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.
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 $200 price tag.
In 2017, Tom Carter bought scrapbooks from the Marco Polo that were found in a Chinatown dumpster. The club closed in 1983. From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
By Tom Carter
Tom Carter is an artist, a musician, a historian, and a private collector.
If you live in North Vancouver you may have noticed the old Tudor-style house at Chesterfield and Osborne in the upper Lonsdale Area.
It’s hard to see these days, because several years ago we allowed developers to build two large “carriage” houses, in what was once a magnificent garden filled with hollies, laburnums, cedars, black walnuts, a cherry tree, a rose garden, and a large rhododendron.
It’s hard to fathom how anyone could think that a belly flop competition was a good idea, but Tom Butler did back in the ‘70s, and as it happens, it was.
From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
Stunts:
Former Sun reporter, turned PR guy, Butler was the master of the photo op.
When Tom Butler talked the prime minister’s wife, Margaret Trudeau, into turning up at the opening night of the Daddy Long Legs Disco at the International Plaza Hotel in North Vancouver on July 31, 1979, her appearance scored national attention for the nightclub.
From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
North Vancouver Disco:
The only thing I could find out about the Daddy Long Legs disco was from a Globe and Mail article dated August 4, 1979 which focused on PR superstar Tom Butler rather than the venue he was promoting.
Streetcars operated in Vancouver from 1891 to 1955
This story is from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
Brakes fail:
On September 3, 1906 the first North Vancouver streetcar began its journey at the ferry dock, travelled up Lonsdale and stopped at 12th Street. Jack Kelly was the conductor aboard that inaugural run.
Do you remember the Seven Seas Restaurant? It was moored at the foot of Lonsdale from 1959 to 2002. The restaurant had a crazy 48-foot neon sign easily visible from East Vancouver, and it was the place where locals had their first drink, got engaged, and ate at the city’s biggest seafood buffet.