Notes To January Meeting

We had another full house for our monthly meeting on Thursday, and it was an interesting one. Eric Phillips continued his marvelous Mechanicals and Materials series, this time with a lively discussion of what and how to keep records of your house. Using his own home as an example, he talked about property records, such … Continue reading Notes To January Meeting →

Eric Phillips on Asbestos in Older Houses…

Almost any house built prior to the 1990s will contain some asbestos. This WorkSafe BC link will show you some of the more common places and give an overview of asbestos in the home. It is interesting that the diagram uses a relatively modern house as its example. Asbestos, as the miracle do-anything product, came … Continue reading Eric Phillips on Asbestos in Older Houses… →

Meeting Notes from November 20th

A full house of about 25 for our November meeting... • Our Geography 429 student, Kevin Shackles, introduced himself to the group. He will be working on a project in the Spring to map the old grocery stores and other commercial storefronts of "back-street" Grandview (that is, not The Drive, not Hastings Street) and investigate … Continue reading Meeting Notes from November 20th →

Notes From Our October Meeting

We had another fine turn-out for our October meeting, with some new and welcome faces. We began by discussing the Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhood's all-candidates meeting.  The candidates' responses re: the Heritage Action Plan were discussed.  It was also noted that all parties other than Vision had stated their opposition to the current Grandview Community … Continue reading Notes From Our October Meeting →

Early Immigrant Walking Tours: Strathcona

Strathcona, Vancouver’s historic east end, has been home to generations of immigrants from around the world. In the 1930s the local elementary school was called “the Little League of Nations” acknowledging the 33 nationalities that attended classes there. In the surrounding neighbourhood, local churches reflected the diversity and the evolving nature of immigration; a Lutheran … Continue reading Early Immigrant Walking Tours: Strathcona →

Notes from the September 18th meeting

• Presentation to the Citizens Assembly: In response to the request from Rachel Magnusson, organizer and chair of the assembly experiment, for info from the GHG on heritage issues, we discussed who would be able to go on October 4th at 12:30. The time constraints, which bear a remarkable resemblance to speed dating, were described … Continue reading Notes from the September 18th meeting →

August 21st meeting recap

There was a full house again for the GHG's monthly meeting, held (as always) in the boardroom at Britannia at 7 pm on the third Thursday. Cynthia Low, the executive director of Britannia, gave a Powerpoint presentation and listened to questions and comments about the ongoing planning process to replace the current Britannia Community Centre … Continue reading August 21st meeting recap →

The 2014 set of Centenary Signs houses

For the third year in a row, we have celebrated two-dozen Grandview houses that are at least 100 years old. This year's set focuses on groups of historic houses and includes, for the first time, a number of houses west of Commercial Drive – a sometimes overlooked historic area that has been infilled with quite … Continue reading The 2014 set of Centenary Signs houses →

Meeting Notes: May 2014

We had another interesting meeting last night, with even more newcomers filling out the room.  It was great to see them. After introductions, Penny reported on the response to the 2014 Centenary Houses project.  She and Maria delivered 35 letters of proposal about two weeks ago, and we have already heard back positively from about … Continue reading Meeting Notes: May 2014 →