Before it hosted emerging bands, music competitions and sing-alongs, the Railway Club served as the home-away-from-home to railway workers.
The workers weren't allowed in the railway engineers' club, so their first order of business was to prohibit engineers from accessing their members-only club.
The second-floor watering hole on Dunsmuir Street near Seymour began after prohibition was lifted as the Railwaymen's Club on the upper floor of the 1926 Laursen Building on New Year's Eve 1931.
Fifty years later, it morphed into the live music venue that's hosted acts including k.d. lang, Los Lobos and the Tragically Hip and given fledgling bands a place to perform.
With such a storied history, the Railway Club received a Places That Matter plaque from the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Heritage Foundation Dec. 8, upon the recommendation of local artist, author and historian Michael Kluckner.
"[The Railway Club] took something that was part of an earlier era of the city, the workers' club, and saw it evolve into something that became very much part of the new city," he said.
The club also intrigues Kluckner because it was owned by 1970s NDP MLA and longtime NDP adviser Bob Williams and his family for decades.
Club general manager Steve Silman, who has co-owned the Railway Club with his wife Amelia since 2008, says Williams' stepdaughter Janet Forsyth made the Railway Club rock in the late 1980s and early 1990s when she started booking live acts.
"They'd come in for three, four, five nights and oftentimes what would happen is these acts would come in that maybe weren't very well known at all, but word would spread pretty quickly," Silman said. "Apparently, when the Barenaked Ladies came out and played, the first couple of nights were pretty quiet and by the end of the week there were lineups."
Silman says people who hadn't climbed the stairs to the Railway Club in 25 years attended the Dec. 8 event that was billed as the venue's 80th anniversary celebration and featured the Stingin' Hornets, the Modelos and the Graham Brown Band.
More than one woman told him they met their boyfriend or husband there.
A promoter formerly of Toronto recalled sending the Barenaked Ladies and Tragically Hip Forsyth's way.
"Pre-Internet it was a lot of if you know somebody," Silman said. "If he knew bands that were coming to Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»he'd say talk to Janet at the Railway Club."
It's easy to overlook the memorabilia on the Railway's walls, particularly when you're squeezing down the narrow passage from the front of the bar to the back, but Silman noted the signed photos of lang, Colin James and a Rolling Stone article that mentioned Stan Heisie, the doorman of 25 years.
"What they're doing with the Places That Matter thing is really great because it's not just the buildings that make up the city, that provide the fabric. It's lots of businesses and places that have been around that are important to people," Silman said. "So many people have gone through, it's nice to see something that's been around that's meant a lot to people, that's a little bit out of the ordinary, to be recognized."
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