Eve Lazarus
From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
I was spending a typical Friday afternoon yesterday poking around the digital files at Vancouver Archives when I found this photo of the Alhambra Theatre. The photo was taken in 1899, the year the theatre first appears in the city directories and it stood at the corner of West Pender and Howe Street.
It may not be the grandest house on the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s tour, but I bet 446 Union Street house is one of the most interesting, at least when it comes to its social history.
From: Sensational Vancouver
Adamo Piovesan built the brick house in 1930 for his wife Maria and their four daughters.
The Vancouver Police Museum has put together Red Light Rendezvous—a new tour for those of us who can’t get enough of the gritty history of downtown Vancouver.
Cat Rose, who is a crime analyst by day, is also the person behind the Police Museum’s other popular Sins of the City tour: Vice, Dice and Opium Pipes.
When I was researching my 2007 book At Home with History I spent most of my life at the Vancouver Archives and on the 7th floor of the Vancouver Public Library. Now, instead of trekking downtown, much of the information is available to me here at home.
Today, the digital world just got a bit better with the launch of three very cool new online toys.
Because May is Asian Heritage Month it seems fitting to run a story about Joy Kogawa. The following is an excerpt from the Legendary Women chapter in Sensational Vancouver.
Joy Kogawa’s childhood house is a modest wood-framed bungalow in South Vancouver. There’s really nothing architecturally significant about it except that it’s one of the few original houses that remain in the neighbourhood.
For more stories like this one see Vancouver Exposed: Searching for this city’s hidden history
I was trekking around the West End with artist and historian Tom Carter on Tuesday. I found some pictures of gorgeous old West End houses at the archives and I wanted to see what replaced them.
Here are five of my favourite eccentric BC houses that still stand (or did at the time of research).
1. The Hobbit House(s)
There are two in Vancouver and one in West Van designed by Ross Lort in the early 40s, and against all odds, all survive. Hobbit house at King Edward and Cambie is now part of a town house development.
From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
Cemeteries are really interesting places, and I’ve wandered through Vancouver’s Mountain View several times over the years, but I never noticed the Infant Garden before.
Pamela Post* told me about it a few months ago, so I dropped by the cemetery when I was over that way the other week.
