A tradition restored

Milton Wong's ambitious project has returned his brothers' tailoring institution to its original premises

John Mackie
Vancouver Sun
Saturday, April 14, 2007

Milton Wong has managed billions of dollars in investment funds. His tireless philanthropy helped him earn the Order of Canada.

But he has never forgotten his roots in Vancouver's Chinatown, where his father started Modernize Tailors in 1913 in the Chinese Freemasons building at Pender and Carrall.

Modernize Tailors is still in business, operated by Milton's older brothers, 85-year-old Bill and 83-year-old Jack. And three decades after being forced to move, they're back in the original location, because Milton, 68, has bought the building.

Milton did more than just buy it. He's completely restored it, and converted the upper floors into seniors housing so that his family members could retire back in the neighbourhood where they grew up.

But there's a hitch. After a three-year restoration, and a couple of million dollars in renovations, Bill and Jack have decided they're still too young to retire.

"No one's moving in," Milton says with a laugh. "That's a downer."

The Chinatown social services agency SUCCESS is now going to find occupants for the 11 suites, which are quite spacious and deluxe for seniors housing.

Meanwhile, Bill and Jack are busy setting up shop at 5 West Pender, where they were given a month's eviction notice in 1976 after someone bought the building and renovated.

Customers who go to the old shop at 511 Carrall are directed to the new location by an ancient piece of Modernize Tailors stationery that's dated in the 1940s, and has a six-digit number ("MArine 0630").

"We're still using our old stuff," Bill says with a shrug. "It says the corner of Pender and Carrall, so it's still usable."

Back in the '40s, Modernize had 20 employees and was a seven-day-a-week operation. There were a couple of dozen tailor shops located all over Chinatown, which was a bustling place full of restaurants and nightclubs.

The throngs of people that used to fill Chinatown's sidewalks and businesses are long gone. Modernize is the last tailor shop in Chinatown, and one of the few old Chinatown businesses that have survived the neighbourhood's long decline.

Jack has no illusions about the future of tailor shops like Modernize.

"This is a dead business," he says.

"A lot of clothes are made in China now, where the labour cost is only 10 per cent of the cost here. People buy into readymades and wash-and-wear."

How have Bill and Jack survived? They keep costs low by doing the sales and tailoring themselves, along with two employees (one is their 72-year-old cousin Park).

Milton is also an unpaid salesman, buying his suits there and recommending the shop to his friends.

"You need mouth-to-mouth advertising, and Milton has done his job," says Jack. "Either that or he gives suits to his closest friends and forces them to come down."

For his part, Milton is optimistic about the future of Chinatown. He points out that condo king Bob Rennie is restoring the historic Wing Sang building and selling condos up the street. Several new businesses are thriving on Pender Street, and the success of the Woodward's building project finally seems to have sparked a rejuvenation of Vancouver's historic core.

"It's the Downtown Eastside's turn now," says Milton.

"Obviously I've got a lot of fond memories down there, that may be one of the driving forces [for buying in Chinatown]. I think to be part of the heritage is important. My father's tailor shop was there in 1913, isn't that significant?"

It is. Wong Goon arrived from China in 1908, during the era when Chinese immigrants had to pay a $500 head tax. Luckily, he was able to get his wife into the country before Chinese immigration was officially blocked by the Chinese Exclusion Act from 1923 to 1947.

Bill and Jack were the eldest of nine Wong children. They both obtained engineering degrees from the University of B.C., but the institutional racism of the 1940s prevented them from ever practicing. So they went to back to work at their dad's tailor shop, and never left.

You might expect the brothers to bear some bitterness, but no.

"Oh, I think when you look back, I'm better off this way, because we had a going concern," says Bill.

"The [zoot suit] style that we had at that time, the drape style, was very popular with the teenagers. That's why we had a thriving business. We were very successful.

"If I had gone into engineering I'd have been sent out to the sticks, and you're just on for that particular job. Once that project is over, you've got to start looking for something else. This way, I think my family life is much better. (He has four children, Jack has five.)

"I'm certainly better off than my classmates. They're retired now, and half my classmates are gone already. My hands and eyes and legs are still in good shape. I can still see the width of the thread."

Modernize Tailors once made the best zoot suits in town, and will still fix you up in one for about $650, provided you use the material they have on hand.

"We do it for the theatres [plays]. It doesn't cost too much, because you can skimp. It's a costume, so you don't have to do it real good," Jack relates with a chuckle.

The brothers share a droll sense of humour, and are in remarkable shape for men in their 80s -- Jack still walks to work from his home by Queen Elizabeth Park ("it's downhill").

The Wongs moved up by Queen E Park in the mid-1950s, when they were forced out of their home at 646 East Pender in Strathcona. At the time, the old Victorian homes in Strathcona were considered slums, and several blocks of them were razed, including the old Wong house.

"The old guard in city hall deemed it to be a slum," says Milton.

"Bill and an architect wanted to renovate our house to accommodate the increased size of our family, a family of nine, eh? We went there three times and were rejected. They wouldn't give [us] a permit to improve, because it was a slum. So it turned into a slum, you know? So in 1956 we had to move out.

"It was an interesting social policy at that time, imposing middle-class values of cut lawns and things like that, what was standard for the day. That doesn't exist anymore. You look at that district, the houses down there now are $800,000 apiece."

Milton still lives in the house the family moved to in the mid-'50s. Bill and Jack live a couple of blocks away. But the Wongs' connection to Chinatown remained strong, so Milton bought the Chinese Freemasons building and enlisted architect Joe Wai to restore it.

Wai is a Chinatown legend himself. He's been involved in countless Chinatown projects, from the Sun Yat Sen Garden to the Chinatown arch. He designed so many homes in Strathcona in the '70s, they're actually known as "Joe Wai's."

Wai loves the Chinese Freemasons building, which was built in 1907 and is one of the most historic buildings in Chinatown -- Dr. Sun Yat Sen is believed to have stayed there in 1911, the same year he led a successful revolution that overthrew the last emperor of China.

Wai's restoration looks superb, with its recessed balconies and beautiful brick facade. The restoration also unearthed a bit of history, a painted sign for the Pekin Chop Suey restaurant, which occupied part of the building in the 1920s and '30s.

The Wongs remember it as one of the first restaurants to offer dim sum, which didn't go over too well with Chinatown's "bachelor society" of men who had been forced to leave their families behind in China.

"It was too expensive," says Jack Wong.

"People tended to go to coffee shops instead," says Bill.

"Five-cent coffee and five-cent pastry," says Jack.

Milton Wong is going to get Wai to set up a Chinatown historical display in his building. But nothing can compare to the knowledge Bill and Jack Wong carry around in their heads.