Dragon Alley

Dragon Alley connects Fisgard and Herald streets. Originally, there were two passageways through buildings that Michael Hart constructed on each street in 1890. The Hart’s Fisgard Building replaced a wooden hut once owned by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The Hart’s Herald Building was constructed as a stable and carriage repair shop. In 1910, Quan Yuen Yen and Joe Gar Chow purchased both buildings, and in 1912 they built a three-section, two-storey lodging house between the two Hart buildings intersected by a north-south passageway that connected to the two walkways through the Hart buildings. This route through the three buildings is now known as Dragon Alley. In 2000-2001, Moore Paterson Architects of Victoria won architectural and heritage awards for their conversion of the derelict central Quan Yuen Yen building into updated live-work townhouses.

Looking into Dragon Alley from Herald Street, through the Hart’s Herald Building (Photo by Charles Yang, 2012).

Sources

City of Victoria, Community Planning Division, Heritage — Case Studies: “Dragon Alley — 532 ½ Fisgard St.” http://www.victoria.ca/assets/Departments/Planning~Development/Community... (accessed 7 October 2012).

Lai, David Chuenyan. The Forbidden City within Victoria: Myth, Symbol and Streetscape of Victoria’s Earliest Chinatown. Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 1991.

Moore Architecture, “Awards,”
http://moorearchitecture.ca/awards/ (accessed 7 October 2012).