Vancouver Confidential, the book cover illustrated by Tom Carter
Vancouver Confidential, book design by Derek von Essen
Joseph Kennedy painted sign photographed by William John “W.J.” Moore, digitally extracted and enhanced from VanArchives Item : Bu N289
Kennedy's Jazz Cocktails by Druggists Sundries Company Ltd, an ad reprinted in Vancouver's First Century: a City Album 1860-1960 by Anne Kloppenborg, page 83.
Detail from an ad in the Vancouver Star newspaper dated June 12, 1926, showing the Gray Block at Homer & Davie Streets, Vancouver.
Kennedy's Pepp, a prohibition era medicinal liquor bottle label, ca 1917-1922, courtesy of Neil Whaley. Image digitally enhanced.
Kennedy's Stomach Bitters, a prohibition era medicinal beverage. Bottle acquired thanks to Wayne Wagar, from my private collection.
Kennedy's Pepp bottle, a prohibition era medicinal liquor bottle, ca 1917-1922, courtesy of Neil Whaley.
Kennedy's Bitters, Kennedy's Pepp, and Kennedy's imported Vino Vermouth, three bottles courtesy of Neil Whaley.
Kennedy's Stomach Bitters, a detail of the label showing Western Distributors Ltd Vancouver, bottles courtesy of Neil Whaley.
Vancouver Confidential, the final version of the book cover; painting by Tom Carter. It’s official! I’m having a book launch, along with over a dozen of my close associates! I had initially posted the book here but a brand new painting has been completed just for the cover! The cover image shows Hastings and Main from an imagined elevated perspective, giving you a unique vantage point of downtown through a dense stretch of brilliant neon and bustling city streets. This book is not an art history textbook, but instead explores a host of untapped local history from the mid-20th century.
You are hereby invited to attend said book launch on September 21 in Chinatown. If you are a friend of one of us, you may be able to see this Facebook event. If you can’t see it, try this link instead! (No matter what the Facebook RSVP says, I am quite confident it will be a full house! Maybe standing room only!) To all attendees; please wear a hat! (hat optional, strictly for ambiance!)
Many of the contributors to this fourteen-author publication are likely to be in attendance! Drinks will be available from the Emerald Supper Club bar (no host bar).
- 21 September, 2014 at 18:00–21:00
the Emerald Supper Club
555 Gore Avenue, Vancouver, BC
If you can’t make this book launch, I personally expect we will do more book promotional events in the near future, such as readings in libraries, public and private spaces, etc. For example, I am personally planning to give a reading at Long Table Distillery on the edge of Yaletown & False Creek (1451 Hornby St) in mid-October, just steps from the former Joseph Kennedy warehouse (it was at 1208 Homer St)! Details as they become available!
So what is this book all about?
From the back cover:
Most civic histories celebrate progress, industry, order, and visions. This isn’t one of those.
Vancouver Confidential takes a fresh look at the rare urban culture of a port city in the mid-twentieth century. These were years when Hastings and Main was still a dynamic commercial and entertainment hub, when streetcars thrummed through the city, and when ‘theatre’ meant vaudeville and burlesque. Street gambling and illegal booze cans peppered the map, brothels and bootleggers served loggers and shore-workers, and politicians were almost always larger than life.
This new compilation honours the hustlers and the hobos, the mobster and the muscle, the bent and the straight, the mug in the mug shot, the ingénue and the spy, the anonymous woman at the till, the victim at the murder scene, and the crusading reporter in disguise. It illuminates aspects of a city in disguise. It illuminates aspects of a city that was too busy getting into trouble to worry about whether or not it was ‘world class.’
Vancouver Confidential includes essays from Tom Carter, Aaron Chapman, Jesse Donaldson, James Johnstone, Lani Russwurm, Eve Lazarus, Diane Purvey, Cathrine Rose, Rosanne Sia, Jason Vanderhill, Stevie Wilson, Will Woods, Terry Watada and John Belshaw.
And what is my particular chapter about, you ask? It’s an exploration of prohibition in Canada and the US, cocktails in Yaletown, and an ambitious American entrepreneur named Daniel Joseph Kennedy. I’ve included some of my favourite photos on the subject in this post, and there will be much, much more revealed within the pages of this book! This is all very exciting, as these stories have not yet been told to this degree, and now you can read them all in one book! Very special thanks to Anvil Press for publishing, John Belshaw for editing, and Derek von Essen for designing the book! Such a diverse collection of stories by a very dynamic group. Thank you all for your interest!