A new guidebook gets to the ‘heart’ of Vancouver’s historic Mount Pleasant neighbourhood

It may not have the fame of Strathcona, the West End or Chinatown, but a new book argues Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant has just as rich a history as those other neighbourhoods and it’s one worth saving.

Mount Pleasant Stories:  Historical Walking Tours is the first in a series of planned guidebooks.  This volume is entitled Walk One:  Mount Pleasant’s Heritage Heart which author and heritage advocate Christine Hagemoen defines as “specifically where Main and Kingsway meet, that triangle plot of land.  That is considered the heart of the neighbourhood and then it spreads out from there.”

Mount Pleasant is sometimes referred to as Vancouver’s first suburb, as it is one of the first areas of the city developed outside the traditional downtown core.  Many of the buildings date from the 1890s through the 1920s.  However, as Hagemoen points out, Mount Pleasant is very much in a neighbourhood in transition today.

“It’s kind of threatened right now with so much development with the [Broadway] subway and speculation about building heights.  And of course, we had that giant fire in October of 2020 that physically destroyed a building.  So, I thought it was a good place to start and a good reminder of how the neighbourhood started.”

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The tour also includes what Hagemoen calls “missing heritage,” places that matter that are no longer there.

“History isn’t just what you see.  It includes the stories or the intangible histories that we no longer can see.  And it shows how the neighbourhood developed.”

A good example of that is the site of The Cellar Jazz Club where Charles Mingus famously hit a BC Lions player over the head with a toilet plunger!

There then is soon-to-be missing heritage like the City Centre Motor Hotel which was built for the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games.  Now closed, its rooms are being used as artist studios while it awaits redevelopment.

“It just spoke to a different time, when Kingsway was the big thoroughfare for cars and it was part of [Highway 99A],” she says.  “There was so many car-based businesses and travel-based motels along its route.”

“I have friends that have studios in the motel now and they’re really enjoying the space.  But it’s just too bad that it’s not a permanent situation.  That would be excellent,” she adds.

Hagemoen is a fourth-generation Vancouverite and herself a proud Mount Pleasant resident.

“I moved here in 2015 and I live in a 1912 heritage building,” she explains.  “I was looking through the city directories and my grandmother, who I called Nana, lived directly across the street from me on Ontario here.  75 years ago, we were neighbours — sort of.”

She not only wants to see the area survive but thrive.

“We’re not talking about preserving the whole of Mount Pleasant, just those few blocks along Main and a little bit along Broadway and Kingsway where they meet.  I think that’s worth saving.”

There are 33 stops in all, spanning an area along Main Street between East 14th and East 5th Avenues.  She hopes the book inspires readers to get out and explore.

“I think walking tours are great because it’s active learning and you can make your own discoveries along the way.”

Mount Pleasant Stories:  Historical Walking Tours – Walk One:  Mount Pleasant’s Heritage Heart is self-published.  Copies can be purchased at Pulp Fiction Books, R&B Brewing, and Massy Books.

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