Old-timer Lyle Foster watched in wonder Monday as the venerable Vancouver Firehall No. 15 was delicately moved to a new home next door.
“I’d never figured I’d see this,” said Foster, who will be 70 this year. “When we moved here in 1941, hardly any houses had been put up.”
He was among a handful of the curious who gathered to watch the 98-year-old, two-storey wooden hall be raised by six vertical jacks and pushed sideways on to steel beams.
The 122-tonne building, complete with its 19-metre high hose tower, was lifted about a metre in height.
It has been a fixture in the community at Nootka and East 22nd Ave. since 1913.
Those were the days when the equipment was horse-drawn, a Dalmatian or “firehouse dog” called the place home and dairy farms still dotted the area.
On Monday, workmen toiled to move the building – one of the two oldest fire halls in Vancouver – on to its new concrete foundation.
Building a modern hall on the site and restoring the original will bring the project cost to $9.8 million.
Foster remembers being a kid at a paper shack out front, delivering The Province and watching the big-hooded engines roaring out to protect life and property.
Over its life span, firefighters have rescued victims, fought raging conflagrations and encountered tragic loss of life.
Foster’s own family has been the recipient of the firefighters’emergency care. “They helped mom, dad and me,” he said.
The heritage plan is to preserve the original tin ceiling and brass firefighter’s pole.
The new facility is expected to open sometime this fall.
The building will serve as a training and rest area.
Memorabilia depicting early life at the hall will be on display.
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