While visiting Vancouver BC last summer, my wife and I were able to get away (kids staying at the hotel with grandparents) and tour the beautiful city alone. One of the spots we had to visit was Chinatown, which happens to be the 2nd largest in all of North America. While walking through Chinatown on this misty day in July, we came upon one of my new favorite buildings, the Jack Chow Insurance office. I had to take some pictures of what is known as the “narrowest office building in the world”. This office building, built in the early part of the 20th century, is less than 6′ wide (1.8 meters or 70.86 inches). Check out the pictures I took below:
After coming home (obviously nearly 7 months later), I decided to do some research on this building. I also placed a call in to Jack Chow Insurance and spoke to a kind lady there that gave me some excellent information. The history of it dates back to the land being purchased in 1903 by the Sam Kee Company. Several years later, in 1912, as the lot purchased sat undeveloped, the City widened Pender Street in and expropriated 24 feet of the lot. In 1913, two architects designed this narrow, steel-framed building that is only 4′11″ at its ground floor base, and 6 feet at the second story bay windows. The basement extends under the sidewalk and originally housed public baths, while the ground floor was used for offices and shops and the top story for living quarters. It wasn’t until 1986 that Jack Chow paid to have the building rennovated for use as his second office for his insurance business.
This particular building is not far from one of the entrances to Chinatown as you’ll see here:
I certainly hope you enjoy reading and viewing what has to be one of the coolest office buildings in the world!
Digg this story ?
that’s narrow
Dam, thats pretty cool.
Wicked!
El edificio de oficinas más estrecho del mundo…
Metidos de lleno en la polémica de los pisos de 30 metros, desde Vancouver nos llegan ideas para otros ámbitos. La oficina de seguros Jack Chow es el edificio de oficinas más pequeño del mundo. Esta construcción, que data de 1913, tiene tan solo 1…
המשרד הצר בעולם…
משרד ברוחב 1.8 מטר…
Tomorrow on Maury:
The world’s lowest sidewalk.
At 11.7cm, this sidewalk on the corner of Elm and Maple is the world’s lowest official sidewalk.
Come and jump over it as many times as you want!!
Rob
Narrowest *OFFICE* building hm? Interesting way of masking that it is in fact NOT the narrowest building at all?
Exactly. Thus it holds the record for narrowest office building, not just building.
You should have taken some pictures of the glass sidewalk, which lets light into the walkways that are below it!
Wow, I was thinking this was probably miles away in another city, but low and behold it’s a walking distance from my office.
While you’re there you should also visit the newly restored alley way and the Dr. Sun Yet-Sen gardens. Keefer street has some great bakeries too.
My wife and grandmother did visit the gardens and they really enjoyed the visit. Neat stuff!
you know i love that. i really love “the coove” it is a city where most people still love downtown and that is quite wonderful.
i live in vancouver. dont really like chinatown. it’s more like bum town since they were pretty much all forced in one area by the govt. over the years, there’s been a growing number of caucasian crack dealers around main and hastings st. the entrance shown in the picture is probably one of the cleaner areas (less bums more chinese) as it’s closer to the newly developed/ing Tinsletown.
[…] World’s Narrowest Office Building World’s Narrowest Office Building This office building, built in the early part of the 20th century, is less than 6 ′ wide (1.8 meters or 70.86 inches). Check out the pictures…[news][entertainment] […]
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[…] Stumbled on this cool building today while surfing. This building is not as wide as many cubes in a cube farm at just 6 feet wide! Located in Chinatown in Vancouver, BC, more details on this cool two dimensional building can be found at in the post here. Bookmark to: […]
Damn that’s pretty narrow lol
that way too narrow …
enjoyed ur pics … thanks …
Ahaha, thats going to be my office in the near future. Nice post
That’s crazy…
It looks like there’s an upstairs though.