Eve Lazarus
I’m just back from a road trip that included the Grand Canyon. The place is beyond spectacular and I’ll spare you my clumsy attempt to try to capture its spirit. Instead, I thought I’d tell you the story of a plane crash.
At 9:01 am on June 30, 1956, 64 passengers and six crew left Los Angeles airport on TWA Flight 2 to Kansas City following a 31-minute maintenance delay.
I put up a post on April 28 to mark the day that Trans-Canada Air Lines flight 3 took off from Lethbridge on a routine flight to Vancouver. The Lockheed Lodestar never made it, and 47 years would pass until there would be any answers.
Dale Brandon wrote to tell me that her mother Audrey (Tavender) Brandon was supposed to be one of three crew members on that flight.
In 2000, I signed a contract with a Toronto publisher to write Frommer’s with Kids Vancouver. I was a freelance journalist with three kids under eight, and part of the job was to road-test every activity and restaurant and side trip included in the book.
Story from: Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
After the first week, my kids were begging to stay home.
The Oak Theatre sat at Kingsway near Royal Oak Avenue in Burnaby from 1937 to 1963.
Opening night with CKWX’s Billie Browne, was August 4, 1937. He introduced feature film White Bondage, comedy shorts Blonde Bomber and Hotel a la Swing, and a cartoon called Porky’s Building.
In March 1953, Steve Chizen was putting the final touches on the Cedar V Theatre on Lynn Valley Road. It would be North Vancouver’s third theatre—the Odeon sat at the corner of Lonsdale and 14th Avenue, and the Lonsdale Theatre that went up in 1911, would close forever in 1954.
Steve, who previously managed the Cameo Theatre in Whalley, chose the name Cedar V in deference to the several large cedar trees that were sacrificed for the building site.
Just before noon on March 6, 1945, the SS Greenhill Park blew up, killing six longshoremen and two seamen. Twenty-six others, including seven firefighters were injured in the explosion.
On March 6, 1945, nearly 100 men were either loading or getting the SS Greenhill Park ready for its voyage to Australia from CPR’s Pier B-C (now Canada Place).
This art deco beauty sat near the corner of Lonsdale Avenue and 14th Street in North Vancouver from 1938 to 1986. The 734-seat Nova Theatre opened in January 1938 and was owned by W.P. Dewees and managed by Agnes (Queenie) Albanuff. Mrs. Albanuff was clearly good at her job, because when Dewees sold the theatre to the Odeon chain in 1941, she went with it.
The Glencoe Lodge opened at the corner of West Georgia and Burrard Streets in 1906. Sugar baron, Benjamin Tingley Rogers had bought two houses, raised them, added two storeys and turned the building into a boutique hotel, operated by the fabulous Miss Jean Mollison.
Story from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
The Mollison Sisters:
Jean’s older sister Annie came to Canada from Scotland in 1888, armed with an introduction to the head of the CPR.
