Description of Historic Place

The historic place at 58 Powell Street is a plain, three-storey, commercial-style office building located on a truncated triangular lot, adjacent to the former Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) right-of-way in Vancouver's historic Gastown.

Heritage Value

Built in 1910 to the designs of Vancouver architect Joseph Henry Bowman, probably for labour agents White and Bishoprick, the building at 58 Powell Street is of importance as a component of the mechanism that helped Japanese males immigrate into labour-hungry Canada to work during the pre-First World War boom.

Such establishments are significant for having had a direct role in the creation of one of Canada's earliest Japanese-Canadian communities, centred on Powell Street in Vancouver (the other was at Steveston to the south of Vancouver). Many of these workers were employed at the nearby Hastings Sawmill. The building's subsequent exclusive use by Japanese businesses and individuals between 1910 and the Second World War charts the consolidation and ascendancy of the Japanese-Canadian community on Powell Street from employees to employers. The abrupt cessation of the mention of Japanese in connection with the building during the Second World War and thereafter reflects the federal policy of internment and deportation of Japanese-Canadians during hostilities.

The building at 58 Powell Street is of interest as an example of the bland, early twentieth-century commercial style common in the Downtown area. The style and the choice of such an awkward lot (created by the oblique intersection of the CPR track with the street) speaks to the value of land in this area at that time and the relatively modest means of the owner.

Source: City of Vancouver Heritage Conservation Program

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of 58 Powell Street include:
- central block location at the heart of Vancouver's Gastown district
- location on a triangular lot adjacent to the former CPR tracks
- massing and occupation of the entire lot
- the brick facade
- large square windows facing the street, comprised of vertically centre-pivoted sash with paired fixed lights above
- storefront on the ground floor
- remnants of the metal cornice