Every Place Has a Story

The Georgia Viaduct

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The Georgia Viaduct knocked out a lot of buildings in 1971 including Hogan’s Alley and Vie’s Chicken and Steakhouse.

Urban Renewal:

The photo (above) was shot in 1971 and appears in Sensational Vancouver’s Walk on the Wild Side chapter to illustrate “urban renewal”—the City of Vancouver’s excuse for trying to demolish Strathcona and Chinatown.

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Who was Maxine?

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John Atkin can be a bit of a kill joy, always squashing rumours about secret tunnels in Chinatown, ghosts in the Dominion Building, and well, blood in Blood Alley. John squashes another rumour in his story about a tunnel that supposedly connected a sugar baron to a brothel, but in doing so he uncovered some fascinating information about Maxine MacGilvray, a successful businesswoman who moved to Vancouver in 1914.

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The Curve of Time: national bestseller after more than 50 years

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It’s been incredibly exciting seeing Sensational Vancouver claim the top spot on the Best of BC list for the past four weeks, and it’s made me pay close attention to the book section in the Vancouver Sun.

What I’ve noticed is that M. Wylie Blanchet’s The Curve of Time, has ranked in the top 10 on the National Bestsellers list for the past seven weeks.

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The Orpheum Theatre and a conversation with Paul Merrick

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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.

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The incredible photography of Selwyn Pullan

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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.

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Mug-Shot Books and the Vancouver Police Museum

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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.

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Mayor Gerry McGeer’s $20 Million Tear-Down

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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.

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A brief history of Vancouver’s City Halls

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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.

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