I’ve been working on a true crime/history podcast for the last couple of months based on my book Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s First Forensic Investigator. My original thought was that it would be a great way to reuse some of the research I do for my books, and it is, but it’s become a bit of an obsession, and I plan to do a future series on Cold Case Vancouver, where I can weave in many of the interviews that I conducted with family, friends, and law enforcement over the years.
About six years ago, I was doing some research for my book Sensational Vancouver and took a tour of Strathcona with James Johnstone. I was excited to meet Paul Yee, a historian who now lives in Toronto, and has written several brilliant books which include Salt Water City, Tales from Gold Mountain, and most recently, A Superior Man (see Paul’s website for a full list).
Iaci’s Casa Capri Restaurant at 1022 Seymour Street was a Vancouver institution for more than 50 years. It closed in 1982.
Story from: Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
Rick Iaci was driving down Seymour Street one day when he was horrified to see dozens of framed photographs being thrown into a dumpster outside #1022—the house that was a family restaurant for more than 50 years.
Members of the Town Planning Commission passed a resolution stating that they were not in favour of Deadman’s Island as a site for a proposed museum of Vancouver art, historical and scientific society. It was declared the Coal Harbour site was too inaccessible—Province: April 9, 1932
It continues to amaze me that Stanley Park has survived, despite all the attempts to develop it over the years.
With Aimee Greenaway, Nanaimo Mysteries curatorAimee Greenaway was reading Blood, Sweat, and Fear when she came across George Hannay, a safe cracker from Nanaimo. She’d heard a story about the former BC Provincial police officer turned criminal, but this was the first time she’d seen evidence of his crimes.
If you listened to CKNW any time from the mid-1950s to the end of the ‘90s, you’ll remember George Garrett.
His memoir, George Garrett Intrepid Reporter has just been published, and it’s a great ride through four decades of politics, disasters, consumer investigations and murders.
I met George in the mid-1990s, when I was a Vancouver Sun reporter at the beginning of my career and George was nearing the end of his.
I have just acquired a piece of St. Andrews-Wesley Church. A rug that’s worn in all the places that you’d expect of something that has graced the entranceway of this downtown heritage building for eight decades and hosted thousands of multi-denominational feet.
The renovations were made possible by the sale of church land and a 20-storey condo tower in 2002.St.
Last week, Bob Shiell sent me a note telling me that he worked with Rene Castellani at CKNW in the early 1960s, and was a huge force in one of the station’s most visible promotions—the Maharajah of Alleebaba.
From Murder by Milkshake: an astonishing true story of adultery, arsenic, and a charismatic killer
I wrote about Rene the Maharajah in Murder by Milkshake, but Bob added a personal twist.