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The Seven Seas Restaurant
Photo courtesy North Vancouver Museum & Archives 15806, ca.1970s Do you remember the Seven Seas Restaurant? It was moored at the foot of Lonsdale from 1959 to 2002. The restaurant had a crazy...
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Vancouver in the Seventies
Fred Herzog, Foncie, Selwyn Pullan, Michael de Courcy, Bruce Stewart, and Angus McIntyre were just a few who took up a camera in the Vancouver of the ‘70s, and were documenting images of everything...
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Switzer House (1960-1971)
This story ran in North Shore Living magazine last December. If you are not one of the 20,000 people who live in zillion dollar waterfront houses, you may not have received a copy with your North Shore...
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Muriel “Capi” Wylie Blanchet (1891-1961)
In honour of International Women’s Day on March 8, meet Capi Blanchet. Capi lived most of her life in North Saanich on Vancouver Island, and her story is part of the “Legendary Women” chapter in...
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Colouring History
VD Celebrations in Chinatown in 1945. Original photo: CVA 1184-3046 If you’re on social media you are likely already familiar with Canadian Colour–beautiful, eye-popping historical photographs of...
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Our Missing Heritage: The Birks Building. WTF were we thinking?
The Birks Building at Granville and Georgia (where the London Drugs store is today) was demolished in May 1974. Two months earlier, on March 24, a group of people got together and held a funeral. Angus...
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Heritage Streeters from Victoria (with Patrick Dunae, Tom Hawthorn and Eve...
This is an occasional series that asks people who love history and heritage to tell us their favourite existing building and the one that never should have been torn down. 603 Manchester Road in...
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The Missing Houses of Yaletown
Gord McCaw shot this photo of Percy Linden outside his home on June 26, 1986 Do you remember the little house on Richards Street between Nelson and Helmcken? It was one of the last ones standing and...
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Murder, Investigation, and a Dash of Forensics
Laura Yazedjian, coroner with the Police Museum’s Rozz Shipp The first time I went to the Vancouver Police Museum was in the late 1980s. It was a breakfast meeting for a tourist organization called...
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The Marine Building and the Little House Next Door
W.J. Moore’s 1935 photo of the Marine Building, the Quadra Club and Frank Holt’s cabin. CVA BU N7 It’s hard to imagine today, but when the Marine Building opened in 1930 it was the tallest building...
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The Life and Death of Seaton Street
1145 Seaton Street, ca.1890. Owned by Stephen Richards, a lawyer and land agent. Photo Vancouver Archives SGN 297 Last week I wrote about the oldest house in Vancouver—well at least that’s what they...
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Bring Back the Streetcar!
Shocked faces of people riding the streetcar as they get their first look at the new Vancouver Brill (trolley) bus in 1949. Photo courtesy Angus McIntyre. On September 3, 1906 the first North Vancouver...
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They Paved Paradise and put up a Parking Lot
Bus Depot , 150 Dunsmuir Street in 1953. Photo Courtesy Vancouver Archives LP 205.4 My friend Angus McIntyre was a Vancouver bus driver for 40 years and often took photos of heritage buildings, neon...
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Margaret Trudeau and the Daddy Long Legs Disco
Last Christmas, my friend Jason Vanderhill gave me a card showing a couple of disco dancers from the ‘70s. The caption explained that the photo was taken at the opening of something called Daddy Long...
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Tom Butler, The Coach House Inn, and the Belly Flop that Soared
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. Who needs a diving board when you have a hot...
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Our Missing Heritage–The Georgia Medical-Dental Building: what were we thinking?
On May 28, 1989, we blew up the Georgia Medical-Dental Centre, a building on West Georgia designed by McCarter & Nairne, the same architects behind the Marine and the Devonshire Apartments. * And...
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Chesterfield House
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...
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Inspector Vance and the Noir Magazines of the 1930s and ’40s
One of the many fascinating things that Inspector John Vance packed away when he retired from the Vancouver Police Department in 1949 were several true crime magazines. He appeared in all of them....
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Italian Heritage Month – meet the East End’s Angelo Branca
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 Angelo Branca in the 1930s...
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The Chinese Labour Corps: One of BC’s Best Kept Secrets
Robert Ashton kindly sent me this photo of hundreds of Chinese men standing on a hill with rows and rows of white army bell tents in the background. Photo courtesy Vancouver Archives Mil P194, 1918...
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