Cold Case Canada Podcast by Eve Lazarus
Robert Hopkins was a 48-year-old printer who worked at the Vancouver News Herald, one of three daily newspapers. He was a quiet, friendly man who kept to himself and was liked by his colleagues. None of them knew that Bob was gay and lived a secret life. He had to.
The Ironworkers Memorial Bridge collapsed June 17, 1958 killing 18 men, and one diver the following day. It is the worst industrial accident in Vancouver’s history. Thanks to Bruce Stewart for sending photos that his father Angus shot of the tragedy.
Bill Moore:
Bill Moore died on June 17, 1993—exactly 35 years after he survived the collapse of the Ironworker’s Memorial Bridge.
Danny Brent’s body was found on the tenth green at UBC’s golf course on September 15, 1954. An early edition of the newspaper was stuffed inside his shirt soaked with his blood. There was a half-smoked cigarette inside his shirt where it had dropped from his mouth when he was shot—once in the back and twice in the head with .45-calibre bullets.
Harry Jerome and Percy Williams were two of the most remarkable sprinters in Vancouver’s history.
This story is from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
Former Province sports reporter Brian Pound tells me that the first time the two officially met was at a photo shoot that he had set up at a clothing store near the insurance office where Percy worked.
The friendship between Bruce Stewart and Fred Herzog began because of a mutual love of photography and went onto span half-a-century.
Bruce Stewart has been documenting Vancouver ever since his father gave him a reflex camera for his eleventh birthday. A few years later, he started an after-school job at the Department of Biomedical Communications at UBC working with legendary photographer Fred Herzog.
Update: In February 2022 it was announced that the Wing Sang Building at 51 East Pender Street and reportedly the oldest in Chinatown, is going to be the new home of the Chinese Canadian Museum.
Story from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
In 2006, I wrote a story for Marketing Magazine featuring Bob Rennie and his move into Chinatown.
Boot Hill, BC Penitentiary’s cemetery in New Westminster, holds dozens of unnamed graves of burials between 1913 and 1968.
In last week’s blog, I wrote about my visit to New Westminster to see the buildings that once formed part of BC Penitentiary, a federal prison that operated from 1878 to 1980.
Jail for Sale:
In a real estate crazed city like Vancouver where a heritage house can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars over its list price, turns out it’s just not that easy to sell an old jail.
Realtor Leonardo di Francesco has had parts of the former BC Penitentiary on the market since last December, so this week I drove out to New Westminster to check out the buildings and former prison grounds.
