About Me

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Delta, British Columbia, Canada
I took very early retirement from teaching in '06 and did some traveling in Europe and the UK before settling down to do some private tutoring. As a voracious reader, I have many books waiting in line for me to read. Tell me I shouldn't read something, and I will. I'm a happy, optimistic person and I love to travel and through that believe that life can be a continuous learning experience. I'm looking forward to traveling more some day. I enjoy walking, cycling, water aerobics & and sports like tennis, volleyball, and fastpitch/baseball. I'm just getting into photography as a hobby and I'm enjoying learning all the bits and bobs of my digital camera. My family is everything to me and I'm delighted to be the mother of two girls and the Gramma of a boy and a girl. I may be a Gramma, but I'm at heart just a girl who wants to have fun.

Monday, August 11, 2014

EERIE HOTEL EUROPE

Welcome to E week at ABC Wednesday!  Are we having fun yet?  I am!  Continuing my series about the elegant city of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, I give you the Hotel Europe.

Hotel Europe is a six-storey flatiron building that stands at the corner of Water, Alexander and Powell Streets in Gastown (near Chill Winston). The 100+ year old building was completed in 1909 and is home to one, possibly two, ghosts.

on the left is the building just finished in 1909 and on the right how it is today
The ground floor used to be a restaurant and is now Kimprints. Beneath the restaurant was an underground saloon accessible by stairs from a sidewalk entrance. The underground area, including the saloon, extended beneath the sidewalk on both sides of the Hotel Europe; this extension is commonly known as “areaways,” a typical feature of  buildings in Gastown. Areaways were used to load/unload freight through trap doors in the sidewalk. The Hotel Europe’s areaways were filled in, bricked-up and the underground saloon is now a storage cellar.

As for the supernatural experiences at The Hotel Europe, the first reported encounter with the paranormal was in the 80s by a contractor who was doing some repair work in the cellar, near the old areaway entrance. While working on the repairs, he left briefly and when he returned, his tools were scattered on the floor. Perhaps they fell on their own or perhaps it was one of the spirits that haunts this fantastic building. If that wasn’t eerie enough, he also heard scratching noises coming from behind the brick wall. The contractor refused to come to back to finish up the job. To this day, scratching noises have been reported by numerous people coming from the other side of the bricked-up areaway. It could be rodents, however; the areaways had been filled in a long time ago.

The second ghost is that of a man who occasionally appears in Kimprints. One evening, after closing time, a store clerk saw the ghost clearly reflected in the security mirror. When she went to check it out, nobody was there. The same employee also reported seeing the spirit of the man again on another occasion.  (from here)

The Hotel Europe was built in 1908-l909...and was among the first reinforced concrete buildings in the city and currently provides affordable housing.  One of the building's biggest cinematic claims to fame is its role as the Seattle Historical Society in the 1980 thriller "The Changeling, starring George C. Scott...  The hotel's Gastown neighbourhood ... is among Vancouver's busiest film locations.  Films shot [here] include Big Eyes, Fringe, Catwoman, the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Legends of the Fall, I Robot and 21 Jump Street - the 1980's TV series that launched Johnny Depp's career.  (from The Province Newspaper, Sunday, July 13, 2014)
photo credit - Tom Richards
The hotel certainly does look rather eerie in this photo!  Even so, I wish I could go inside to have a look around.  Instead, I will give thanks to the effervescent Denise Nesbitt, the creator of ABCW, and to the efficient Roger, our administrator.  Also, exuberant thanks go out to Diane W. who has jumped on the bandwagon as part of the team that helps out by visiting the participants.  Don't be left out of the fun of meeting new friends here...it does happen!  So contact Roger and sign up, so the workload is lighter for everyone!

29 comments:

Roger Owen Green said...

remarkably unchanged!

Anita Sabat said...

Truly eerie, Leslie!
Maybe I can venture out there during the day! Night-time I need company! :)

mrsnesbitt said...

Will take note! Never will I set foot there!
Denise xx

Berowne said...

Both informative and quite entertaining...

Reader Wil said...

I'd love to spend a night in that hotel and meet all the ghosts there are! It is an interesting building with an unusual shape!Flatiron is a new word for me!
Have a great week!
Wil, ABCW Team

Indrani said...

This does looks scary!
I have stayed in a haunted hotel in Rajasthan few years back. The best part is when I was staying there I didn't know it was haunted only later while reading some material I stumbled on this fact that it is haunted by an Englishman's ghost!

Nonnie said...

wow, what a beautiful building!

Hildred said...

I love flatiron buildings - as for ghosts, I am rather ambivalent.

orange said...

What an astonishing and beautiful building! It must be fab looking out of those front windows.

Photo Cache said...

an eye-catching building.

frankly my dear

Arnoldo L. Romero, MLA said...

It has such a grand hotel look to it, so I'm sorry it wasn't restored as such. I love staying in places like this, because they have so much more character, and their histories are usually fascinating to me. Blessings!

ellen b. said...

They really did use space up. I wonder if the rooms are a strange shape and small?
Intriguing building. Reminds me of that street in New York???

Susan Moore said...

I wouldn't have guessed it for a hotel due to the shape of the building. Interesting info about the areaways in Gastown - I didn't know about that.
Cheers,
Susan

Ni de Aqui, Ni de Alla said...

Eerie you said? It looks very Elegant to me :) Nice post and great pictures!

Ann, Chen Jie Xue 陈洁雪 said...

There are eerie stories in Malaysian hotels too.

lotusleaf said...

I always thought that ghosts cannot be seen in mirrors. This one must be an exception!

SamuraiFrog said...

Flatiron buildings are sort of off-putting to me, but in a fascinating way. I feel like I remember this building appearing in the classic Canadian horror film The Changeling.

Liz Hinds said...

Such an elegant city. So lovely to see your photos.

Lmkazmierczak said...

Interesting blog...the building is quite handsome♪ I've seen a similar structure somewhere, but my quick internet search turned up nothing...

Shady Gardener said...

Entertaining post! :-)

MySpecialist said...

Loooove these stories, thanks for sharing!

ChrisJ said...

Not a place in which you would find me, though I think it is architecturally attractive and interesting looking.

Gattina said...

Looks great, especially because the outside hasn't changed !

Ann said...

I love the flatiron style of buildings--use to have one here in Kansas City. It looks like a beautiful structure, I would love to visit too.
Ann

Anne in Oxfordshire said...

Hi Leslie This reminds me of the shaped places in Paris. I think I would pass on staying , but it does look a wonderful place to stay .

YOu are doing a great job with your series on Vancouver , thanks for sharing, xo Anne

Strawberry Jam Anne said...

I remember seeing this building when we were visiting Vancouver a few years ago. Love the last photo - it is eerie!

Powell River Books said...

Very unique architecture to match an unusual shaped lot. - Margy

Saz said...

i just love these 'flat iron' buildings...not many of them left!!

saz x

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