Pete McMartin
Sun
The “W” stands for “wreck.”
Generations of pigeons and seagulls have plastered it with guano.
Rain and salt air have corroded it.
Its mechanics are suspect, its lights extinguished.
There is asbestos in the roof on which it stands and its supporting tower is coated with lead paint.
It needs seismic upgrading.
The Woodward’s sign — the city’s most revered icon, and the centrepiece of the recent advertising campaign to sell condos in the new complex to be built — is in such bad shape it may have to be scrapped.
A replica may have to be built in its place.
“It’s a mess,” said David Leung, the project manager for Westbank Projects, the company that owns the property and will be building the new Woodward’s complex.
“And I don’t think anyone realized the extent of the work it’s going to need … and whether even if we can do it. It’s part of the heritage proposal [for the refurbishing of the existing Woodward’s structure], but I don’t think anyone considered the amount of deterioration over the years. But it’s coming to the point where we may not be able to restore it fully to the extent we originally considered. And even if we do, it wouldn’t be restored to its original quality.
“So the question is, why not fabricate a replica?”
That is a question that Westbank, heritage experts, and engineers hope to answer in the next few weeks.
Since Woodward’s closed in 1993, the big, red “W” and the 24-metre tower it sits on has been left to the elements. The sign that has symbolized what Vancouver used to be, and now symbolizes what it hopes to become, has been neglected for so long that it may be beyond restoring.
On Monday, the sign will be inspected for the first time in a decade. A group from the Pattison Sign Co. — which originally built the “W” back in 1950s — will go over it to try and update its condition. Bill Grimshaw, a sales representative with Pattison Sign, said the inspection team will wear haz-mat suits for the inspection because of the guano, which is said to be so thick it gives off potentially dangerous ammonia vapours.
“We were up there about 10 years ago,” Grimshaw said, “when a previous person was looking at redevelopment.”
It was in bad shape then, Grimshaw said.
The team in 1997 found significant damage and corrosion to bolts, lighting, wiring, the sign’s sheet metal cladding and the motor that powers its turning mechanism. Photos of that inspection, which Grimshaw sent to The Vancouver Sun, show the tower’s support beams spotted with rust.
“If it’s in worse condition now than it was 10 years,” he said, “we don’t feel it’s worth restoring.”
He said that after the 1997 inspection, Pattison Sign estimated a new “W” could be built for $50,000.
“Just to build it, not to install it,” Grimshaw said. “But that was before the astronomical rise in construction costs and the cost of sheet metal. Now — and it’s just a guess — I think it would be in the range of $100,000. And to install it, I’d estimate about $20,000.”
Making a replica, Grimshaw said, would be no problem. The company still has the original design drawings, he said, complete with the number and type of lights originally used to illuminate it. (The outside edges of the “W” were lit with 140 metres of red neon tubing while its body was lit with 572 50-watt bulbs that twinkled. The sign, which is 7.9 metres across and five metres high, weighs 2.7 tonnes.)
“And we also actually have a guy,” Grimshaw said, “who’s semi-retired now, who knows the revolutions per minute the sign is supposed to make.”
Grimshaw said if the decision is made to build a replica, the company would recommend that it be built out of aluminum to make it lighter and less susceptible to corrosion. The lighter weight would also be easier to mount on the supporting tower.
The tower, too, presents problems for restorers. Erected in the 1920s, the Eiffel Tower-like scaffolding was originally topped off with a single, large beacon that shone straight up into the sky. The “W” was added in 1958. Besides the corrosion it has suffered, the tower also needs reinforcing to bring it up to modern seismic codes.
Any question of restoration versus replacement, however, will be put off until a closer inspection. The preference, said Howard Kalman, the heritage consultant for the Woodward’s project, is that the sign, or as much of the sign as possible, be saved.
“Our position is, we don’t know. Our approach is, if it’s at all conceivable to conserve it, we’re going to conserve it.
“Our intention is in the next two months to remove the sign and tower and bring them both down to street level, clean them of the guano and corrosion, then we’ll take a very careful look at the tower and sign and make a decision then to repair them or replace them.
“If we can’t meet the criteria [for restoration], we will reluctantly replace them. The final decision will be with Westbank, they’re the owners, but there will be a discussion between the interested parties.”
If it is any testimony to the hold the sign has on the city’s psyche, none of those parties could conceive of a W-less skyline. Kalman said it was too important a city landmark not to be there. Grimshaw had a more personal attachment: An East Ender, he used to work at Woodward’s stocking shelves. The job helped pay his way through BCIT.
The “W” — as it does for so many Vancouverites — held a part of his past.
“I like the idea of the fact,” he said, “that they’re trying to retain it.”
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
