Originally named the Granville Hotel and built by Ebenezer Brown, the Grand Hotel is almost as old as Gastown itself, being built around the same time as the city was founded. The building was rebuilt when the rest of the city burned in the 1870s, after the ownership shifted from Ebenezer Brown to Joe Mannion and Billy Jones, then onto Tom Cyrs. In 1889 Cyrs sold the building to Thomas Roberts. Who, in 1903, commissioned a four storey addition to the Hotel. Thomas Roberts owned and operated the hotel for years, but unfortunately he was murdered at the age of forty-two in 1918 by a man in the West End. By the 1970s, the entire upper portion of the Hotel was completely abandoned. |
Before After
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Raymond Saunders was hired in 1977 by the city’s local merchants to build the world’s second steam clock. The clock sits boldly on the corner of Cambie and Water street, and it serves as a monument and alternatively, covers a steam grate to prevent the homeless from sleeping on the warm area. Today, the Gastown steam clock is 40 years old and one of the six steam clocks in the world. The clock displays the time on four faces, pumps steam off its top every hour, and whistles the “Westminster Quarters” every 25 minutes. |