dedicated it to the use and enjoyment of peoples of all colours, creeds, and customs, for all time.” It was that expansive gesture that English sculptor Sydney Marsh captured. Made of bronze and granite, the statue is eight feet tall.

Black Top Cabs

“Thanks to the popularity of its radio-dispatched cabs,” Tom Hawthorn wrote in The Greater Vancouver Book, “Black Top had grown to a 62-car fleet by April 1, 1960, when it merged with 48-car Blue Cab to become the largest taxi operation in Western Canada. Blue Cab, founded in 1935 by A. Pashos, soon faded into memory, as all cars were painted in Black Top’s distinctive cream-and-black scheme.”

Harry Jerome

Harry Jerome Jr. was one of the greatest sprinters Canada has ever produced. On July 15, 1960, running at a meet in Saskatoon for the University of Oregon, the Saskatchewan-born Jerome, 19, set the world record of 10.0 seconds flat in the 100 metres. Jerome and his family had moved to North Vancouver in the 1950s, so we were proud and happy to claim him.

Hospital Items

St. Paul’s Hospital opened BC’s first biomedical engineering department. St. Paul’s also performed its first open-heart surgery this year.

The British Columbia Women’s Hospital and Health Care Centre (named Grace Hospital and under the direction of the Salvation Army at the time) celebrated its 50,000 birth. (It would mark its 100,000th in 1977 and 200,000th under its present name in 1993.)

The farms at Riverview (Mental) Hospital were transferred to the control of the BC Agriculture Ministry.

Also in 1960

On January 25 the Vancouver Parks Board renamed Riley Park Pool as Percy Norman Memorial Pool, to honor the long-time swimming coach.

On January 29 Donna Yee was named Miss Chinatown in the first beauty contest ever held in a Canadian Chinese community.

A “Tear It Down” party was held at the Point Grey Golf and Country Club April 2 as the old clubhouse was slated to go.

On June 18, 1960 Canadian Indian people living on reserves get the right to vote in federal elections.

On August 9, 1960 Vancouver experienced the hottest day so far in its 74-year history. The high was 33.3 degrees. (94? F).

On August 10 CHQM-FM 103.5 signed on with an easy listening format, carrying much of its AM station’s programming. It was the first privately-owned FM station in the city.

Empress of Japan II was the largest liner ever to dock in Vancouver to this date. She arrived August 23, 1960. Her arrival was coincidental with a story related to the figurehead of the original Empress of Japan (a ship that sailed into Vancouver harbor many times between 1891 and 1922). It was rescued from its Stanley Park location, where it had been exposed to the elements for decades, and given to the Maritime Museum for safekeeping and restoration. It is now on display in the Museum. It is a much more impressive work than the fibreglass reproduction now in the Park.

From the Province of September 22, 1960 in sports writer Clancy Loranger’s column: “Monday’s meeting of Mounties’ shareholders to vote on the sale of the baseball club to Milwaukee was hardly a sweetness and light session . . . There was one impressive bit, though. General manager Bob Freitas pointed it out: Not one shareholder, the so-called ‘little guy’ who invested his 25 or 50 bucks, asked what would happen to his money. ‘Nobody even asked me privately,’ said Bob in wonder. ‘All they are interested in was keeping baseball here’.”

George Randolph Pearkes was sworn in October 13 as B.C.’s lieutenant governor, succeeding Frank Ross.

The Walter Koerner Library opened October 28, 1960 at UBC.

The Lyric Theatre on Granville Street closed in December, 1960, to make way for the development of Pacific Centre. It had opened in 1891 as the Opera House and on March 17, 1913 re-opened as the Orpheum (not the present theatre), with vaudeville acts. On July 26, 1935 became the Lyric with talking pictures.

Great Northern Way was named in honor of the railway company that donated much of the land the street is on.

Vancouver police reported that 84 bootleggers were in full operation in Vancouver.

Lansdowne Race Track closed. The stables and track continued to be used as training facilities.

During construction of the Trans-Canada Highway through the Fraser Valley, a man named Charlie Perkins stood guard over his ivy-covered fir tree, directly in the path of the new road. He had dedicated the tree to fallen comrades in World War I, and the public outcry resulted in the engineers curving the road around it this year. That may be a unique circumstance in the construction of a national highway. You can see that curve on the Trans-Canada to this day.

The Garibaldi Lift Company was formed to develop Whistler as a ski mountain. There was no road, no hydro, no water supply and no money at the time.

Brentwood Mall opened in Burnaby. At 30 acres it was the largest of its kind in B.C. at the time.

The Quilchena Golf Club, which had had a clubhouse at 29th and Maple Crescent, moved to Richmond.

Architectural historian Harold Kalman noted something about the building at 6415 Victoria Drive, built in 1960, that the rest of us might not: “In this day of sprawling mega-stores,” he wrote, “we sometimes forget that the post-war common supermarket represented an ambitious architectural program. The Super-Valu chain, which originally erected and operated this building, developed the best local solution. Large glued-laminated timber arches provide a broad expanse of unobstructed, column-free space. Note the remarkably small metal connectors, which bear the full weight of the structure where the arches meet the ground. The building is now a discount outlet that sells used articles donated to charities.”

A south wing was added to UBC’s Main Library.

CKWX started the kind of open-line broadcasting so popular in Metropolitan Vancouver today. Barrie Clark was an early star.

The average person in the Vancouver area was eating 23 dozen eggs (276) a year in 1960. By 1997 that would drop to 15 dozen (180).

Local golfing great Stan Leonard won the Western Open.

The Royal Vancouver Yacht Club purchased Tugboat Island, a 28-acre park at Silva Bay, as an offshore station.

MacLean Park, a block-square park bounded by Heatley and Hawks Avenues and East Georgia and Keefer Streets, was relocated. The new park replaced the original at Union and Jackson, which had been taken over for Vancouver’s first urban renewal housing. Named in 1912 after Vancouver’s first mayor, J.A. MacLean, it was the first supervised playground for children in Vancouver. Today, seniors use the “new” park—where houses, apartments and a bakery once stood—for daily tai chi.

Maple Grove Park (on Yew between West 51st Avenue and Marine Drive) became the site of Vancouver’s first recreation program for blind children.

Dr. Murray Newman, the Vancouver Aquarium’s first Director, attended the first International Aquarium Congress in Monaco, and visited the Berlin Aquarium and the British Museum of Natural History. “From these observations,” Newman wrote, “plus visits to Marine Studios in Florida came the concept of a new kind of facility—a living aquatic museum which would tell the story of the aquatic habitats of Western Canada from the open ocean to the headwaters of the Fraser River.” The enlarged aquarium would open in 1967.

A bronze sculpture titled Fertility, by Jack Harman, was installed at UBC’s Lasserre Building.

Theatre Under The Stars, which had been presenting musical productions at Malkin Bowl, since the 1940s, closed. It would be reopened by enthusiasts in 1969.

The United Players was born as the St. James Drama Group, created by the St. James United Church Women. They perform at the Jericho Arts Centre.

Calgary-born (April 28, 1926) Hy Aisenstat, restaurateur, moved to Vancouver and opened Hy’s at the Sands. The son of a Russian emigre wholesale grocer in Calgary, Aisenstat worked in sales, then owned a small oil company. In 1955, with wife Barbara (born March 20, 1934 in Kirkland Lake, Ont.), he opened Hy’s Steak House in Calgary with a $3,000 loan. After his arrival in Vancouver he would vastly expand his restaurant empire.

Bellingham, Washington-born (June 10, 1894) Buda Hosmer Brown (née Jenkins) was elected Social Credit MLA for Vancouver Point Grey. She was appointed minister at large (without portfolio), the first woman in a W.A.C. Bennett cabinet since Tilly Rolston.

Under its choir master Charles Findlater, Vancouver’s Elgar Choir (established in 1934) was the first Canadian cultural group to visit the USSR.

Pearl Steen, women’s activist (born in 1893 in Victoria), who had had a distinguished career of public service, was the sole Canadian woman delegate to the UN General Assembly in 1960. She also became the only woman director of the PNE this same year, and would be on the board until 1968.

Mildred Valley Thornton, Vancouver artist and art critic, born in 1890 in Dresden, Ontario, was made a Fellow, Royal Academy of Arts.

Peter Toigo, Powell River-born entrepreneur (born September 9, 1932), bought downtown Powell River from MacMillan Bloedel and built the town’s first shopping centre. In 1982 he would buy the White Spot Restaurant chain.

Elsewhere

August 10 The Canadian Bill of Rights was proclaimed. Read it here.

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Chuck Davis is a Vancouver writer who has written, co-written, or edited 15 books. Most of them are on local history, and he describes his next book, The History of Metropolitan Vancouver, as the capstone of his career.