Upcoming Fall Presentation

Strathcona’s Community-Led Housing Development
Nov. 4th, 2025, 7:00 pm (virtual presentation)
Tickets: $20.00 – $25.00 through Eventbrite (link)

Join Jennifer Chutter , PhD, for a virtual talk about how the Strathcona Property Owner’s and Tenant’s Association (SPOTA) developed the Strathcona Area Housing Society to construct and sell new affordable housing.

In Vancouver’s civic history, SPOTA is known for stopping urban renewal and the freeway that would have destroyed their neighbourhood. As part of their neighbourhood rehabilitation aims, SPOTA incorporated a not-for-profit housing development corporation called the Strathcona Area Housing Society (SAHS) to construct and sell new affordable housing for low-income families.

They were not architects, developers, or urban planners by training, but instead were guided by the unwavering belief that low-income residents had a right to remain in place and should not be pushed out to the margins of the city to find affordable shelter that met the needs of multi-generational living arrangements. Between 1973-1984, the SAHS developed five phases of different housing options on empty lots within the neighbourhood boundaries. This presentation discusses the rich archival material found at the City of Vancouver Archives and trials and tribulations of the construction of the SAHS housing projects. 

———————–

The Pantages Theatre: Conversations and Curios

The event was a success with many of the Pantages Artifacts sold on the evening. 100% of the sales go to support the ongoing work of the Friends of the City of Vancouver Archives.

There are a few pieces remaining and available for sale. It’s a chance to acquire a unique part of the City’s history. Visit our Square site to see and purchase the remaining pieces.

---

A Few of Our Previous Events

Vancouver Exposed with Eve Lazarus
Eve Lazarus, took us through her favourite stories from her book “Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History”

Is Van Tan the oldest nudist camp in Canada or is it just an urban myth? What’s the story behind the polka dot house on East 3^rd? Who blew up the courthouse lion? What really happened to the Englesea Lodge? Join Eve Lazarus, as she takes you through some of her favourite stories from her book “Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the city’s hidden history.”

Eve Lazarus is an author, reporter and the host and producer of Cold Case Canada, a true crime podcast. Her bestselling books include Cold Case BC, Vancouver Exposed; Murder by Milkshake; Blood, Sweat, and Fear; and Sensational Vancouver. Eve blogs obsessively at Every Place has a Story and administers the Facebook group page Cold Case Canada.

—
“No Smoke Without Fire: Reimagining Women in Colonial Barkerville”

In January, 2023 the Friends hosted Dr. Laura Ishiguro and her talk “No Smoke Without Fire: Reimagining Women in Colonial Barkerville”

On 16 September 1868, the gold-rush town of Barkerville, British Columbia burned to the ground. Weaving together archival records, rumours, and silences, this talk offers a new history of the fire, and the colonial society that sparked it.

Laura Ishiguro is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and affiliated faculty with the Asian Canadian & Asian Migration Studies Program at the University of British Columbia. An historian of colonialism in northwestern North America, she is the author of Nothing to Write Home About: British Family Correspondence and the Settler Colonial Everyday in British Columbia (UBC Press, 2019).

—

Home in an Evolving City

In February, 2022 the Friends hosted Home in an Evolving City via Zoom

Vancouver has always been a city of real estate speculation and high rate of home ownership. The history of housing in Vancouver has focused on architect-designed houses of the upper class. This talk presents a different view of housing in the city’s settler history that focuses on the resilience, creativity, and agency of those attempting to create homes for themselves amidst changing municipal landscapes.

Our Speakers:

John Atkin is a civic historian, and heritage consultant. John offers interesting and offbeat insight to the city’s architecture, history and neighbourhoods through his walking tours, books, and blog. As a heritage consultant, John regularly consults on heritage buildings, writing Statements of Significance, Conservation Plans and Heritage Assessments. John is past chair of the City of Vancouver’s Civic Asset Naming Committee, former chair of the Dr Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden and currently sits on the board of the Friends of the Vancouver Archives, and is a vice president the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC.

Jennifer Chutter is a PhD Candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies at SFU. Her current research examines how SPOTA challenged the city narratives of what it means to create a home in the city during the the 1960s and 1970s. Her previous work was on the Vancouver Special and its significance in meeting the city’s housing needs.

Judy Graves worked with the homeless from 1974 at the Pine Free Clinic, until she retired from her position as the City of Vancouver’s Advocate for the Homeless in 2013. She spent years walking the streets and alleys overnight, listening to the homeless, learning from them, housing them. Her work also involved years exploring the DTES SROs, rooming houses, rooms in basements, cars on the side of the road, small boats in the harbour, tent cities and abandoned houses and many other places the very poor make their home. Although she did not finish high school, she has honorary degrees from four universities, and the Freedom of the City Award. 

Lani Russwurm is a Vancouver historian. He is the author of Vancouver Was Awesome (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2013) and the blog Past Tense Vancouver, and a contributing blogger and researcher for Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours.

—

Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom turned 91 years old on December 3, 2021.

We celebrated with author/historian Aaron Chapman with this online fundraising event for the Friends of the City of Vancouver Archives

Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom turned 91 years old on December 3rd. To celebrate, the Friends of the Vancouver Archives joined Live at The Commodore Ballroom author/historian Aaron Chapman for a special virtual presentation of the history of the Commodore. 

The Commodore has seen generations of Vancouverites pass through its doors since it opened in 1930. In its time it has seen just about everything, with its legendary floor seeing everything from waltzing to slam-dancing. In this Zoom presentation, Chapman will take you through a visual tour of the history of the Commodore, present many previously unpublished photographs, and talk about the trends in history that have made the Commodore come to be. He’ll talk about how, while so many other nightclubs have come and gone, The Commodore has survived and come to be perhaps the one of most valued and beloved venues not only in Vancouver but across the continent—named by Billboard Magazine one of the top ten most influential venues in North America. Chapman will also speak to the comprehensive “800 Granville” development project recently presented by developers Bonnis Properties that perhaps suggests the future of where the Commodore and that part of Granville Street is headed.