Eve Lazarus
I lived at three different addresses along West 3rd in Kitsilano between 1984 and 1995. And, while I loved the beach, the restaurants, West 4th Avenue, and Granville Island, I would have liked to have known Kits in the 1970s.
An essay in photos by Bruce Stewart
Kits Pool:
Fortunately, Bruce Stewart spent half of that decade living in a $280 a month (heat and hot water included) apartment at 2340 Cornwall Avenue, just across from Kits pool.
Emily Carr’s 100-year-old Oak Bay cabin could be yours for $5.5 million dollars! The good news is that it comes with a 10-bedroom heritage house designed by Samuel Maclure.
In 1913, Emily Carr paid $900 for a plot of land on Victoria Avenue in Oak Bay. According to a story,* she built a 12 by 20 foot cabin the following year, “nail by nail” at a cost of $150 with the help of “one old carpenter.”
Assessment records show that the builder was Thomas Cattarall, the same “old carpenter” who built Craigdarroch for the Dunsmuir family and later worked with architect Samuel Maclure on Hatley Castle.
The Nanaimo to Vancouver bathtub race ran from 1967 to 1996
When I moved to Vancouver in the mid 1980s, I lived in an apartment at Third and Cypress in Kitsilano. Over the next 12 years, I moved two more times up Third Avenue, and one of my summer highlights was heading down to the beach every July for the Nanaimo to Vancouver bathtub races.
Do you remember the fountain at Lonsdale Quay? It had sails on top of a tiled base of green and blue swirls and whales and octopus and starfish. When my kids were small it was the best part of a visit next to ice cream and the ball room.
It broke down in 2020 and cost $300,000 to fix, now the only thing left to remember it by, is a round piece of asphalt used to patch the hole in the concrete.
June is Italian heritage month, and this year Italian Days was held on Sunday June 9, 2024
I hate crowds, so I can’t give you a first-hand account of Italian Days this year. Having watched a couple of YouTube videos though, I can tell you that it was a gorgeous day that drew thousands of people to eat, drink and be entertained on Commercial Drive in what the Italians (or possibly City Hall) are billing as the largest cultural street festival in Vancouver.
Arthur Erickson is featured in an exhibition at the West Vancouver Art Museum with photos by Selwyn Pullan
I dropped by the West Vancouver Art Museum Wednesday and joined a tour led by curator, Hilary Letwin. If you haven’t been there before, the Museum is by the Municipal Hall on 17th Street, just off Marine Drive, and housed in a funky stone house built by Gertrude Lawson in 1939.
Thirty years ago today, I was the lucky Vancouver Sun reporter sent out to Surrey to ride the Skytrain downtown at the end of the Stanley Cup final. It didn’t matter who won (we lost 3-2 to the New York Rangers) everyone it seems except police, knew that there was going to be a riot.
Former Vancouver Sun crime reporter, Neal Hall, guest blogs about one of Vancouver’s most controversial cases. Thirty five years after 44-year-old Cindy James was found dead, people still wonder – was it suicide or murder?
By Neal Hall
The most bizarre case I ever encountered in my 30-plus years as a reporter, was the case of Cindy James.
