Larry Wong writes that he was born in Chinatown in the summer of 1938. “My father, a tailor who specialized in custom-made shirts rented a store on Main Street. Our living quarters was at the back of the shop. It was crowded with my parents, two brothers and a sister…”
Read More![Chinatown [Image: Vancouver Courier]](https://vancouverhistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/chinatown-800x445.jpg)
Largely forgotten since his death in 1971, Wong Foon Sien was perhaps the most influential person in Vancouver’s Chinatown, if not in Canada, in the easing of restrictions of the immigration laws. In the late 1940s, the Chinese in Canada were allowed to bring in from China their spouses, unmarried children under 21…
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Ernie Fladell died in Lions Gate Hospital on Friday, Dec. 8, aged 81. Many Vancouverites have never heard of him, even when he was brightening their lives year after year. Not many others have done so much for this town’s performing arts—and for its residents—as Ernie achieved….
Read More![Red Robinson [Photo: redrobinson.com]](https://vancouverhistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/red_72_0040-600x445.jpg)
In the Fifties the adult world looked upon us as a rebellious generation. As a part of that rebellion we had discovered the merits and talents of black singers. To buy a record by Lloyd Price, Ruth Brown, Wynonie Harris or Laverne Baker you had to go to a record store and ask for it by title and artist. The record clerk would bring it from the back of the store or from under the counter in a plain brown sleeve. They were called “race records” and were not featured on the racks along with all the nice lily-white recording artists of the day
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Street names tend to give a lopsided view of local history: in the early years of a municipality they often commemorate businessmen. Local examples include Flavelle, Ewen, Taylor, Hendry, Lonsdale, Keith and Dollarton Highway. CPR officials get a lot of local attention: Matthews, Beatty, Cambie, Hamilton, Angus, Matthews, Salsbury, Whyte….
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