Vancouver History

Last week, Bob Shiell sent me a note telling me that he worked with Rene Castellani at CKNW in the early 1960s, and was a huge force in one of the station’s most visible promotions—the Maharajah of Alleebaba. From Murder by Milkshake: an astonishing true story of adultery, arsenic, and a charismatic killer I wrote… Continue reading The Maharajah of Alleebaba

Glen McDonald was easily Vancouver’s most colourful coroner. He called himself the “Ombudsman of the Dead” and served from 1954 to 1980. If I was able to go back in time and choose six people to interview, Glen McDonald would be high up on the list. I got to know him while I was researching… Continue reading Glen McDonald: Vancouver’s Colourful Coroner

When Fritz Autzen, a baker from Neukölln, Germany moved his family to British Columbia in 1954, his first job was a cook at Zaro’s of America, a deli on Robson Street. Five years later he moved his family to the West End and established the Hippocampus, a fish & chip shop on Denman and Comox… Continue reading Fritz Autzen and the West End’s Hippocampus

    On June 4, 1965, CKNW personality Rene Castellani climbed to the top of the scaffolding next to the BowMac Sign and promised not to come down until every last car on the lot was sold. It took nine days. The following story is an excerpt from Murder by Milkshake: An Astonishing Story of… Continue reading The BowMac Sign: Guy in the Sky

The Story of the Severed Feet: I was at a Christmas party last week when the conversation turned to severed feet. You remember all those ones that turned up wearing running shoes in spots like False Creek, Richmond and Gabriola Island? It wasn’t some twisted serial killer or gang sign, when the body decomposes the… Continue reading The Introvert’s Guide to the Holiday Season

Angus McIntyre was reading Murder by Milkshake  when he stopped and took a closer look at a photo snapped by the Vancouver Sun’s Dan Scott in December 1966. Where I saw a rare photo of Lolly Miller leaving court during the murder trial of her lover, Rene Castellani—Angus was looking at the background. “I just noticed something… Continue reading Lolly, CFUN, and the Brill Trolley Bus

Selwyn Pullan shot these photos of the Ritz Hotel in 1956, shortly after it had been renovated into this awesome mid-century modern look. But while it had a fancy name, the Ritz Hotel at 1040 West Georgia was originally designed as a YMCA in 1912 by Henry Sandham Griffith. Griffith had offices in Vancouver and… Continue reading Our Missing Heritage: The Ritz Hotel

Last Sunday, when Fatidjah Nestman looked out of her high-rise on West 13th she noticed that an old painted ad for White’s Grocery had popped up when construction workers removed the cement siding from a building on Granville Street. Her neighbor, Karen Fiorini, took this picture of the ghost sign and kindly sent it to me.… Continue reading Ghost Signs: White’s Grocery of South Granville

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History In 2016, the Vancouver Historical Society, of which I was a board member, was contacted by the Port of Vancouver and asked what we’d like to do with a three metre-high sculpture made from BC granite that had been sitting on their land at the foot… Continue reading Art, History and a Mission

On September 10, 1968 the Vancouver International Airport opened a spanking new terminal building to handle all domestic, US and international flights. It was one of the few airports where aircraft could pull up to gates attached to the terminal and where passengers could load and unload via a bridge. Designed by Zoltan Kiss: The… Continue reading YVR: A Short History

Long before Jimi Hendrix played the Pacific Coliseum on September 7, 1968, he had a Vancouver connection. Jimi Hendrix played the Pacific Coliseum on September 7, 1968. Four years after the Beatles and 11 years after Elvis Presley played Empire Stadium and changed music forever. The difference was that Jimi had a Vancouver connection—his grandmother… Continue reading Jimi Hendrix Plays the Pacific Coliseum—September 7, 1968

Occasionally, when I’m searching for photos using the baffling search engine at Vancouver Archives, I stumble across an interesting building or streetscape that I’ve never seen before. Often the information with the photos is quite detailed, but in the above photo all I had was a photo of the Royal Crown Soap Company building and… Continue reading The Royal Crown Soap Company

A little while ago I was having lunch with Tom Carter and Maurice Guibord at the newly renovated Railway Club. Afterwards, we were walking along Richards Street and Tom gave us a tour of the St. Clair Hotel-Hostel. The Blushing Boutique is on the ground floor and a set of very steep stairs takes you… Continue reading Captain Pybus and Vancouver’s St. Clair Hotel

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History Last week, Michael Kluckner and I were over at Tom Carter’s studio looking out his seventh storey window onto the EasyPark—a cavernous concrete lot that fronts West Pender and takes up the entire city block from Cambie to Beatty Streets. In 2013, Michael had the dubious… Continue reading Our Missing Heritage: Vancouver’s First Hospital

By Michael Kluckner Michael Kluckner is a writer and artist with a list of books that includes Vanishing Vancouver and Toshiko. Summertime, traffic jams, and the changing city are caught in a set of previously unpublished photos taken from the front porch of a Kits Point house in 1923. In 1923, Ogden was a corduroy road.… Continue reading Kits Point and the Summer of ‘23

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History I had the pleasure of visiting Neptoon Records on Main Street for the first time last week. The place was packed with browsers, most of them young. The second thing I noticed was the sheer number of records—thousands of them everywhere you look. They are filed… Continue reading How the Museum of Exotic World became Main Street’s Neptoon Records

There’s a Facebook post going around about “pedestrian scrambles”—intersections where every car stops and pedestrians cross in all directions. It’s a simple concept that saves you from being turned into road kill by a turning car. The video goes onto tell us that “over 40% of pedestrian crashes happen at intersections,” and after scrambles are… Continue reading Let’s Do The Scramble

I am excited to tell you that City Reflections is now on YouTube. As you’ll read in John Atkin’s story, it was a massive volunteer undertaking by members of the Vancouver Historical Society. It has been, and will continue to be, a huge tool for researchers—I would never have got John Vance (Blood, Sweat, and… Continue reading City Reflections: The Epic

By Lani Russwurm Several years ago, I came across an art project by the Goodweather Collective that re-imagined a Vancouver in which the City had left select old growth trees in those roundabouts that dot the city’s residential neighbourhoods. Their photoshop work was convincing and it was jarring seeing our familiar urban landscape dotted with… Continue reading The Mysterious Visit of John and Yoko to Stanley Park

We probably have more monkey puzzle trees in BC than in all of their native Chile. The quirky trees started arriving in gardens in the 1920s. In 2012, I wrote a book called Sensational Victoria and one of my favourite chapters was Heritage Gardens. I visited and then wrote about large rich-people’s gardens like Hatley… Continue reading Vancouver’s Monkey Puzzle Tree Obsession