City Reflections Vancouver 1907 2007

On May 7, 1907, Seattle filmmaker William Harbeck captured street scenes in Vancouver, Canada on movie film. Shot from the front of a moving B.C. Electric Railway streetcar, this is the earliest known surviving film footage of the city. See the residents of 1907 going to work, shopping, cycling. See Vancouver landmarks like the first Hotel Vancouver, the Carnegie Library, the Hudson's Bay store.

One hundred years later in 2007, we take a trip down the same streets and note a century of change. Compare the same street scenes recorded 100 years ago.

Presented by the Vancouver Historical Society. Winner of the 2009 City of Vancouver Heritage Award and BC Historical Federation Merit Award.

bit.ly/2tkUjBZ via @YouTube, @Van_History ‏

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson Repeats Call For Drug Decriminalization

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson says the current approach to the national opioid crisis is not working and he believes decriminalizing illicit drugs would be a “lifesaving shift” in stemming the tide of opioid deaths in Canada.

Grim figures released Tuesday by Public Health Agency of Canada indicated an estimated 4,000 Canadians died from opioid-related overdoses in 2017.

That’s a 30 per cent jump over 2016 numbers.

In a statement Wednesday, Robertson, whose own city accounted for nearly 10 percent of all overdose deaths in Canada last year, said the status quo is not working and urgent, disruptive measures are needed to “turn the tide and end these preventable deaths.”

bit.ly/2SGsT4o via @VancouverSun

Vancouver Social-Housing Proposal Would Nix Art-Deco Building

B.C.’s new housing minister, Selina Robinson, recently announced $83 million in funding for four new affordable-housing buildings in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. But she left out the fact that some significant heritage buildings would be torn down in the process, including the elegant Salvation Army Temple at 301 East Hastings St.

The streamlined art-deco structure was hailed “as modern as tomorrow” when it opened on Feb. 18, 1950. It’s so distinctive, it rates a listing on Canada’s Historic Places website.

bit.ly/2Dgbpqx via @VancouverSun

Canada’s Legal System Needs Efficiency, More Justice Marvin Storrow

Renowned Vancouver lawyer Marvin Storrow wanted to be a brain researcher.

“I ran the electroencephalogram at St. Paul’s Hospital for a bit and got to know a little about the brain, not a lot,” he quips with a laugh.

But the law drew him in.

Storrow was president of the legendary UBC law school class of 1962 that included former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Frank Iacobucci, B.C. Chief Justice Lance Finch, Justice Bill O’Leary, Justice Robert Hunter, Justice Vaughan Hembroff, David Anderson …

And he became a star in the national legal firmament, made more than a score of appearances before the Supreme Court of Canada, was named a life bencher of the Law Society of B.C., and is an elder statesman of the profession.

bit.ly/2GVYDkK via @VancouverSun

The History Of The Ku Klux Klan In Vancouver

[by Lani Russwurm] The Ku Klux Klan is a uniquely American phenomenon, but in the 1920s Klan organizers decided to spread their venom internationally. They set up chapters in Saskatchewan and other points east of the Rockies. During their brief time in British Columbia, organizers spent their energy trying to convince the public that the Klan wasn’t the barbaric homicidal terrorist outfit described in the papers.

Vancouverites knew about the Ku Klux Klan long before they arrived in Shaughnessy in 1925. The original Klan was an obscure racist vigilante group active in the late 1860s and early 70s that sought to restore white supremacy in the American south following the emancipation of African Americans. They would have been a minor footnote in American history if not for Thomas Dixon’s immensely popular book, The Clansman.

bit.ly/2MN6aBB via @Forbidden_Tour