Dominion Building

Heritage Vancouver released their annual top 10 watch list last month (for 2021), and rather than look at endangered buildings, they have focused on space. I was interested to find Victory Square on the list—or rather not the square itself, but the buildings that surround it, some of which date back to the 1800s. The… Continue reading Victory Square: What was there before?

The Vancouver Heritage House tour is coming up Sunday June 2, and I haven’t been this excited since Casa Mia was featured in 2014. Don’t get me wrong, the VHF works hard all year to curate a great mix of architectural styles, neighbourhoods and house sizes, but unless you work at, or have a daughter… Continue reading The Vancouver Heritage House Tour, Alvo von Alvensleben and the Old Residence

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History Last week, Michael Kluckner and I were over at Tom Carter’s studio looking out his seventh storey window onto the EasyPark—a cavernous concrete lot that fronts West Pender and takes up the entire city block from Cambie to Beatty Streets. In 2013, Michael had the dubious… Continue reading Our Missing Heritage: Vancouver’s First Hospital

I finally got to motor up Indian Arm and see the Wigwam Inn–well from the outside. You can’t get inside unless you’re a member of the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club. From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History It seems crazy to me that it’s still fairly inaccessible (unless you own a boat), yet… Continue reading The Wigwam Inn at Indian Arm

One of the things I loved most about being a contributor to Vancouver Confidential was working with reporters, bloggers, artists, tour guides, actors, musicians and academics that cut across both decades and demographics. The experience made me realize what a truly diverse group we have working in the local history and heritage space. So just… Continue reading Heritage Streeters (with John Atkin, Aaron Chapman, Jeremy Hood and Will Woods)

  When I think of photographers working in Vancouver in the 50s and 60s, I think of Foncie Pulice, Selwyn Pullan and Fred Herzog. Foncie was a street photographer who opened Foncie’s Fotos in 1946 and shot millions of photos of people as they strolled Vancouver’s streets. Vancouver-born Selwyn Pullan, served in the Canadian Navy… Continue reading The photographs of Jan de Haas (1914-1967)

John Atkin can be a bit of a kill joy, always squashing rumours about secret tunnels in Chinatown, ghosts in the Dominion Building, and well, blood in Blood Alley. John squashes another rumour in his story about a tunnel that supposedly connected a sugar baron to a brothel, but in doing so he uncovered some… Continue reading Who was Maxine?

Tom Carter is a Vancouver-based artist known for exploring the city’s gritty urban environments. Heritage Loft: I visited Tom Carter in his heritage loft a couple of weeks ago. It was the same afternoon that we climbed up to the top of the Sun Tower, in what was in 1912, the tallest building in the… Continue reading Meet Tom Carter Artist

For the first half of last century, houses lined the water side of Beach Avenue, from the Burrard Street Bridge to Stanley Park From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History When I first started researching Alvo von Alvensleben some years ago I made several road trips to see how many of the buildings… Continue reading The Former Houses of Beach Avenue

The house on Somerset Street in North Vancouver was built in 1912 as a hunting lodge for Alvo von Alvensleben.  The story of Alvo von Alvensleben and the hunting lodge on Somerset appears in At Home with History: the secrets of Vancouver’s heritage houses: A couple of weeks ago I was taking photos of this… Continue reading The Hunting Lodge on Somerset Street in North Vancouver

Update: The Dominion Building sold to Toronto-based Allied Properties Real Estate Investment Trust in October 2021. It had been in the Cohen family since 1943 (they operated Army and Navy until last year). It won’t surprise you to know that the 1910 building is haunted. Tenants have heard ghostly footsteps on the spiral stairs and… Continue reading The Dominion Building