ARRIVALS Grand old gent of Broadway
The Manitoba Club By Dorothy Dobbie
T
he Manitoba Club at 194 Broadway, as solid and substan- tial as the imposing Hotel Fort Garry on one side and Union
Station across Main on the other side, stands in genteel splendour as a testa- ment to Winnipeg’s leadership role in the development of the West. Te current,
55,000-square-foot
club house was opened at the height of the city’s prosperity in 1905. Timo- thy
Eaton inaugurated his flagship
900,000-square-foot store, the 10th largest department store in the world, on Portage Avenue that year. Te Win- nipeg Free Press had just moved into
46 • Summer 2014
its iconic four-storey building on Carl- ton, and the Winnipeg Board of Trade boasted over 300 members. Founded in 1874, by 1905 the Mani- toba Club was already over 30 years old and an important part of Canada’s es- tablishment. Te Winnipeg Tribune of Sept. 30 that year reported that the Club owed its life to “nine of the most promi- nent men of Winnipeg who longed for a phase of social life that the home (could not) give and to whom the hotel sitting- room was not alluring.” Te club received high praise when
the Tribune quoted “an old countryman, who had lived to its full the club-life of
London, New York, Toronto and Mon- treal,” as saying, “Tere are only two clubs in Canada . . . Te St. James of Montreal and the Manitoba in Winni- peg. Tey have caught the spirit of club- land and held on to It. . . Only one club in an hundred possesses It.” Te story went on, “Te Manitoba club has been fortunate enough to retain the sense of exclusiveness without laying itself open to the charge of snobbishness.” Tat last line could have been written
today as the Club has evolved with the times, a secret to its success and a trib- ute to its 900 members. Begun as a place where men could escape to their own
The Hub
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