The murder of Naokichi Watanabe in 1931 exposed an insurance scam, the murder of up to 20 people, a Japanese hitman, and was eventually linked to an assassination ring operating out of a house on East Cordova Street, Vancouver.
The stories for this first series are from my book Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance (Eve Lazarus, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017). Vance was one of the first forensic scientists in North America, and during his 42-year-career, helped to solve some of the most sensational murders of the 20th Century. Each episode focuses on one of those cases.
Japantown, Vancouver in 1928 showing the CPR tracks where Watanabe’s body was discovered behind the American Can Company. Courtesy VPL 4269
Credits:
Intro and outro music: Duke Ellington’s St. Louie Toodle
I’m writing a book about John F.C.B. Vance, the first forensic scientist in Vancouver, and this week I wrote about his first day of work as the new City Analyst. My book is non-fiction, but sometimes you need some creative license. My challenge was to get to get Vance from his house in Yaletown to Market Hall, a lovely long-gone gothic building on Westminster (Main Street) which doubled as City Hall.
You can read all about Inspector Vance, the murders that he helped to solve, and the history that he passed through in Blood, Sweat, and Fear.
I decided that Vance would take the streetcar. I went to Vancouver Archives website, found a map of 1907, blew up the sections of downtown Vancouver, ran them off, taped them together and stuck them on my wall.
Next I played City Reflections. William Harbeck shot the earliest known surviving footage of Vancouver that year by mounting a hand-cranked camera to the front of a streetcar as it rattled through downtown and the West End. Just five years later poor William was dead, a victim of the Titanic, and the film disappeared for decades until it turned up in the home of an Australian film buff who thought he was looking at Hobart, Tasmania.
In 2007, the Vancouver Historical Society reshot the same route and put the two side by side.
The CPR Station dominated the foot of Granville in this 1907 William Harbeck film
Missing heritage:
While it was fascinating to see what’s changed, I was surprised at how much has stayed the same. Back then, as now, construction was everywhere, on every block. The home of the new post office (Sinclair Centre) was going up at Hastings and Granville, as was Fire Hall No. 2 on East Cordova, and the recently defunct Pantages Theatre would soon open as a 1,200 seat vaudeville theatre. Slogans on banners shouted out the benefits of development. As today, Vancouver was attracting investment and visitors from around the world, and property prices were soaring.
Post Office, 1910 CVA Str N117.1
The Vancouver Opera House and the second Hotel Vancouver are long gone, as is the CPR Station, a massive chateau-style building that dominated the foot of Granville Street. But Spencer’s Department store (now SFU) remains, as do several of the buildings between Richards and Homer. The former Royal Bank of Canada is now the film production campus of the Vancouver Film School, the Flack Block built in 1898 from proceeds from the Klondike is still east of Cambie, and what used to be the Central School, is now part of Vancouver Community College. Woods Hotel, just a year old when the film was shot, is now the Pennsylvania Hotel.
Hotel Pennsylvania, 412 Carrall Street, 1931 CVA 99-3895
Three daily newspapers:
In 1907, the Province was one of three daily newspapers. An ad that year boasted that it was read in 90 percent of Vancouver homes, and sold for five cents.
How those times have changed.
I’m not sure how long in real time it would have taken Vance to get to work that day, but it took me most of the week to get him there on paper.
The Vancouver Opera House at Granville and Georgia in 1891. CVA Bu P509
