This is one of my favourite finds at the Vancouver Archives. The house at 755 Bute Street is long gone, but was once owned by Dr. James Farish, a Vancouver ear, eye and nose specialist. On September 4, 1918, Victor Bishop, 23, was home on leave from the War, when the builders—Jimmy and Henry Hoffar, asked him to take their seaplane for a test spin over Burrard Inlet.
It’s too bad Chuck couldn’t be at his memorial service this afternoon. He would have loved it. For starters there were a couple of hundred people there—a totally eclectic crowd, pretty much like the guy himself. The only thing we had in common was that Chuck had touched us all in some way.
Local legends Dal Richards and Red Robinson were there.
Last week Heritage Vancouver released its annual top ten list of endangered heritage sites in Vancouver. Three schools topped the list, but the residence considered most in danger is the four-hectare Shannon Estate at the corner of Granville and 57th. Note that it’s not the 40-room mansion that’s under threat, it’s Shannon Mews, the infill townhouse development designed by Arthur Erickson, that’s on the block.
As the archivist for the CBC in Vancouver, Colin Preston looks after more than 250,000 items and programmes on film and videotape. And, as he’ll tell you, it’s the best historical archive of film footage west of Toronto.
Laura West was in her garden one day about two years ago when a family of strangers drove slowly past her house. They rolled down the car window, excused themselves for staring, and told her that their great grandparents had built her house in 1904.
Shahn Torontow has always loved Jonie Mitchell’s song “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” So when a parking lot became available on Steel Street in Victoria, he decided to put up his vision of paradise.
Wondering what happened to the neon “DRUGS” sign that once sat on top of the Pharmasave building in Edgemont Village?The building is long gone. Pharmasave moved across the street and didn’t want to move the sign with them. The new building, now an HSBC bank, didn’t want a sign that has no bearing on its business.
Mark Lindholm is the not so proud owner of the house across from his Westbay Marine Village in Esquimalt. He plans to develop the area into a mixed commercial and residential development and the house came with the land. It also came with a pirate on the roof, a crow’s nest by the front door, a ship’s cannon, anchor, Neptune, a mermaid and a stork made by the house’s owner John Keziere.