Eve Lazarus's Blog: Every Place has a Story, page 26
May 29, 2020
The Second English Bay Pier
Most people are surprised to learn that from 1907 to 1939 there was a pier at English Bay, but it was only recently that I found out that English Bay actually had two piers. Local historian and collector Neil Whaley has kindly provided a guest blog about the second pier at English Bay.
By Neil Whaley
English Bay holds a special place in my heart.
May 23, 2020
The murders of Constables Gisbourne and Carr at the Canford Indian Reserve
When I was writing Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance, I experienced the researcher’s equivalent of winning the lottery, when I found seven boxes of files that were thought to have been destroyed when he retired in 1947. There were Inquests, newspaper clippings, autopsy reports, crime scene photos.
May 15, 2020
The Vancouver Aquariums
According to its website, the Vancouver Aquarium was “Canada’s first public aquarium” when it opened on June 15, 1956 in its current location in Stanley Park. Well, no that’s not true, it’s actually Vancouver’s third.
The first Vancouver Aquarium opened in Hastings Park around 1913. I stumbled over this while on Murray Maisey’s excellent blog Vancouver as it Was.
The Vancouver Aquarium and the English Bay Bathhouse
According to its website, the Vancouver Aquarium was “Canada’s first public aquarium” when it opened on June 15, 1956 in its current location in Stanley Park. Well, no that’s not true, it’s actually Vancouver’s third.
The first Vancouver Aquarium opened in Hastings Park around 1915. I stumbled over this while on Murray Maisey’s excellent blog Vancouver as it Was.
May 9, 2020
The Harwood Street House
Donna recently sent me this photo of a house on Harwood Street in the West End. She said: “I came across this picture in some old family photos. I live in Calgary and as far as I know, there is no family connection to the building. There is no date on my photo, and I could not find any reference as to when this building was used for a school.
May 2, 2020
10 ways to research your home (or someone else’s)
Writer, librarian and podcaster Megan Cole sent me an email this week asking for some tips on researching the house where she used to live at 2856 West 5th in Kitsilano. It was such a great question, that it’s my topic for this week’s blog post. Now that many resources are online, researching a house is a terrific way to spend your time in these long Pandemic days.
April 25, 2020
That House on Yale Street
We were trekking around Burrard View Park last week and came across this interesting looking house on Yale at North Kamloops Street.
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.
April 18, 2020
Burrard View Park
Last week we checked out the Trans Canada Trail in North Burnaby and stumbled over what was once Crabtown. This week we walked west to Burrard View Park in Hastings Sunrise and found some more buried history.
At just shy of three acres, it’s not a big park, and runs between North Slocan, North Penticton, Yale and Wall Street.
April 10, 2020
Crabtown
We’ve been taking advantage of the lack of traffic on the roads to take Pickles, our Chiweenie on some new trails. This week we ended up in North Burnaby, parked at the bottom of Boundary and walked along the Trans Canada Trail to Willingdon.
While I’m familiar with the squatters at Maplewood Flats and Cates Park on the North Van side of Burrard Inlet, I’d never heard of Crabtown, a collection of squatters’ homes built on raised pilings between the railway tracks and the water.
April 3, 2020
111 Places in Vancouver that you may not know about
A few months back, I spent a frustrating hour searching for a plaque at the corner of West Hastings and Hamilton Streets. It was unveiled in 1953, as evidenced in a Vancouver Sun article and photo.
It wasn’t there.
Graeme Menzies, co-author of 111 Places in Vancouver that you Must Not Miss, tells me he did the same thing while researching his book and it’s entry #41: “Hamilton’s Missing Plaque.” Turns out it was taken down about five years ago when the CIBC building was demolished and it was never replaced.
