Halloween is my favourite unofficial holiday of the year, so it was especially rewarding to end Season 2 of Cold Case Canada with a Halloween Special. I reached out to five fabulous story tellers to tell me their favourite ghost stories—stories that take place in some of Metro Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhoods.
It’s been nearly 75 years, but I’m confident that the mystery of who blew up one of the courthouse lions in 1942 has now been solved. No one will be charged for this crime, but it’s thanks to a reader—we’ll call him Dave. It was his grandfather who made a bang loud enough that Vancouverites thought the Japanese were invading the city.
Update: In February 2022 it was announced that the Wing Sang Building at 51 East Pender Street and reportedly the oldest in Chinatown, is going to be the new home of the Chinese Canadian Museum.
Story from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
In 2006, I wrote a story for Marketing Magazine featuring Bob Rennie and his move into Chinatown.
Boot Hill, BC Penitentiary’s cemetery in New Westminster, holds dozens of unnamed graves of burials between 1913 and 1968.
In last week’s blog, I wrote about my visit to New Westminster to see the buildings that once formed part of BC Penitentiary, a federal prison that operated from 1878 to 1980.
Jail for Sale:
In a real estate crazed city like Vancouver where a heritage house can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars over its list price, turns out it’s just not that easy to sell an old jail.
Realtor Leonardo di Francesco has had parts of the former BC Penitentiary on the market since last December, so this week I drove out to New Westminster to check out the buildings and former prison grounds.
The Imperial Bank of Canada opened its new building on April 21, 1958 at Granville and Dunsmuir Streets. It featured this stunning mural by BC Binning. The building is now occupied by a Shoppers Drug Mart, but the mural is still there.
From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
The Mural:
Next time you’re downtown and have a mascara emergency or need some aspirin, drop into the Shoppers Drug Mart at Granville and Dunsmuir.
The Devonshire Hotel on West Georgia was demolished July 5, 1981 to make way for the head office tower of the Bank of BC.
Story from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
Devonshire Apartment Hotel:
The Devonshire originally opened as an apartment building, but within a few years was operating as the Devonshire Hotel.
When the Pacific Centre took over Granville and Georgia Streets, it knocked out blocks of heritage buildings.
Story and photos from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
The Great White Urinal:
When I moved to Vancouver from Australia in the mid-1980s, locals had already had a dozen years to get used to Pacific Centre and the “Great White Urinal”—the name they’d not so affectionately dubbed the Eaton’s department store building.