Fairview
by Bruce Macdonald
In the 1860s the First Nations people living in the village of Sun’ahk near today’s Granville Island were the only residents of Fairview. Their fishing weir at the mouth of the tidal bay formed by the sandbar (that would eventually be transformed into Granville Island) screened the outflowing waters and trapped a daily supply of fresh fish.
In the 1870s, after logging camps were established and skid roads were laid through the woods under the direction of Jerry Rogers, the heavy timber in the surrounding forest was cut down to feed the Hastings Sawmill. Teams of oxen dragged the exceptionally fine logs down the Fairview Slopes to tidewater at King’s Landing and Mackie’s Landing, now the False Creek foot of today’s Granville and Cambie streets.
There was a lull in further development until the summer of 1887, when the Canadian Pacific Railway’s Lauchlan Hamilton rowed his wooden canoe south across the cool clear waters of False Creek to pitch his tent on the forested south slope. While carving road survey lines through the bush and looking back across the water at the brand new city of Vancouver rising against the backdrop of the imposing North Shore mountain range, he determined that the new subdivision should be called “Fairview.” This wilderness was soon made accessible with the opening of the Granville Street Bridge in 1889. In 1891 the completion of the Cambie Street Bridge and the new Fairview Beltline streetcar service heralded the beginning of house construction on the slopes. Accommodation was needed for the people working in the new sawmills, shingle mills and other industries sprouting around False Creek. Today the only restored buildings from this era are Sir John and Lady Reid’s Fairview House, circa 1889, at 1151 West 8th Avenue and the 1894 Hodson Manor, now relocated to 1254 West 7th Avenue.
As downtown Vancouver filled up, Fairview became the chosen site for the new Vancouver High School, the new Vancouver General Hospital and the Model School, all finished in 1905. The False Creek shoreline became jammed with smokestack industries while the building boom that peaked in 1912 resulted in construction of homes on most of the remaining lots in Fairview. In I1913 the Vancouver Beavers, the city’s immensely popular pro baseball team, moved to the new Athletic Park near the foot of Granville, and in 1915 the new University of British Columbia opened its doors next to the general hospital. The Great War brought many wartime industries to the area, and by 1918 shipbuilding on False Creek was Vancouver’s largest industry.
After the war, apartment buildings began replacing the homes between Granville and Oak streets. This trend, as well as the retention of industry and the development of Granville Street, Cambie Street and Broadway as the main commercial strips, continued into the 1960s, at which point many industries began to relocate to the suburbs. For decades Vancouverites heated their homes with the enormous amounts of sawdust generated by the sawmills along False Creek. For decades they also endured the side effects of the sawmill’s beehive burners--having to navigate through heavy fogs and frequently clean off soot sticking to curtains and walls.
Radical change came in the 1970s, when almost all of Fairview’s waterfront area was transformed with modern redevelopment into an open area market and cultural centre on Granville Island, and lowrise apartments along the shore, featuring Fairview’s largest park. In the 1980s virtually all the original homes on the Fairview Slopes and the rest of Fairview were torn down and replaced with apartments.
Today Fairview is crowned by highrise buildings spread along the Broadway corridor as it runs east-west through its centre. Just south of the centre of Broadway the Vancouver General Hospital complex provides one of the largest medical establishments in North America. In west Fairview the upscale shops of Granville Street are the focus, while the eastern rim features the City Square Shopping Centre across from City Hall. Fairview’s False Creek oceanfront is rimmed by the popular seawall, a favorite route for pedestrians to amble their way to one of the city’s favorite destinations, Granville Island. Here the Granville Island Market and the mix of fine restaurants, arts facilities, house boats, marinas, shops and old industries attract many tourists as well.
From various points along False Creek pedestrians can take the Aquabus water-taxi to quickly gain access to the West End’s Aquatic Centre, English Bay, Yaletown, Science World, B.C. Place Stadium, G.M. Place, or be within walking distance of the library, the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts, Gastown and Chinatown.
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