Chinese Theatre

Other names: Chinese Theatre, Hong Kong Cafe

The Chinese Theatre was opened in 1909 by Loo Gee Wing, a wealthy Chinese businessman from California with ties to the Cariboo Gold Rush.

The building was the typical layout found in Chinatown: it had retail shops and services on the ground floor and residential rooms above. The design is presumed to by Samuel Buttry Bird.

The theatre staged Cantonese opera with two levels of fixed seating, occupying the rear half of the property in the 1910s; this rear wing was later made into residential rooms. The Hong Kong Cafe was located here from the 1930s until the 1950s.

Single rooms, such as those found here, catered to the large numbers of single working-class men living in Chinatown. Legislation at the time purposely prevented the remaining family members from immigrating. There were several organizations in the building that provided social support to these single men. The building was also a former home of The Chinatown News, which provided news in English for Chinese who were born in Canada.

The building was rehabilitated in 1976, including changing all the windows from wood to aluminium sash, marking one of the earlier renovations of a building in the historic Chinatown district.

This site is part of the Chinatown Historic Area, HA-1 in the City of Vancouver’s zoning bylaw. It is included in the Vancouver Heritage Register as a recognized part of the historic neighbourhood. Other similar municipally protected sites within a Historic Area are marked on the map with an O instead of the usual Heritage Register categories of A, B, or C. Some of these sites may be newer construction but are nonetheless still protected. For more information on the bylaw that governs the Chinatown Historic Area see: https://bylaws.vancouver.ca/zoning/zoning-by-law-district-schedule-ha-1-1a.pdf

Source

Historic Places Canada, Building Vancouver blog on Loo Gee Wing

More information

https://buildingvancouver.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/loo-gee-wing/