Eve Lazarus
By Michael Kluckner
Michael Kluckner is a writer and artist with a list of books that includes Vanishing Vancouver and Toshiko. His most recent book is a graphic biography called Julia. He is the president of the Vancouver Historical Society and chair of the city’s Heritage Commission.
There is a chapter in Sensational Vancouver called West Coast Modern which explains the connections between artists and architects and the West Coast Modern movement in Vancouver.
Last week I wrote about Selwyn Pullan’s photography exhibition currently on display at the West Vancouver Museum. I focused on his shots of West Coast Modern houses now almost all obliterated from the landscape.
I finally got a chance to drop by the West Vancouver Museum yesterday to check out the latest exhibition on the photography of Selwyn Pullan. Assistant curator Kiriko Watanabe has done an amazing job, not only pulling out some of Selwyn’s most interesting work, but also displaying the cameras that he used to shoot them with.
From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
I had the pleasure of visiting Neptoon Records on Main Street for the first time last week. The place was packed with browsers, most of them young. The second thing I noticed was the sheer number of records—thousands of them everywhere you look.
On May 26, 1896, 143 people crammed onto Streetcar No. 16 to cross the Point Ellice Bridge. It was Queen Victoria’s birthday and they were on their way to attend the celebrations at Macaulay Point Park in Esquimalt. They never made it.
The middle span of the bridge collapsed under the weight and the streetcar plunged into the Upper Harbour landing on its right side.
After I stumbled over a photo of the former Vancouver Police Headquarters on East Cordova Street, I asked my friend Tom Carter if he knew why it had been destroyed. Was it to make way for the uninspiring three-storey building that took its place? Tom didn’t know, but I thought his comment was interesting—that it had actually survived longer than many of Vancouver’s other Edwardian buildings.
There’s a Facebook post going around about “pedestrian scrambles”—intersections where every car stops and pedestrians cross in all directions.
It’s a simple concept that saves you from being turned into road kill by a turning car.
The video goes onto tell us that “over 40% of pedestrian crashes happen at intersections,” and after scrambles are implemented “severe crashes have gone down by 63%.”
More cities are using them—they’re now in Los Angeles, Portland and Washington, DC.
The Traveller’s Hotel opened in Ladysmith in 1913. The swastikas on the facade meant good luck in Sanskrit
I was over on Vancouver Island this week doing some biking and stopped in at Ladysmith. It’s the first time I’ve been there and it was great to walk down a main drag that still has many of its heritage buildings.
