HASTINGS PART I
Lighting up a new city

JUDY GRAVES
Neon is the best public art project ever.
It completely expresses the neighbourhood that it’s in.

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HASTINGS PART I
Lighting up a new city

NARRATOR
For generations of Vancouver residents, Woodward’s on Hastings Street was the central destination for people making trips downtown.

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Dal Richards, saxophonist, big-band leader

DAL RICHARDS
Every Saturday afternoon in the ‘30s, my family, who lived in Marpole, would drive down to Woodward’s to do Saturday afternoon shopping. And then we’d have dinner at Woodward’s. Then we’d walk down to what was known as Pantages Theatre in those days, and see these wonderful vaudeville shows.

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Gregory Henriquez, managing partner, Henriquez Partners Architects

GREGORY HENRIQUEZ
They did everything. They delivered your groceries, and the travel agents and furniture—there wasn’t anything you couldn’t do at Woodward’s. So it was a pretty exciting place.

NARRATOR
But when Charles Woodward first opened the Woodward’s store at Hastings and Abbott in 1902, Hastings was hardly a bustling downtown strip.

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John Atkin, civic historian

JOHN ATKIN
Hastings was actually quite a backwater at that time. Woodward’s was even, friends made jokes about the fact that he bought swamp land on Hastings and Abbott. But really, in 1907, when BC Electric moved the main streetcar line from Cordova Street to Hastings, that’s when Hastings Street takes over as the main commercial street on that spine off of Granville.

NARRATOR
Hastings Street transformed after the 1907 arrival of the Interurban streetcar station at Hastings and Carrall. The Interurban brought thousands of people to the area each day. Formerly a lonely, boondocks street, Hastings sprang to life.

Businesses and vaudeville theatres started to line the strip in response to the influx of people. Soon, local business owners were looking for new, flashy ways to advertise their services. By the 1920s, neon signs arrived in Vancouver.

JOHN ATKIN
Previous advertising was done with light bulbs that flickered on and off. They were very mechanical signs. They were actually quite noisy as signs, so “click click click” of the light bulbs.

And here comes this source that glows. And it glows in such a way that it’s hard to classify how that light works. It just, it throws light around, it’s got a constant colour, and people stare at it. They love just looking at the light.

TITLE TEXT: Norman Young, retired theatre professor and actor

NORMAN YOUNG
What was exciting, I think, about the neon, was the fact that none of us thought it had anything to do with electricity. Somehow they light, they colour the air and put air through those things. I mean, that was my, what most of us, as kids thought.

JOHN ATKIN
When new neon signs were erected, they put advertisements in the newspapers saying “Come and see this sign being turned on.” And major signs were major events.

NARRATOR
The neon signs installed on Hastings Street in the 1930s, ‘40s, and ’50s were emblematic of the bustling local businesses that defined the strip as a cultural and commercial hotspot. The iconic Woodward’s W was installed in 1955. The bright-red letter could be seen for miles around.

GREGORY HENRIQUEZ
The health of Hastings street and all the other retailers was tied to Woodward’s existence. So there’s a real history to that W. It’s a part of our skyline, but also part of sort of the zeitgeist of the community and a symbol of really sort of an important social and economic anchor.

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