Every Place Has a Story

The Missing Telephone Operators of BC

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November 5 is the 60th Anniversary of Vancouver’s last manual telephone exchange. Angus McIntyre writes about its history and the changeover.

By Angus McIntyre

If you grew up in the City of Vancouver in the 1950s you may well remember your telephone number looked like this: KErrisdale 3457-M. Or ALma 0609-L.

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Halloween Special 2020

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In the Halloween Special 2020, we visit the Vogue Theatre, and includes stories of haunted grain elevators, a Chilliwack manor and a once “occupied” house in James Bay, Victoria.

Based on stories from At Home With History: The Secrets of Greater Vancouver’s Heritage Houses; Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History; and Sensational Victoria and features an interview with former Vogue theatre manager Bill Allman.

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Missing Heritage: Trader Vic’s

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In the late 1980s when I worked at the Vancouver Stock Exchange, we’d sometimes hang out at Trader Vic’s, the Polynesian-style bar and restaurant that sat in the parking lot of the Westin Bayshore Hotel.

1961 – 1999:

It’s been gone since 1999—taken to Vancouver Island and left to rot.

I was reminded of Trader Vic’s again when I was reading Aaron Chapman’s Vancouver After Dark and looking at the photo of the building disappearing on a barge underneath the Lion’s Gate bridge.

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Woodward’s: Store #1

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Margaret Cadwaladr has written a memoir Food Floor: My Woodward’s Days, a nostalgic walk through the area, filled with black and white and colour photos.

When I first came to Canada in the mid-1980s the Woodward’s Food Floor saved my life. It was literally the only place in Vancouver that sold jars of vegemite.

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Richard Berrow’s Law/History Quiz:

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My friend Richard Berrow designed this quiz for his colleagues in the legal profession, and kindly sent me a copy. I thought that my friends and colleagues in the local history community would also enjoy it, and give these esteemed lawyers a run for their retainers. If you’ve read Sensational Vancouver, you’ll easily answer three of these questions.

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The Manor House on Howe Street

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The Standard Life Insurance building has been at the corner of Howe and Dunsmuir in Vancouver since 1975. It was the third building on the site. In 1889, it was occupied by a hotel.

For more stories like this one, check out Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

As 14-storey office blocks go, there’s really nothing wrong with the Standard Life Insurance building at the southwest corner of Howe and Dunsmuir Streets.

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That House on Yale Street

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This interesting looking house on Yale Street at the corner of North Kamloops in Hastings/Sunrise was built by a bootlegger in 1931. 

The Alvaros:

Turns out the house was built in 1931 at a cost of $8,000—a lot of money smack in the middle of the Depression. Its owners were Joseph and Rosa Alvaro, who kept the house they had at 421 East Georgia in Strathcona as a warehouse, and moved their family (they had four boys and four girls) into the new digs.

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Burrard View Park

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Hastings Sunrise:

At just shy of three acres, Burrard View is not a big park. It runs between North Slocan, North Penticton, Yale and Wall Street. The park slopes down to the water and is shaped like half a house.

The building on the west side of the park has been the Cottage Hospice since 1999.

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