We had fantastic turnout for our May 16th meeting, filling up the Board Room at Britannia, and we also worked through an ambitious agenda.

All the signs for our 2013 Centenary Campaign have been installed and we had a celebratory party in Grandview Park to acknowledge this year’s signs and the homeowners who agreed to have signs in their yards. The party was on May 4th, which, coincidentally, was also the second anniversary of our first Grandview Heritage Group meeting! Jak got a delicious cake from Fratelli’s and we had a few speeches and gave out some hand-coloured GHG pins — these will surely be collectors’ items some day! We have accomplished a lot in two years!

Michael Kluckner gave a report on the Shelly’s sign restoration project and also provided the group with a slide show about William Shelly and his Vancouver bakery empire. Via Tevere generously contributed $2000 to the sign project. Artists who worked on the sign were Victoria Oginski, our outdoor mural expert, Michael, and Penny. The idea was to revitalize and brighten up the sign, not to make it look new. Here’s the finished product:

Ann Daskal is the main organizer for the June 23rd party to celebrate the revitalization of the Shelly’s sign. She described the progress she has made so far. It’s really going to be a fabulous street party, chiefly for the folks who live in the Rose/Lily/Semlin area. It will an old-time “ice cream social” and will include a dedication and plaque unveiling, music by JazzMaTazz, a scavenger hunt with historical clues, colouring and arts and crafts projects for kids, cake, lemonade, vintage cars, and walking tours of the immediate area. (It’s a huge organizational job, and Ann would really appreciate volunteers to help her with all the aspects of putting on a big party!!)

GHG will have tables at both Car Free Commercial Drive (June 16th) and at one of the houses (on Kitchener St.) on the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s Heritage House Tour (June 2nd).

May 16th, Bruce, Penny, and Michael paid a very informal visit to the Britannia Preschool and talked with a group of three- to five-year-olds. Our visit was organized by their teacher, Vasi Petoussis (who also happens to have one of our Centenary signs in her yard this year!). Here are photos of some of the kids and of Vasi and Bruce.

Maurice has offered to do another GHG walking tour west of the Drive in early October.

Lance and Jak talked about our upcoming GHG wiki. It has been launched and will be made public fairly soon and will enable us to organize and post a vast array of information about Grandview.

Lance also did some research into making “permanent” signs that we can offer to people who have had centenary signs for a year. The sign type he is recommending is printed on a ceramic tile. It would include the GHG logo in colour, the “title” of the house, a brief description of the house and its history, and a QR code that would take you to the page on the GHG wiki that contains information about the house. He had a sample tile printed up to show people what it would look like, and we were all quite impressed! It could be mounted on a house, on a fence, or on a wood stake. Very versatile.

The main event and highlight of the evening was Michael’s fascinating and comprehensive talk about Vancouver’s many house styles, which he illustrated with a slide show of photos and his drawings and watercolour paintings.

Penny Street

Just a quick note to wish all of our readers a wonderful season!  We have managed to get a lot done for Grandview Heritage in the last 12 months and we are looking forward to even more success in the New Year.  Thanks for your interest and donations!

Here is a useful starter collection of books on historic building preservation and conservation issued by the (U.S) National Trust For Historic Preservation. (Note additional entries in the comments).

Grandview Heritage Group has an info table at Car-Free Commercial Drive. We thought we would be at Parker St, but it turns out we are a few blocks south, right across from the Commercial Drive postal outlet (the 1400 block, between Grant and Kitchener). Our table is beside the GWAC table.

Come visit us!

We had an interesting meeting last night, spending a long time discussing how we can “incentivize” the retention of heritage-worthy buildings, both in the residential and commercial districts of Grandview.

James Evans noted that he had recovered a copy of the Toronto Post dated 25th January 1906 from his renovation of the Jeffs House. The paper is rolled up and in a fragile condition. He is looking for someone who might be interested in it and who has the skills to preserve it.  Anybody out there?

This week has also seen a number of useful and interesting articles flowing by in the Twitterstream. These include a piece on the development of greenways in Seattle, a good article from Toronto about the hidden value of heritage properties, and another about heritage being the way of the future.

Finally, there are also some great images of the Waldorf Hotel’s tiki bar in the 1950s.

Through our twitter feed @GVHeritage we capture a lot of interesting and useful information. Here is a recent selection.

From the Natural Resources Defense Council we have an excellent piece extolling the virtues of reusing and recycling older buildings. They quote architect Carl Elefante, who coined the wonderful phrase, “the greenest building is one that is already built,” because you don’t have to use environmental resources in constructing its replacement.

Urban Studies has an interactive map of fruit trees in Vancouver, including Grandview.

And for the hands-on amongst us, the Old House Web has a useful guide to preserving ornamental decoration in heritage houses.

Jak King, one of our core members, is giving a presentation about Commercial Drive at the Museum of Vancouver, NEXT Thurs, January 26th, 7:30, in honour of the launching of his new book, an encyclopedia of The Drive.

http://www.vancouver-historical-society.ca/events.htm