Every Place Has a Story

The Life and Death of Seaton Street

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From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

Last week I wrote about the oldest house in Vancouver—well at least that’s what they called it when it burned to the ground in 1946. It was built in 1875, and until 1915, its address was Seaton Street.

Unlike most of Vancouver’s streets that are named after old white men, Lauchlan Hamilton, the CPR surveyor, named this one in 1886 after pulling it at random from a map (the town of Seaton is long gone, but used to be near Hazelton in northern BC).

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Murder, Investigation, and a Dash of Forensics

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The first time I went to the Vancouver Police Museum was in the late 1980s. It was a breakfast meeting for a tourist organization called Vancouver AM, and we ate in the autopsy room. I fell in love with the place then in all its macabre glory, and nearly three decades later I still love going there.

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Colouring History

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If you’re on social media you are likely already familiar with Canadian Colour–beautiful, eye-popping historical photographs of Vancouver’s people, buildings and events. The guy behind these colourized photos is Mark Truelove, a Brit who moved to B.C. 16 years ago, and now lives in Hope.

Mark’s day job is web designer/developer, but increasingly he’s doing colourization work for individuals and corporations.

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Vancouver in the Seventies

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Fred Herzog, Foncie, Selwyn Pullan, Michael de Courcy, Bruce Stewart, and Angus McIntyre were just a few who took up a camera in the Vancouver of the ‘70s, and were documenting images of everything from buildings to the changing skyline, and from neighborhoods to neon.

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Remembering Joe Fortes

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Joe Fortes arrived in Vancouver in 1885 and quickly became one of the city’s most loved citizens. As our first official lifeguard and Beach Avenue resident, he saved dozens of lives.

This story is excerpted from: Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History.

Joe Fortes:

In 1904 Joe Fortes was living in a sweet little cottage at the foot of Gilford, right by where the Sylvia Hotel is today.

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The Missing Elevator Operators of Vancouver

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It was common in the 1970s to get in an elevator with an operator at buildings such as Woodwards and the Bay. Where did they go?

By Angus McIntyre

“Going up, she said,” is the opening line in the 1970’s pop song Heaven on the 7th Floor about a tryst between a female elevator operator and a male passenger.

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Project 200 and the Waterfront Freeway

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Gordon Price called it “the most important thing that never happened” to Vancouver, and certainly if Project 200 and the rest of the freeway plans had gone ahead, Vancouver would be virtually unrecognizable today.

This story is from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

The plan was to construct a $340 million freeway system that would connect Vancouver to the Trans-Canada Highway and to Highway 99.

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The House that Chip Built

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It’s the first week of January, 2017 and if you own a house you’ve received your BC Assessment notice. If you’re like us you’re not popping open the champagne quite yet because your house has smashed through the ceiling of the home owner grant and you’re on the hook for a lot more taxes, all without putting out one lick of paint.

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