Labour of love

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This article was published 16/03/2020 (2034 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A major renovation is bringing one of the North End’s most recognizable historic landmarks into the modern era.

Once work on the Ukrainian Labour Temple has been completed, the neo-classical building at 591 Pritchard Ave. will be wheelchair-accessible for the first time in its 100-year history. The Association of United Ukrainian Canadians is spending $1.3 million to upgrade the building, which is a designated heritage structure at the municipal, provincial and federal levels.

Construction on the temple began in 1918 and was completed in 1919. At the time, the Free Press reported the building cost $50,000, with funds raised entirely from Winnipeg’s 15,000-member Ukrainian community.

Association president Glenn Michalchuk said the temple’s inaccessibility has long been a concern for the group. They considered installing a ramp in the back of the building during the early 1990s, he said.

“It was just never pursued, because it wasn’t a good solution.”

Eventually, local architecture firm GW Architecture determined that an accessibility lift could be installed in one corner of the building, where McGregor Street meets Pritchard Avenue. The lift will bring visitors from that street-level entrance up to the temple’s cavernous main hall, and down to the basement bingo hall.

Association membership has declined over the years. Michalchuk said the group has about 50 members left in Winnipeg and several hundred across Canada.

But the hall has grown beyond its original role as a hub for Winnipeg’s Ukrainian community, he explained.

“The (association) has always been active culturally, and we still have the mandolin orchestra that performs out of there, we have a dance group, we have a choir,” he said.

“But over the years, also, the hall has been integrated more and more with the community — it hasn’t been solely devoted to the activities around our association.”

Various community organizations book the hall for meetings and events, but Michalchuk said the lack of accessibility has been an obstacle for some groups who want to use the space.

“We hope in the future that making it accessible opens up those possibilities, to make it much more culturally and socially vibrant hall in the community,” he said.

Aside from the accessibility lift, the renovated temple will feature new accessible washrooms.

The association is considering redoing an area above the main entrance, which houses storage space and offices, in a way that would allow more natural light into the lobby.

All of the windows are being redone, replacing the current thick, tranluscent glass blocks with windows similar to those on the original building.

“It’s always interesting to come up with the design for the windows, where you have to look at old photographs, old drawings,” said architect Giovanni Geremia.

“But then, there are still remnants of the (original) window elements still on-site.”

Traces of antique windows aren’t the only pieces of the past turned up by the renovation project.

Vintage sheet music, old Ukrainian community newspapers, and even hidden interior colour schemes have all been uncovered as layers got peeled away.

“I found some literature and stuff, and some old election stuff tucked in the walls, all in Ukrainian,” said Jan Woycheshen, a project superintendent with construction firm M Builds.

“And some propaganda from back when the big strike was, because this was a meeting place for that.”

Other charming historic features were never hidden at all. On the balcony in the main hall, rows of fold-up chairs still sport hat racks for visitors to store their fedoras underneath. Antique reel-to-reel projectors still grace the hall’s projection room, and the basement bingo hall is home to a retro, diner-style lunch counter with an advertisement for bygone Canadian soft drink brand Pure Spring.

A bronze plaque that marked the Ukrainian Labour Temple as a national historic site was stolen from in front of the building in early 2019. The stolen plaque was never recovered, Michalchuk said, but the AUUC hopes to have a replacement installed by this fall.

“We did receive one phone call from a scrap metal dealer who said they saw something that looked suspiciously like a piece (of the plaque), and they wouldn’t accept it, but that’s all we ever heard.”

The renovation project began last fall, and Michalchuk said the AUUC hopes it will be complete by May or June.

“I think it’s a good news story for a part of the city that doesn’t have a lot of good news stories, that we’re here and that we’re here to make the hall available, and to have it as an ongoing concern — and something that all the city can be proud of.”

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca

@WinnipegNews