Granville Bridge - a 1954 City of Vancouver film about the construction of the bridge
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- Опубликовано: 18 янв 2015
- This is a 1954 City of Vancouver film about the need for a new Granville Street Bridge.
The film is very post war pro-car, progress through big new modern bridges.
The film has some very nice aerials of the city at about 2 minutes in..
Overall the film has a number of good shots of the downtown core through the the film
Cinematography: Jack McCallum.
Story and Narration: Dorwin Baird.
Recorded by TeleSound
Produced by: Lew Perry
The original footage comes from the Vancouver Archives - COV-S361-: 2013-020.08
searcharchives.vancouver.ca/gr...
The film is public domain
The irony of this documentary is how little the new Granville Street Bridge alleviated the gridlock of downtown Vancouver. When the new bridge was completed its road surface looked like the deck of a huge aircraft carrier, yet its lanes were embarrassingly empty of cars. The problem lay in all those traffic lights at every intersection along the streets that fed into the bridge; red lights reduced traffic to a trickle - hence the sparseness of cars actally moving across the bridge.
Do I feel old watchin' this awesome piece of my hometown's history, but still much appreciated.
Thanks so much for this educational video about the building of the Granville Street Bridge.....😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
My dad was chief engineer on this project (at an extraordinarily young age), so my family is well familiar with it. But it never occurred to me until now that the reason my dad was so pissed off about the city making downtown Granville Street a pedestrian mall is that it negated the whole point of his beautiful brutalist bridge.
Lol!
AMAZING!!! The mountains look EXACTLY THE SAME...
LOL! Yes...the mountains are the same.
Who woulda thought? Huh?
Mountain’s that stay the same? WOW! Who’d a thunk it? The idiot is strong with this one. Did you vote ndp?
Hahaha
OBVIOUSLY I'm joking around people. Yikes!
1:28 "Only 70 years ago... there was hardly a city where Vancouver now stands"
13:00 "Old street cars began to disappear... as the ancient tracks were torn up"
They KNEW what they were doing! All these years later, STILL the best bridge in this region, ONLY one that rarely backs up!
Probably because driving/parking downtown isn't as easy as it is elsewhere. If downtown was like other north American cities, with many more parkades and freeways, it would be far busier and congested.
Excellent footage. I didn't realize downtown was so congested in 54. Whole bridge was hand painted?!?
Those were the dark ages before skytrain...
11:05 This riveter went deaf several years later.
The greatest transportation project in the city's history. Built in the early 50's, its 8 lanes were seen by some as overkill. But we've got to be thankful that Fred Hume and City Council had the vision that Vancouver was a growing city and needed a crossing that would not only last for hundreds of years but be large enough to accommodate the traffic that would only increase in the ensuing years.
2:56 "Citizens approved the cost." - No longer a consideration in anything it seems!
Beautiful people used to live here.
Did you notice that?
Now there are a bunch of freaks there.
Riveting with no earplugs is just insane. I knew the guys who built Titanic didn't have them but I thought it would be better by 1954.
Couldn’t help but chuckle “ congestion in the 50’s”
Archie Mcaffer Not so hilarious for those stuck in traffic waiting for a boat to pass and the bridge to close.
Now over 60 years later they are talking about a new Granville Street Bridge !
Now the City is dismantling the easy exit ramps causing gridlock, all for the sake of redeveloping the surrounding lands.
I think we will see in a decade if this is beneficial or not
What are all those buildings a 2:44 at what is now Vanier Park?
"the problem is traffic. Congestion."
+Barry Warne Lot more congested than Hong Kong in the same year !
nice bridge
Vancouver looked so clean and dignified back then. Today, well...it is what it is.
Still a lot cleaner than Toronto but behind Montreal.
How so? I think it's cleaner today. Look at False Creek and how dirty it was. Think of all of those automobiles with very poor fuel efficiency.
looks a lot nicer today
8:58 I never see that many people swimming during the summer now. Not even on the best summer day
And they really shouldnt have considering how polluted those waters were back then
And I bet many got sick from E.Coli and other toxic water conditions.
I’m not sure they really understood what they where swimming in.
The piles were logs? Surely they have all rotted by now? That was a big surprise.
Actually, when the wooden piles are submerged, the can petrify over time. The city of Venice in Italy is built on wooden piles that have since turned to stone.
@@cmonkey63 No kidding. Is this a salt content thing preventing rotting giving it time to mineralize instead?
Likely coated in creosote which delays rot, as was the standard for piers and poles at the time.
I wonder how people got across False Creek before any bridge was built. I know the 1954 bridge was actually the third Granville Street Bridge. I think the area on Granville Island known as "Old Bridge" refers to the second one. Did the first bridge go in the same direction as the current one? And before any bridge was built was a ferry used as a crossing?
Yes the "old bridge" on Granville Island refers to the second bridge, because Granville Island is man-made, built in the 1910s after the second bridge was built. When the first bridge was built there was no Granville Island.
The first bridge alignment is roughly the same as the current bridge. The causeway to Granville Island, under the current bridge, is something of a remnant of that first bridge.
The first bridge over False Creek was built in the 1880's along Westminster Ave. (later re-named Main St.) That was when False Creek was much larger, extending several blocks east of the present-day Science World.
all the lead paint has been blasted off this bridge now as far as I know -- too bad none of those guys who put it on were alive still to take it off. must have taken forever to paint that whole thing with just a brush (rollers didnt exist yet) surprised they didnt spray it.
What was Burrard Inlet like in 1867? I know there was no Vancouver. Its my understanding, Gassy Jack opened a saloon where Gastown now is in that year. The reason why I mention 1867 is thats when the Canadian Confederation started. Next year is the Canadian sesquicentennial. I want to know what British Columbia, including Greater Vancouver area in 1867, was like. I want to know what towns and roads existed in 1867. That is my sesquicentennial general interest.
+classicrockcafe In 1867 BC was not part of Canada so the centennial is not strictly one for this province. 1867 was when BC and Vancouver Island were united so this is the sesquicentennial of BC coming into being.
Burrard inlet in 1867 - not much. New Westminster, Langley and the Fraser River were much more the focus. It is the railway that created the real demand on Burrard Inlet
+BC History There was some activity at Burrard Inlet in 1867. Not much but some. Gassy Jack opened a saloon. Edward Stamp built the Hastings Mill. There was a stagecoach service between New Westminster and Burrard Inlet driven by W. R. Lewis, along Hastings Road, aka Douglas Road.
+classicrockcafe It wasn't called Vancouver at time.I know it was called Granville but faced lots of opposition for renaming to Vancouver after Captain George Vancouver.
Actually I don't think it was called Granville in 1867 until Gassy Jack moved there. On July 1st, there was Stamps Mill and the Brighton Hotel. But that area must have been populated because, people were working at the mill. In a book about Gastown it was mentioned that the Vancouver area was at its lowest ebb by 1867. It was a collection of slum hotels and forsaken warehouses. It was home to none except broken men and women on skid road.
Minor correction: British Columbia and Vancouver Island merged in 1866. Legislation passed in August, took effect in November.
The riveter with no hearing protection or safety harness. A guy in a rowboat without a life vest to fish out workers who fall into the water lol. Painting by brush. Pouring cement by hand. Lots of muscle work and not much concern for safety back then.
500 year rating*
What means bridge
Traffic jams in 1954.....seems legit
i live in melbourne and went to vancouver in sep 2019 and this bridge is MISTAKE!!!! narrow path next to 4 lanes of fast traffic!!! And then there is a step down to cross the exit/entrance ramp with no lights or signs or anything
Used to be perfect. They ruined it just recently
The bridge was built at a time when Vancouver was considering building freeways into the CBD, this bridge and the Georgia Street Viaduct were the only bits that were built before a strong movement against inner city freeways in the mid 1960s
@@BCHistory I wonder if the city fathers ever thought of all the air pollution created because of a LACK of freeways into Vancouver ? ? ?
We can blame those planners for the mess we have today. Should have linked Hwy 99 to this bridge and four lanes on the Lions Gate.
It's too easy to blame planners, I think it is mostly our economic system that creates many of the challenges for planners with unending growth, it is the elephant in the room. Enjoyed the video, an old guy, who's parents were born here too. An oddly sentimental piece for me to watch. thanks!
I’m sure passing decisions like building a whole new bridge were easier back then. Now Vancouver would hold protests if the city even considered damming anything.
That is because we are losing too much of Vancouver's history
Interesting that the narrator says 19 - 9 bridge for 1909. I wonder how modern saying 19-oh-9 is?
They've been saying 19-9 since ..... 19-9 !!!
Brdwy. where?
This country is so beautiful but it’s really sad our current government under Trudeau ruined this country. Young people can’t even afford to live in vancouver where they born 😢😢
It is cool to see history of this time. However, it is very hard for myself as my father was born in 1956 in Powell River our traditional Tla'amin land. He has forcibly taken from my great-grandparents and sent to the Residential School in Sechelt for 10/11 years straight. No home visits or holidays. Terra Nullis, the colonization of BC, Indian Act and Dominion Lands Act allowed for all this land to be acquired, expropriated, owned and developed for little to no cost. To provide opportunity for immigrants or settler society at the cost of the Indigenous people. Just something I want people to consider what life was like for the original people of "Vancouver" at the time this was filmed and even afterwards.
Racial prejudice on film? That would be shocking. Maybe that would explain the lack of Asiatic names listed in the Second Narrows Bridge collapse, four years later... or maybe not.
I don't like the loss of ethnic balance around here any more than you do, my friend. And it's all happening as the do gooders tell us we have no right to feel threatened by the marginalization or even extinction of our own white Anglo race and culture.
perez munoz oh boo hoo! Who let u in this country anyway? Who gave you the right to decide who should be in this country you racist piece of shit? Let’s ask the First Nations people...
Jim Ervin loss of ethnic balance!?? Do you hear yourself? ask the First Nations people about ethnic balance...
@@carlosa9298 First Nations did not build Canada or Vancouver. Europeans did.
What ethnic balance half the whites dont care about low class guttersnipe
Sorry man boy
No class of shaughnessy wish for you to date daughters
Always low class whites
Who assume other whites wish to co exist with them
Do the law and go back to where u from
Back when it was a white ethno city!
Vancouver was 10% Chinese back then
Mom was busy hustling fisherman
Ghastly smell not alley
U pooping out of her prolapse
I'll bet not one temporary foreign worker worked on that bridge in those White Anglo Saxon days.
+Jim Ervin Yup! Notice the bridge is still standing! Quality!
+Jim Ervin We don't know for sure !
Well Italians and other Europeans built this country.
A lot of people helped in the building but only the nations symbolized on the Red Ensign flag founded Canada.
Ah ok next thing you are going to tell me is that the British empire was the best one. The empire that went to 3rd world shit holes and invaded them.... yeah.
My dad was chief engineer on this project (at an extraordinarily young age), so my family is well familiar with it. But it never occurred to me until now that the reason my dad was so pissed off about the city making downtown Granville Street a pedestrian mall is that it negated the whole point of his beautiful brutalist bridge.
+Andy Jukes I would love to hear some more about your dad's experience on the bridge
+Andy Jukes The City of Vancouver is prone to making rational decisions for over half a century.
Lar M I don't know what that means.
That doesn't look like an easy project at all. Quite the legacy though as we still use it today. Imagine how many people have crossed that bridge!
It sounds like your father was an architect and proponent of car culture which I think is one of the worst aspects of life in Canada. I would love to see this bridge replaced with one that centres, pedestrians, cyclists and passenger rail.