Last links to Calgary's second Chinatown to be demolished
CBC
The last remaining buildings from Calgary's second Chinatown will soon be demolished.
The two buildings are on 10th Avenue S.W., an area that was home to the city's Chinatown back in the early 1900s.
Both buildings also have other historical Calgary links.
The brick and sandstone Western Block was built in 1905 and owned by Thomas Underwood. He served as Calgary's mayor from 1902 to 1904.
The two-storey building features a ground floor of shops and businesses with a second floor used for apartments.
The neighbouring Calgary Gas Company workshop was built in 1907. After serving as an office, the wooden structure has been home to The Backlot since the mid-1990s, a bar that is an important social venue for Calgary's queer community.
Following an approval by the Calgary Planning Commission, both buildings are slated for demolition to make way for a new 18-storey residential tower that's planned by Truman Homes.
The end of the buildings will sever the last physical reminders of Calgary's second Chinatown.
The city's first Chinatown was located in the vicinity of what is now city hall and Olympic Plaza.
But anti-Chinese sentiments and development pressures prompted the formation of a second Chinatown on the other side of the then-CPR tracks, along 10th Avenue S.W., starting in 1901.
With the arrival of the Canadian Northern Railway, increasing property values in the Beltline resulted in Chinese businesses and residences moving after 1910 to Calgary's third (and current) Chinatown, near the southern end of the Centre Street bridge.
The head of Heritage Calgary, Josh Traptow, said the end of the two buildings is significant because they're jointly connected to slices of Calgary's political, ethnic and social history.
"Buildings are not just significant because they're old. They're significant because of the intangible people and stories that are connected to them," said Traptow.
"In the case of The Backlot, being one of Calgary's oldest queer establishments that is still in its original location."
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