The House that Joe Built
January 7, 2024
Multiplexes will soon replace single family homes all over Vancouver. How many stories will be erased from our history? I was reading an article in the Vancouver Sun yesterday called “Multiplexes may be coming to your neighbourhood soon.” It’s City Hall’s way of densifying our neighbourhoods, replacing those entitled single family homes with up to… Continue reading The House that Joe Built
That House on Yale Street
April 25, 2020
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… Continue reading That House on Yale Street
Italian Heritage Month – meet the East End’s Angelo Branca
June 17, 2017
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
Joe Ricci’s Vancouver
August 24, 2013
Excerpt from Sensational Vancouver When I write a history book there’s always one character that really captures my attention. In At Home with History it was Alvo von Alvensleben. In Sensational Victoria it was Spoony Sundher, and in Sensational Vancouver, it’s Vancouver City Police Detective Joe Ricci—a kick-arse cop from the old school. I got… Continue reading Joe Ricci’s Vancouver