Talk:Woodward's

Simpson's

I added a paragraph describing the closure of Woodward's as "the first" major upheaval in the department store industry in Canada. I'm aware that the takeover of Simpson's by HBC and the rebranding in 1991 predated the closure of Woodwards, however that chain was only located in the immediate Toronto-Ottawa area while Woodward's was in more than one province. Also, the HBC takeover and eventual rebranding took place over 11-12 year period whereas the examples I gave were for the most part somewhat sudden (at least as far as the public was concerned). 23skidoo 03:36, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Simspon's had stores from Saskatchewan through to Quebec. Ground Zero | t 12:12, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
• I did a lot of shopping at Simpson's on rue Sainte-Catherine in Montreal. Peter Horn 23:44, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Blatant Plagiarism

...except for that one paragraph, this is just cut and pasted from HBC's website. Sure, the source is cited, but there's a difference between citing a source for something original, and just taking the whole thing. Anyway, I believe this violates some kind of policy somewhere. Aside from the policy implications, it's not neutral in an encyclopedic sense of the term, all "oh, aren't department stores just great" kind of thing. And it doesn't at all capture the significance of Woodward's to Vancouver civic politics/development, etc. Needs work, is what I'm saying. I know I've seen a book length biography on Woodward's somewhere, possibly just store propaganda, but it's out there as another possible source. Oh yeah, I just noticed this at the bottom of the screen I'm looking at: Do not copy text from other websites without permission. It will be deleted. I won't tell anyone, but if someone get's a chance to work on this a bit... it also seems awfully detailed for an encyclopedia article. Bobanny 02:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Sadly, the original was copied entirely from the HBC Website and though a number of edits have tweaked it slightly, it's still a cut & paste job. If you look back in the history, it was erased and slapped with a Template:copyvio a couple times already. It would be great if someone could rewrite the information from the page, but we can't just leave it up as is. See Wikipedia:Copyright_problems for more details. -- TheMightyQuill 21:31, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Prince George

I distinctly remember shopping in a downtown Woodward's when I was working for the BC Department of Highways (as it was then called) in Prince George back in the fall of 1967. Peter Horn 23:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Final Year

I remember that there was a President who wanted to split the company up a year or two before its demise. There was a protracted fight with the board and the family, which he lost. He predicted that the company would not survive, lost his job, and was proved right in the end. Anyone remember his name or the fight? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 0xG (talk • contribs) 15:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Woodwardslogo.jpg

Image:Woodwardslogo.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 21:58, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Charles and Chunky biographies

There are no biographies on the Messrs. Woodward; the Charles Woodward link is a redirect to Charles Edgar Woodward, a US federal court judge.Skookum1 (talk) 14:18, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The decay of the Downtown Eastside

I'm interested in the line that says:

When Woodward's sold the Food Floor - long known for its quality and its line of unusual specialities - to Safeway, the flagship food floor became a reduced-size IGA store until the building closed as Safeway showed no interest in that location, which contributed to the decay of the city's Downtown Eastside.

It is not clear to me how the change from a Woodward's Food Floor to a smaller IGA could be a factor in the decay of the Downtown Eastside. The above statement, and almost all of the History section, is presented without any sources at all. If you're going to implicate a specific corporation in the socioeconomic decline of an entire neighbourhood, fine; but it needs to have external sources cited so we know it's not just your opinion. I'm removing the last part of the above sentence. If someone finds a proper source then it can go back without any complaints from me.

PNB (talk) 19:49, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, actually, the closure of the Woodward's Food Floor has been often mentioned in histories and articles about how the Downtown Eastside came to be what it is today - that's why I put that in there, it's fairly well-known to Vancouverites of a certain age and, again, will be found in various sources; I'll see what I can find. To sum up, the closure of the Food Floor ended one of the Woodward's store's main attractions that kept people going to that area, even after Eaton's moved from what is now the Harbour Centre/SFU to Pacific Centre; with Woodward's still a "draw", other shops along Hastings, even in the 00-block west (Woodward's is 101 W) kept drawing "normal clientele"; with first the closure of the Food Floor and the subsequent closure of the store as a whole, the economic vitality of other commerce in the area declined....I saw it all happen, and heard it all discussed as it was going down; even DERA should have some documents on this, also historyvancouver.ca but I'll write that site's author/editor (Chuck Davis) and see if he can provide some specific sites/cites.Skookum1 (talk) 04:46, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

The standard history is that the neighbourhood declined through protracted disinvestment that began in the '50s with the dismantling of the streetcar system/interurban, and continued with suburbanization, city planning strategies to make Granville the retail centre of downtown, Pacific Press moving accross the Granville bridge (killing the newspaper business traditionally clustered around Victory Square), and so on. I can't speak specifically to the closing of the food floor, but it sounds like both a contributing factor and a symptom of the larger process. Woodward's was pretty massive, making it the retail anchor and a big draw, so when it went down, it took a lot of others with it. But the company had been struggling for years, and all locations closed, not just hastings. A good reliable source available online is this. Another source is an essay entitled "the Worst Block in Vancouver" that's partially available on google books here. Personally, I wonder if Army & Navy can withstand the competition from the new stores at Woodward's (including the new "Woodward's Food Floor").

bobanny (talk) 07:19, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

This is a pretty interesting subject. All of this happened when I was quite young, or before I was born, so I didn't see any of this first-hand; just the end result. It's nice to see the neighbourhood being revitalized; hopefully it will have a positive effect on stores like Army & Navy, but I guess we'll see. PNB (talk) 08:03, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd forgotten about the loss of other major employers in the area like the Province and Sun...another similar impact was the relocation of BC Electric, reconstituted as BC Hydro, in 1957, from their former location at Hastings & Carrall, which was also the major transit hub in the region, including the terminus of the Interurban from New West and the Valley.....a much earlier shift of similar proportions took place with the demolition of the old courthouse (which was where Victory Square is now), which resulted in the moving if the city's financial and legal-services core from that area to the CBD, and was part of general pressure from CP to relocate the city's major to their Granville Townsite (uptown). For PNB, it helps to understand that until teh opening of Pacific Centre the city's main retail district was along West Hastings from what had been Eaton's down to Army & Navy; the area included major cinemas (the Beacon, Lux and Pantages), and the first cinemas were on Cordova Street (which until WWI was the major shopping street, from Cambie to Carrall - Woodward's helped kill that ....).Skookum1 (talk) 19:28, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Locations

Coquitlam - Removed note about food flooring being taken over by Zellers as Zellers has now moved to a new section of the mall and may cause confusion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.46.150 (talk) 02:17, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

External links modified

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