Every Place Has a Story

The Garden Family and the Lester Court Connection

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This story appears in Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the city’s hidden history

I wrote about the Garden family a couple of weeks back. William and Mary Garden arrived in Vancouver in 1889, opened up the Garden and Sons Wholesale Tea and Coffee on East Hastings, and lived for a time at a house at Thurlow and Alberni.

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The unsolved murder of North Vancouver’s Jennie Eldon Conroy

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Look for the full story of Jennie Eldon Conroy in Cold Case Vancouver: the city’s most baffling unsolved murders

A couple of weeks ago, Daien Ide, reference historian at the North Vancouver Museum and Archives came into the possession of a photo album. At first she thought it was just a nice family photo album once owned by a Miss J.

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The Green Island Lighthouse now has Heritage Status

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Green Island is one of 21 lighthouses in B.C. recently granted heritage status. This story is from a chapter on lighthouses that never made it way into Sensational Victoria.

“The winter wind whistles down the Portland Canal from Alaska and seas lash away at the tower and the dwellings, shellacking them with ice so thick that the whole station resembles ice sculptures at a bizarre winter carnival, and the keepers need a hammer to open a door.

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Michael Kluckner’s Toshiko: a graphic novel

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If you are like me and have a couple of Michael Kluckner’s books at home, you might be surprised to learn that his latest effort is a graphic novel.

In his latest book, Toshiko, Michael has replaced his paint brush with a pencil, and he’s taken a leap into fiction.

Turns out, Michael kicked off his career as a cartoonist back in the ‘70s, and in many ways, this is a return to his roots.

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Thurlow and Alberni Streets: then and now

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This story appears in Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History.

Anders Falk is a Vancouver realtor with deep roots in the city. His great, great grandparents William and Mary Henderson Garden arrived in Vancouver from Helensburgh, Scotland, via Liverpool and a cross Canada train trip in April 1889. William opened up Garden and Sons Wholesale Tea and Coffee on East Hastings.

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West Coast Modern on Display

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There is a chapter on West Coast Modern Artists and Architects in Sensational Vancouver.

If you love West Coast modern like I do, check out the art and architecture exhibit at the West Vancouver Museum this summer.

Work from all the greats is there—Fred Hollingsworth, Arthur Erickson, B.C.

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Movie projectionist escapes death when bomb wrecks car

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From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

This photo of a bombed out car in 1932 has been bugging me ever since a reader posted it on my FB page a few weeks ago. So this week I made a trip to the Vancouver Public Library to find out its back story.

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What the Alhambra Theatre and the Vancouver Stock Exchange have in common

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From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

I was spending a typical Friday afternoon yesterday poking around the digital files at Vancouver Archives when I found this photo of the Alhambra Theatre. The photo was taken in 1899, the year the theatre first appears in the city directories and it stood at the corner of West Pender and Howe Street.

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