Sylvia Hotel
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The Sylvia Hotel is an historic Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada landmark located on English Bay and beside Stanley Park. Constructed in 1912, the Sylvia was designed as an apartment building by Mr. W.P. White, a Seattle architect. It was built by Booker, Campbell and Whipple Construction Company for Mr. Goldstein, who had a daughter named Sylvia. During the Depression the Sylvia Court Apartments fell on hard times, and in 1936 the building was converted into an apartment hotel. With the advent of World War II, many of the suites were converted to rooms, in order to provide accommodation for the merchant marine crews.
After the war the number of permanent residents in the hotel gradually decreased, until by the sixties the Sylvia had become a completely transient full-service hotel. In 1954 it opened the first cocktail bar in Vancouver. Until 1958 the Sylvia Hotel was the tallest building in the West End – a well known landmark, its brick and terracotta extension softened by the Virginia creeper that now completely covers the Gilford Street side of the hotel.
In 1975 the Sylvia was designated by the City of Vancouver as a "heritage building", thereby ensuring its survival for many years to come.
The famous Sylvia Hotel cat, "Mr. Got To Go" has inspired two popular children’s books by Lois Simmie and illustrated by Cynthia Nugent. They are engaging tales of the stray cat who arrived at the Sylvia Hotel one day, took control of the premises and decided to check in permanently.
[edit] Sylvia, the person
Sylvia Ablowitz spent her childhood in the West End. A strong swimmer, she sometimes practised her strokes in English Bay and once won a race between the bay and Kitsilano Beach. (Later, she would attract the attention of her future husband, Harry Ablowitz, by diving into False Creek from a boat carrying Jewish singles on a cruise.) After Sylvia completed a degree at the University of British Columbia her family moved to Los Angeles, where she worked for a labour union. She returned to Vancouver in 1928, and met Harry, marrying him within a year and settling in North Vancouver. Together, they founded a realty company.
Sylvia and her husband were very committed to Jewish seniors. Sylvia worked with Jewish community groups, and she and Harry helped set up a rest home and hospital, now in operation for nearly 60 years. In her 90s, Sylvia was still volunteering for a telephone home-check program to help out other senior Jews. She died on April 12, 2002 at the University of British Columbia Hospital.
[edit] References
- Trek Magazine, University of British Columbia Alumni Association, Fall 2002, Retrieved January 1, 2006
- The Sylvia Hotel on English Bay Vancouver Retrieved January 1, 2006
