Eve Lazarus
Looking at the outside of the plain two-storey building at Victoria Drive and Truimph Street, you’d never guess that Fraser Wilson’s mural runs the full length of a 25-metre wall. The building is the home of the Maritime Labour Centre, and Fraser Wilson painted the mural in 1947.
Story from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
Cartoonist:
Wilson was a bit of a rabble rouser.
The name of the 11-acre green space at the entrance to Stanley Park known as Devonian Harbour Park has nothing to do with its indigenous history, the land’s connection to the Kanakas, the buildings that once dotted its landscape or Vancouver. The park was named after the Calgary-based Devonian Group of Charitable Foundations which forked over $600,000 to develop the site to its present look in 1983.
The Ironworkers Memorial Bridge collapsed June 17, 1958 killing 18 men, and one diver the following day. It is the worst industrial accident in Vancouver’s history. Thanks to Bruce Stewart for sending photos that his father Angus shot of the tragedy.
Bill Moore:
Bill Moore died on June 17, 1993—exactly 35 years after he survived the collapse of the Ironworker’s Memorial Bridge.
Harry Jerome and Percy Williams were two of the most remarkable sprinters in Vancouver’s history.
This story is from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
Former Province sports reporter Brian Pound tells me that the first time the two officially met was at a photo shoot that he had set up at a clothing store near the insurance office where Percy worked.
The friendship between Bruce Stewart and Fred Herzog began because of a mutual love of photography and went onto span half-a-century.
Bruce Stewart has been documenting Vancouver ever since his father gave him a reflex camera for his eleventh birthday. A few years later, he started an after-school job at the Department of Biomedical Communications at UBC working with legendary photographer Fred Herzog.
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.
