Vancouver History

Last Saturday I time-travelled to Hogan’s Alley and landed smack in 1948. Geographically, I wasn’t really that far away. I was standing inside a large box in Vancouver’s Woodward’s building using my body as a joy-stick to move through the streets of an area that’s been buried under the Georgia Viaduct since 1972. The National… Continue reading Hidden Pasts, Digital Futures: Vancouver Circa1948

It’s hard to imagine today, but from the 1930s until the mid 1950s there were three daily newspapers—the Vancouver Sun, the Province and the Vancouver News-Herald operating in Vancouver—all independents fighting for market share in a population of less than 350,000. The Vancouver News-Herald called itself “Western Canada’s Largest Morning Herald.” When it was founded… Continue reading From Newspapers to Exotic Escorts: Repurposing old buildings

This story appears in Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the city’s hidden history I wrote about the Garden family a couple of weeks back. William and Mary Garden arrived in Vancouver in 1889, opened up the Garden and Sons Wholesale Tea and Coffee on East Hastings, and lived for a time at a house at Thurlow… Continue reading The Garden Family and the Lester Court Connection

If you are like me and have a couple of Michael Kluckner’s books at home, you might be surprised to learn that his latest effort is a graphic novel. In his latest book, Toshiko, Michael has replaced his paint brush with a pencil, and he’s taken a leap into fiction. Turns out, Michael kicked off… Continue reading Michael Kluckner’s Toshiko: a graphic novel

This story appears in Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History. Anders Falk is a Vancouver realtor with deep roots in the city. His great, great grandparents William and Mary Henderson Garden arrived in Vancouver from Helensburgh, Scotland, via Liverpool and a cross Canada train trip in April 1889. William opened up Garden and… Continue reading Thurlow and Alberni Streets: then and now

There is a chapter on West Coast Modern Artists and Architects in Sensational Vancouver. If you love West Coast modern like I do, check out the art and architecture exhibit at the West Vancouver Museum this summer. Work from all the greats is there—Fred Hollingsworth, Arthur Erickson, BC Binning, Ned Pratt, Ron Thom, Gordon Smith,… Continue reading West Coast Modern on Display

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History This photo of a bombed out car in 1932 has been bugging me ever since a reader posted it on my Facebook page a few weeks ago. So this week I made a trip to the Vancouver Public Library to find out its back story. It… Continue reading Movie projectionist escapes death when bomb wrecks car

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… Continue reading What the Alhambra Theatre and the Vancouver Stock Exchange have in common

  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. Story from: Sensational Vancouver Adamo Piovesan built the brick house in 1930 for his wife Maria and their four… Continue reading 446 Union Street

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… Continue reading Five Eccentric B.C. Houses

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. It’s an amazing story. Between 1907 and 1972 nearly 11,000 babies were put into unmarked graves at the cemetery. Some of… Continue reading The Infant Garden

On March 20, 1917 Police Chief Malcolm MacLennan, 44, was killed in a shootout with a drug addict. This is an excerpt from Sensational Vancouver: Robert Tait, 32, a drug addict, police informant and pimp from Detroit lived in a rundown apartment over a grocery store at 522 East Georgia with his girlfriend Frankie Russell.… Continue reading The murder of Chief Malcolm MacLennan and nine year old George Robb

Story from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History Rena Del Pieve Gobbi came under fire last week for using discarded gravestones to hold up her garden. The garden is at Commercial and Powell, wedged in between the Maple Leaf Storage and the train tracks. Since 2001, Rena, an artist and documentary film-maker, has… Continue reading Rena’s Gravestone Garden

  When I think of photographers working in Vancouver in the 50s and 60s, I think of Foncie Pulice, Selwyn Pullan and Fred Herzog. Foncie was a street photographer who opened Foncie’s Fotos in 1946 and shot millions of photos of people as they strolled Vancouver’s streets. Vancouver-born Selwyn Pullan, served in the Canadian Navy… Continue reading The photographs of Jan de Haas (1914-1967)

The Vogue Theatre opened in April 1941 and was designated as a national historic site in 1993. From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History Dal Richards opened: On April 15, 1941 the Dal Richards Big Band was the opening act for the Vogue Theatre, a combination vaudeville and movie house located on Granville… Continue reading In and out of Vogue: A Vancouver art deco story

The story behind this photo of VPD detectives that appeared in the Vancouver Daily World on January 25, 1924 Joe Ricci’s Vancouver: One of my favourite characters in Sensational Vancouver is Detective Joe Ricci who joined the Vancouver Police Department in 1912. Joe was a kick-arse cop from the old school who didn’t get too… Continue reading The story behind a 1924 Vancouver photograph

There’s a female ghost who haunts Salmagundi. She hangs out downstairs and begs the odd customer to look through old photos, find one of her and take it home. Once a customer told owner Anne Banner that a ghost wanted her to take an antique doll out of a birdcage. Anne, who has never experienced… Continue reading Vancouver’s Salmagundi West

If you’re a property owner in Metro Vancouver and looking for relief in this year’s property tax bill, well let’s just say it’s not going to happen. For property owners living in one of the priciest regions of the country—the West Coast real estate market keeps going up—and so does your bill. The good news… Continue reading The Top 10 Most Expensive Houses in BC: nine are in Vancouver

Percy Williams was the world’s fastest human for a time. In these days of super-charged Olympic athletes, he was truly unique. The following is story is from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History King Edward High School: There’s a young, very thin Percy Williams in a picture of the King Edward High School… Continue reading Percy Williams: World’s Fastest Human

This is an excerpt from Sensational Vancouver. Eleanor Lum Wayne Avery knew nothing about the history of his house until one day he saw an elderly Chinese woman peering through his front room window. He invited her inside and discovered that she was Eleanor (Yip) Lum, and that she had been born in one of… Continue reading Meet Nellie Yip Quong