Chinatown and Hogan's Alley: The City That Almost Built a Freeway Through Its Memory
Vancouver tells itself a story about beating the freeway. Walk Chinatown and Strathcona honestly, and the freeway was beaten across Chinatown only after Hogan's Alley was sacrificed to start it.
Start
Millennium Gate: The Gate and the Ground
Millennium Gate: The Gate and the Ground
The 2002 three-arch gate over West Pender at Taylor, designed by Joe Wai. The western edge of Vancouver's Chinatown National Historic Site, on Coast Salish unceded territory.
Sam Kee Building: The Six-Foot Answer
The 1913 Sam Kee Building at 8 West Pender, built by merchant Chang Toy on a lot the city expropriated to six feet wide in 1912. The architectural answer to the political aftermath of the 1907 anti-Asian riots.
Wing Sang Building: The Merchant Ground
The 1889 Wing Sang Building at 51 East Pender, built by Yip Sang for his import-export company and his household of three wives and twenty-three children. The bachelor-society economy made visible.
Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden: The Reply
Built 1985 to 1986, opened April 24, 1986. The first full-scale Ming Dynasty classical garden built outside China. Designed by Joe Wai and Donald Vaughan with Wang Zu-Xin, built by 53 master craftsmen from Suzhou.
Walter and Mary Lee Chan House: The SPOTA Kitchen
658 Keefer Street. The home of Mary Lee Chan, Walter Chan, and Shirley Chan. The kitchen from which the Strathcona Property Owners and Tenants Association ran its door-to-door campaign in 1968.
Hogan's Alley: The First Phase
The site of Hogan's Alley, Canada's only established Black neighbourhood, demolished beginning in 1967 for the Georgia Viaduct. The first phase of the freeway. The site stands under the viaduct today.
Nora Hendrix Place and Nora Hendrix Way: The Restitution
Nora Hendrix Place modular housing, named 2019. Nora Hendrix Way, the first Vancouver street named for a Black woman, approved 2021. The Hogan's Alley Society's land trust proposal sits on this ground.
Main and Hastings: The Edge
The southwest corner of Main and Hastings. The corner the 1907 anti-Asian parade reached on its way into Chinatown, and the contemporary edge of the Downtown Eastside.
Best Time to Visit
Weekday late morning. Tuesday through Friday, ten to one. Chinatown is quieter on weekday mornings, the Sam Kee Building sidewalk and the Sun Yat-Sen Garden courtyard are easier to stand in, and the Keefer Street block at the Chan House is residential and best visited respectfully when the street is calm. The Hogan's Alley site is loud at any hour because of the viaduct overhead.
Pro Tips
- •Start at the Stadium-Chinatown SkyTrain station. The Millennium Gate is a two-minute walk east on West Pender
- •The Sam Kee Building is privately owned by Jack Chow Insurance. The tour is a sidewalk-only stop. Look down at the glass-block illuminators in the pavement for the basement that extends under the public sidewalk
- •The Wing Sang Building is transitioning to house the Chinese Canadian Museum after the provincial government's two thousand and twenty-two announcement of a twenty-seven point five million dollar purchase. Operating status varies; verify before planning interior access
- •The Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden is a sightline stop on this walk. Adult admission was around sixteen Canadian dollars and eighty cents in twenty twenty-five. Verify the current figure at the door. The adjacent Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Park is free and gives a partial perimeter view
- •The Chan House at six fifty-eight Keefer Street is privately occupied. Read the Vancouver Heritage Foundation Places That Matter marker from the sidewalk across the street
- •Nora Hendrix Place is supportive housing operated by the Portland Hotel Society. Stop Seven is a sidewalk observation only. Do not enter or engage residents
- •Wayde Compton's After Canaan, Arsenal Pulp Press two thousand and ten, is the published Hogan's Alley scholarship. Seven Routes to Hogan's Alley is the longest essay in the collection and the load-bearing public source for this corridor
- •The Hogan's Alley Society at hogansalleysociety.org is the contemporary community-led organization whose published materials this tour is built on
Safety & Precautions
- The Hogan's Alley site under the Georgia Viaduct is loud with overhead traffic. Audio playback may need higher volume, and the stop is best heard standing still under the viaduct rather than walking
- Main and Hastings and the Downtown Eastside one block south are at the centre of an active housing and overdose crisis. Be respectful of unhoused residents and of the Carnegie community. Photograph public street scenes only with consent
- The Chan House is a private residence. Do not approach the door, ring the bell, or photograph through windows. Read the Heritage marker from the public sidewalk across the street
- Nora Hendrix Place is supportive housing. The street name plate and the building exterior are public. Residents and their visitors are not. The audio works from the public sidewalk on the opposite side of the street
- The Sun Yat-Sen Garden and adjacent free park are open Wednesday to Sunday. The free park gives a partial perimeter view if the paid Garden is closed on Monday or Tuesday
Gallery
