Eve Lazarus
Dan Rickard photography
A couple of weeks ago, Judy Graves, Tom Carter and I took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Orpheum Theatre.
The “new” Orpheum was designed in 1927 by Marcus Priteca, a Seattle-based architect who fashioned the theatre in a Spanish renaissance style and gave it an opulent air with some sleight of hand tricks.
I’ve been posting pictures of the BC Electric Building on Facebook this week, but I haven’t posted this one—it’s on the back of Sensational Vancouver and in the chapter on West Coast Modern. The photo was shot by Selwyn Pullan in 1957, the same year BC Electric completed this ground breaking piece of architecture.
I am thrilled to have the book launch for Sensational Vancouver at the Vancouver Police Museum on Tuesday. The Museum is housed in the old coroner’s court and morgue on Cordova which makes an authentic backdrop for all the great displays.
A large chunk of the material for my book came straight from the Museum’s archives.
Mayor Gerry McGeer lived at 4812 Belmont Avenue in Point Grey between 1927 and his death there in 1947. At around 10:00 pm on June 17, 2022 the house burned to the ground. It was unoccupied and apparently under renovation after not getting a demolition permit.
Sixth most expensive listing:
As of August 2014, the property at 4812 Belmont is apparently the 6th most expensive listing in Vancouver.
From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
Before Vancouver settled on its current City Hall on West 12th, it had been housed in a number of really interesting buildings.
The first council started out in a tent shortly after the Great Fire wiped out most of the city in 1886.
The gorgeous woman pictured on the cover of Sensational Vancouver and featured in my chapter on Legendary Women is Tosca Trasolini. Tosca was a member of the Flying Seven, Canada’s first all-female aviators’ club. The club formed in 1935—the year she turned 24—after Margaret Fane—one of the Flying Seven flew to California to meet with Amelia Earhart, president of the Ninety-Nines—an American organization for women pilots.
When North Vancouver’s Dene Rossouw takes a photograph he’s not looking to capture the physical reality of the scene he wants to evoke a mood, an emotional experience or just draw our attention to a detail that we might not otherwise have noticed.
His photo of the Dominion Building on West Hastings is shot from an unusual angle–looking up Cambie Street that manages to capture the character and the energy of the building.
Barry Downs architect designed his gorgeous West Coast Modern house in West Vancouver in 1979. He lived there until his death in July 2022 at 92.
Barry Downs house sits on top of a cliff 120 feet above West Vancouver’s Garrow Bay. The house is almost invisible from the busy street and built on multiple levels, with lots of glass that connects the indoors with the out.
