Posts tagged with “history”

A Vancouver time travelogue brought to you by Past Tense.

Although more associated with Seattle, Heart hit the big time while based in Vancouver. Like many young American men during the Vietnam War, Mike Fisher fled to Vancouver to evade the draft. Eventually his brother Roger, Ann Wilson, and others from the band Hocus Pocus joined him in Vancouver and together they formed Heart. Nancy Wilson became their guitarist in 1974, and the next year they recorded their debut album, Dreamboat Annie, at Can-Base Studios (later renamed Mushroom Studios) at 1234 West 6th Avenue on the Mushroom label.

Dreamboat Annie didn’t catch on at first, and Heart continued to play clubs around Vancouver, the Lower Mainland, and Western Canada. One night after getting fired from a dive bar in Calgary for insulting the establishment’s cuisine on stage, Heart’s manager told them he scored a last minute gig opening for Rod Stewart in Montreal. Unbeknownst to the band, a Montreal radio station had been playing Dreamboat Annie, so at their first big arena show, Heart found themselves playing to an audience familiar with their songs. The album was soon a smash hit, first in Canada, and then the US and around the world.

Heart’s relationship with Vancouver was short-lived, in part because Mushroom published a creepy full-page ad in Rolling Stone Magazine bragging about Dreamboat Annie’s success. The ad showed the bare-shouldered Wilson sisters along with the caption “It was only our first time!”, implying the two were having an incestuous lesbian love affair. When a reporter asked Ann Wilson about her “lover,” she was so infuriated that she went back to her hotel room and wrote “Barracuda” about the Mushroom executive responsible for the ad. (The song was in the news in 2008, when the Wilson sisters sent a cease and desist letter to stop the Republican Party from using it in its election campaign; ”Barracuda” was Sarah Palin’s nickname in high school). After a drawn out legal battle with Mushroom, Heart switched labels and left Vancouver.

Heart endured other sexist indignities throughout the years, especially over Ann Wilson’s weight gain, but their persistence paid off big time and helped paved the way for other women in the macho world of hard rock. This year Heart was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in December the Wilson sisters made a big splash at the Kennedy Center Honors tribute to Led Zeppelin with a lavish rendition of “Stairway to Heaven” that made Robert Plant teary-eyed.

Source: Behind the Music: Heart, via YouTube

A Vancouver time travelogue brought to you by Past Tense.

Vancouver was in the grip of a serious yo-yo craze in the early 1930s. On 6 May 1933, young practitioners had a chance to participate in “the greatest, most spectacular Yo-Yo performance ever staged in Canada,” in the words of the Vancouver Sun, one of the event sponsors. The paper hired Regina’s Joe Young, the reigning world yo-yo champion, to help promote the event. Young (pictured) gave demonstrations through a “travelling yo-yo school” that toured city schools. He also wrote a series of instructional articles for the Sun. Even though the Orpheum contest was strictly a local affair and Young wasn’t competing, the Sun promoted it as a chance for Vancouver kids to take the world title from the fourteen year-old champ.

The price of admission was ten cents for spectators and participants alike. Competitors were required to use Cheerio 99 yo-yos, made by the corporate sponsor of the contest. The first prize of $50 went to Jimmy Wigglesworth and “clever girl yo-yoer” Connie Boyd took home a bicycle worth $35 in a special category for girls.

Joe Young became the world champ in a contest in Manchester where he defeated Victoria’s Harvey Lowe, who had previously taken the title from Young in an international competition in London, England in October 1932. Lowe is the most important person in Vancouver’s yo-yo history, though he doesn’t figure at all in the Orpheum competition. He was too busy travelling around the world promoting the sport and living large off of corporate sponsorships and prize money. In England, he gave the Prince of Wales yo-yo lessons. While staying at the Savoy Hotel, Lowe befriended Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, who were in the room across the hall. Lowe told his family that the famous comedy duo were just as funny offstage as on: “It isn’t just a shtick,” he said, “one would be holding a glass of water, the other would ask what time it was, and he’d turn his hand over, dumping the entire thing on the carpet!”

Harvey Lowe moved to Vancouver in 1949 where he became a well known Chinatown personality. He worked in restaurants and was the stage manager and emcee at the Marco Polo Club. A Chinese gambling den hired him as the doorman to make sure white people didn’t get in because it would attract police attention. Lowe also helped open the Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret and became Canada’s first Chinese broadcaster with “The Call of China,” an English language radio show he hosted for twelve years on CJOR. When Robert Altman filmed McCabe & Mrs Miller in West Vancouver, Lowe was hired to wrangle Chinese extras and ended up showing Julie Christie how to smoke an opium pipe correctly for her role. The Smothers Brothers created a recurring character, “Yo Lama,” just for him on their variety TV show in the 1980s.

Harvey Lowe lived in Vancouver and performed with his yo-yo until his death at the age of ninety in 2009.

Source: City of Vancouver Archives #371-1922

PROVOKE, ENGAGE, ANIMATE. Our vision at the Museum of Vancouver (MOV) is to hold a mirror up to the city and lead provocative conversations about its past, present, and future. Linking the historical record and the living experiences of its visitors to what is happening socially, politically, and culturally NOW; we honour the material culture of the city: mixing history, archaeology, visual arts, design, architecture, urban planning, music, performance, new media, design, fashion, popular culture, and photography. Check us out on our blog, talk to us on Twitter, or stay up to date through Facebook.

MOV staff member Neal Pellegrino is an active collector, finding all kinds of interesting treasures (particularly from the Italian community from which he hails, such as the Astorino sign that recently came down after a long stint at Commercial and Venables) to give to the Museum. Among them is a photo of his father, Emilio Pellegrino, from the 1960s, taken by Foncie Pulice.

The MOV opens an exhibition about Foncie this Thursday, June 6, called Foncie’s Fotos (named after his business). Neal chatted with his dad, an Italian immigrant who grew up in Hope, about his
Foncie experience.

Neal Pellegrino: Ok, to start off what year is this? 

Emilio Pellegrino: Ohhh, it’s got to be about 1961.

NP: How old are you? 

EP: Well I got my driver’s license when I was 20, so I would have been around 21.

NP: Who are the two girls in the picture with you? 

EP: The girl to my left was my girlfriend, Shirley Markoski. She was Polish and we had been
going together for about three months around then. The other girl was Mary Sunada. She was Japanese. Her mom ran a dress shop. Both from Hope, like me.

NP: Yeah, I noticed you all seemed to be from different ethnic backgrounds. When I talk to our cousins they said Italians in Vancouver kind of kept to themselves because it was so easy to just live an Italian lifestyle near Little Italy. 

EP: Maybe, but when you lived in a small town anyone who was an immigrant was your friend. We all worked hard and wanted a better life for ourselves. So Chinese, Czech, whatever. It didn’t matter if they were your neighbor or your friend.

NP: So what were you doing the day Foncie caught you in this photo?

EP: Well, I showed the girls Stanley Park. It must have been in the middle of June, so the weather was warm that day. Then we just walked around. Just being in the big city was exciting enough, just to take it all in.

NP: So it was kind of a sightseeing trip to Vancouver that day? 

EP: Ha ha. Well, I had only visited Vancouver (from Hope) about 3 or 4 times at that point. But
these girls had never gone to the city, so I felt like a big shot showing them the town. I had no idea where to go really, other than the main streets. I used the BowMac sign on West Broadway as a way of finding my bearings. As soon as I saw that, I knew where I was.

Also, my Mama and Papa asked me to pick up imported cheese wheels from Italia. Olive oil, rosa
marina (ooligin style fish in hot pepper and oil’). We couldn’t buy these foods in Hope, so it was a real treat to bring them home. I would go to this store called Tosi on Main Street. I think they were one of the first stores in Vancouver to import foods from the old country.

NP: So you must have done some cruising around the city too. What kind of car did you have? 

EP I was driving a 1956 Ford Victoria. It was orange with black stripes.

NP: And music? What would have been on the radio? 

EP: Well, even though it was the sixties, the roaring 50′s were still popular. Lots of Elvis, Buddy
Holly, Johnny Cash, you know, the good rock and roll.

NP: And did you go out that night? 

EP: Oh no, no, no. Both girls had to get home by 10:00 pm and it took over three hours to get home on the Trans Canada Highway.

NP: Ok, so this photo. Tell me about when it was taken. 

EP: I don’t remember it being taken to be honest. Other than we must have been having a good time and I wanted something to remember that, which is why I bought it.

NP: You would have been given a ticket and told to come pick it up at some point within a year. 

EP: Well, sure I would have. Cameras weren’t cheap and I didn’t have many photos of myself and friends the way people do these days.

NP: And when you look at it now what do think? 

EP: Young people need to get together to have real good time. A car ride with a picnic basket, bottle of wine and you had a good time. Kids spend too much time wanting things to come to them. If you want to watch a movie, you push a button. You want to play a game, you turn on the TV, not get out a deck of cards and invite your buddies over. Young people need to get together to have a real good time!

You laugh more, and when you laugh more, you have less problems. Am I right?

Foncie’s Fotos opens June 6 at the Museum of Vancouver.

PROVOKE, ENGAGE, ANIMATE. Our vision at the Museum of Vancouver (MOV) is to hold a mirror up to the city and lead provocative conversations about its past, present, and future. Linking the historical record and the living experiences of its visitors to what is happening socially, politically, and culturally NOW; we honour the material culture of the city: mixing history, archaeology, visual arts, design, architecture, urban planning, music, performance, new media, design, fashion, popular culture, and photography. Check us out on our blog, talk to us on Twitter, or stay up to date through Facebook.

Talking about apps has been a big thing in the museum world lately – how do you use technology to engage visitors? How can you enhance a historical or artistic experience? What is the role of the museum in using technology to further their mission?

Some museums, like the Guggenheim, launched into the forefront of app development, taking the risk for the rest of us, spending years developing an app that later became irrelevant. Others, like the Museum of London, came in a bit later, developing their street museum only to discover
that it actually increased attendance to their physical location.

When the MOV launched Neon Vancouver | Ugly Vancouver (our neon sign exhibition here at our Kitsilano building) it sparked an unprecedented flow of stories from Vancouverites that
signaled how deeply enmeshed the city’s neon is with local history and ourcivic identity.

Of course, telling the stories of some of Vancouver’s most iconic signs — like the Vogue, Save-On-Meats, or The Orpheum — by bringing them into the MOV wasn’t an option (they’re still in use, and they’re so large they wouldn’t even fit in the building!). So we dreamt up the next best thing: a virtual exhibition and mobile app that would share 40+ stories about 50+ signs and use augmented reality technology to help with the visuals.

At the end of 2011 — with some much appreciated federal funding from Heritage Canada (Virtual Museums Canada) in hand — Hanna Cho, the MOV’s Curator of Dialogue & Engagement, rolled up her sleeves and began work with a talented team of archival researchers, visual storytellers, and interactive producers to create The Visible City.

Just 18 months later we’re thrilled to be releasing an app that is the first of its kind in North America. It takes augmented reality to the streets, and provides countless historical photos, audio stories, and contemporary insights from notable Vancouverites like Dal Richards (legendary big band leader), Vancouver punk icon Joe Keithley of DOA, architect Gregory
Henriquez, and Judy Graves, Vancouver’s advocate for the homeless.

The exhibition traces the rise, fall, and revival of neon in Vancouver, and enables people to explore the rich social and cultural histories associated with the signs. While there are hundreds of neon stories that pepper our city’s historical and contemporary landscape we couldn’t
possibly include them all (there were, after all, an estimated 19,000 signs in the 60s). We ended up focusing on some key signs and stories that illustrate the role of neon in Vancouver’s civic evolution. Do you think we’re missing a sign? We encourage you to add your own photos to the Flickr pool!

We hope you’ll download the app, take one of the two tours with a friend, and contribute your own impressions, stories, and photos to the exhibition!

The app is free to download from iTunes or GooglePlay, or to view online at www.thevisiblecity.ca .

A Vancouver time travelogue brought to you by Past Tense.

The first exclusive neighbourhood in Vancouver was on the CPR land acquired from the Three Greenhorns, on the bluffs overlooking Coal Harbour and nicknamed Blue Blood Alley. Some sources say Blue Blood Alley refers to West Georgia Street, while others say it was Seaton Street (now Hastings west of Burrard), but it may have been the general area. Note the killer view, including the squatter shacks on Deadman’s Island.

When the rest of the West End was cleared and developed as a residential neighbourhood, it was similarly well-heeled. Eventually less well-to-do folks, even renters, began seeping into the area, and the uppercrust decided it was time to go.

The CPR opened up Shaughnessy Heights in 1909 with the intention of it developing as the new prestigious neighbourhood. Lots were offered for a mere $50 down, but only on the condition that the buyer spend at least $6000 to develop their property. During the Depression, many people lost their homes and the area was derisively called “Poverty Hill” and “Mortage Heights.” TheGlen Brae, or Tait Mansion, was being rented out as a kindergarten for $75 per month.

Later in the 1930s, the British Properties in West Vancouver was developed as the next posh neighbourhood. This time the development was financed by the Guinness beer family, not the CPR, which included construction of the Lion’s Gate Bridge to make it accessible. Earlier attempts to build a crossing at the First Narrows were thwarted by a city council wanting to preserve the integrity of Stanley Park, but during the economic crisis, the City was in no position to turn down such a major financial investment and job creation project.

As for the West End, most of the mansions there were converted to apartments or rooming houses, and were then torn down mid-century to make way for the densely populated West End we know today. A handful remain, includingRoedde House, Gabriola Mansion, and Abbott House, the only survivor of Blue Blood Alley.

Source: View from 1287 Robson Street, ca. 1902, City of Vancouver Archives#Van Sc P123.1

A Vancouver time travelogue brought to you by Past Tense.

Beavers are fascinating creatures, but they do not make the most cooperative zoo animals. Beaver Lake in Stanley Park got its name because beavers were spotted there in 1907, but they didn’t stick around. When the area was being beautified in 1911, someone at the Parks Board figured Beaver Lake should, naturally, contain beavers, so a pen was built to house the creatures for public viewing. The beavers simply chewed through the wire enclosure.

A new beaver pond was constructed as a zoo attraction in 1972, with heavy gauge wire mesh covering the bottom to contain the industrious rodents. After the road beside the pond collapsed under the weight of a service vehicle, zoo staff discovered that the beavers had chewed through the wire and tunneled beneath the road so they could cut down saplings from the woods and bring them back into the pond. The tunnel was sealed up, but a short while later, staff noticed the miniature train tracks were starting to sag. The beavers had built a new tunnel. Finally, the beaver pond was drained and the bottom covered with concrete.

Source: Photo by Harry R Stenton, 1920s, City of Vancouver Archives #Misc P56. Story from Richard M Steele, The Stanley Park Explorer (Whitecap Books, 1985).