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I LANSTON TYPE COMPANY I GERALD GIAMPA I
¶ SHOE SOLES WORN by the worlds finest poets and typographers treaded down these stairs to 'Cobblestone Press'. A tradition carried on since Wil Hudson's 'Grouse Mountain Press'.
My own shoe soles however, at least at one point, I called my talking shoes. When I walked I had to flip my foot and stamp quickly to keep the soles beneath me. A certain amount of humbleness is good for one. Besides, as you can see from the photograph, things were always looking up.
Although far from ideal for moving equipment up and down, this location harboured printing establishments for nearly one hundred years. Grant Mann was one of them, Wriggles another.
It was positioned at the intersection of Gastown, the financial district, book row and Vancouver's famous Chinatown. At the top of the stairs is the Dominion Tower, (Tiro Typeworks has an office in the Dominion Tower) once the tallest building in the British Empire. Across the intersection is the old Vancouver Province Building.
The locals counted the bells from the Lutheran Church for the time of day.
I spent a great deal of my life working in this location, mentoring under Wil and then as proprietor of my own printing and publishing company. I have no bad memories of this location, even the fire.
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¶ COBBLESTONE PRESS IN CAMBIE STREET. The shops were in two levels, one slightly above the street, the other down below the street.
Cobblestone Press became the Canadian Institution of fine printing. Many smaller shops sprung forth from its influence. There are few, if any, letterpress or fine book printers in Vancouver that were not influenced in one way or the other. Even in a hand-me-down fashion.
The photograph is take from outside the Cobblestone Press entrance.