A friend of mine in the 1980s, Robin Svendsen, was a master machinist who never really retired. He rebuilt Ford Model-T engines in his basement and rented out Hammond B-3 organs from his house, among other things. In the 1950s, he was the stage manager of the Denman Auditorium, and often told the story of when a sold out crowd came to hear Glenn Gould perform a piano recital circa 1951. When the performance ended, Gould left the stage, but the audience kept applauding and cheering for an encore. His manager came up to Robin saying he couldn’t find Gould anywhere, and Robin replied: “I think I know where he is.” Robin went down to the basement, and found Gould soaking his hands in a sink of warm water. He told Gould to listen to the applause upstairs – people wanted him to do an encore. Gould seemed surprised this was so, but dried off his hands and went back to the piano to do a final performance.

September 22 – Edward, Prince of Wales, 25, visited Vancouver. There was a civic reception and a military ball in the Arena in the evening with tickets at $5.

Great bit of history – thanks for the post.

Thanks for this story, Eve and to Mark Truelove for the dramatic colour photo.

I really like Coal Harbour stories – there was a lot of life there in the early years – the navy, the shipping, the yachts and related industry, along with all the people living there on land, on the shoreline and on the water.

Devonian Harbour Park seems very boring compared to what was once there!