Vancouver History

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

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History I was driving along Hastings the other day when I saw a huge statue in the yard of Ital Decor in Burnaby. It looked suspiciously like one of the WW1 nurses that guarded the 10th floor of the Georgia Medical-Dental Building before it was imploded in… Continue reading Finding the Rhea Sisters  

I had the pleasure of chatting with Bob Cain this week and discovering his beautiful photographs. Bob grew up in Marpole, at a time when a swing bridge joined Marpole to Sea Island (it was dismantled in 1957 after the Oak Street Bridge opened). “Marpole was a small town like Kerrisdale and Kitsilano,” he says.… Continue reading The Photography of Bob Cain

Tony Antonias, a New Westminster resident and former Aussie started as a copywriter at radio station CKNW in 1955. He stayed there for the next 40 years—to the day. While CKNW creative director, Tony wrote the famous Woodward’s $1.49 day jingle on February 17, 1958. As Tony told me a few years back, the jingle… Continue reading $1.49 Day Woodward’s. $1.49 Day Tuesday

In July 2016, several large cardboard boxes filled with photographs, clippings, forensic samples, and case notes pre-dating 1950, and thought to be thrown out decades ago, were discovered in a garage on Gabriola Island. They form the basis of Blood, Sweat, and Fear: the story of Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s first forensic investigator.  Crime Scene: I… Continue reading The life’s work of Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s first forensic investigator

City archivist Heather Gordon says the recent donation of a whopping two million negatives from the Sun and Province (Postmedia) photo library is the largest photographic collection that Vancouver Archives has ever received. It’s also one of the most important. “The Sun and Province photographers were everywhere, documenting everything, so their work is an extraordinarily… Continue reading Vancouver Archives Receives Two Million Negs

For my last post of 2017, I have compiled a list of my favourite history blogs. To make the list, the blog had to written by an individual and have a strong Metro Vancouver flavor. In alphabetical order: 1. A Most Agreeable Place Lana Okerlund, a Vancouver book editor and writer, has put together this quirky little blog… Continue reading Top 10 History Blogs for 2017

The thing about the Kingsgate Mall at Broadway and Kingsway is you either love it or you hate it. It’s weird or wonderful, strange or quaint, creepy or quirky, but it rarely goes unnoticed. From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History The cupola (a replica of the one that used to top King… Continue reading What was here before? The Kingsgate Mall

Vancouver received its first parking meters on November 12, 1946.  The fee was five cents an hour. For the first 30 years, police had responsibility for checking the meters, and I bet that assignment was the equivalent of standing in the corner with a dunce cap. Parking meter enforcement was transferred to a civilian force… Continue reading Vancouver’s First Parking Meters

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History When I think of all the demolition and destruction that we’ve put Vancouver through over the last century, it amazes me that we still have Stanley Park. It’s not from lack of trying though, developers have been trying to chip away at it for years. I… Continue reading Aborted Plans: All Seasons Park

A couple of months ago Murray Maisey sent me a clipping from the World regarding the death of Thomas Sharpe. Because Constable Sharpe worked for the CPR, I forwarded the clipping to Graham Walker, who did such an amazing job uncovering the murder of Special Constable Charles Painter last year. Graham, now a constable with the Saanich Police Department… Continue reading The Tragic Death of CPR Constable Thomas Sharpe

On June 14, 1994, I started my shift in Surrey. My assignment for the Vancouver Sun was to wait until the end of the Stanley Cup final between the New York Rangers and the Canucks, catch the SkyTrain downtown, and report on what happened. Stanley Cup riot June 14, 1994. Stuart Davis/Vancouver Sun I crammed… Continue reading City on Edge

Last month, Michael Kluckner wrote a guest blog about the buried houses of Vancouver. It was hugely popular and readers wrote in to let me know about more of these houses. Today’s blog is a compilation of those comments, photos and emails. Now a story in Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History. Homeowners… Continue reading More of Vancouver’s Buried Houses

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History Last year, Daien Ide, reference historian at the North Vancouver Museum and Archives was sitting at her desk when she got a tip. A 1994 model of a proposed Lions Gate twinned bridge had turned up at the Burnaby Hospice Thrift Store on Kingsway with a… Continue reading Saving History: Twinning the Lions Gate Bridge

Stephen Joseph Thompson was a photographer working mostly in Vancouver and New Westminster between 1886 and 1905. I’m obsessed with a photographer named Stewart Joseph Thompson. I first heard of him a few weeks back when I saw a photo he’d taken of Georgia and Burrard Streets in the 1890s. Last week, I found a… Continue reading Stephen Joseph Thompson, photographer (1864-1929)

A few weeks ago, Michael Kluckner ran a painting of a Kitsilano house on his FB page. I googled the address and was astonished to find that the house was still there on busy 4th Avenue, buried behind an ice-cream parlour. Michael tells me that only a handful of these buried houses remain, and he… Continue reading Vancouver’s Buried Houses

The Vancouver Courthouse, bordered by Georgia, Hornby, Howe and Robson, was designed by celebrity architect Francis Rattenbury in 1907 and completed in 1911. Since 1983, it has been home to the Vancouver Art Gallery. Pamela Post wanted to know what sat on the site before. What she found was nothing and everything. By Pamela Post The… Continue reading What was there before? The Courthouse

One of the best parts about messing around with history, especially criminal history, is digging up connections. Angelo Branca appears as a Canadian middleweight boxing champion in the 1930s, and as the scrappy East End (Strathcona) lawyer and defender of madams and bookies in At Home with History. In Sensational Vancouver, he is defence attorney to… Continue reading Italian Heritage Month – meet the East End’s Angelo Branca

One of the many fascinating things that Inspector John Vance packed away when he retired from the Vancouver Police Department in 1949 were several true crime magazines. He appeared in all of them. Reporters were intrigued by this scientist who was able to convict criminals through the tiniest piece of trace evidence, or determine death… Continue reading Inspector Vance and the Noir Magazines of the 1930s and ’40s