Over 50 years later, the child pictured in this historical Vancouver photo writes:
"Just four years after this photo was taken of me with my parents, my bush-pilot father died in a plane crash. Life has its odd twists of fate and the coincidence in this photo is the Wosk sign in the background. Wosk’s was Vancouver’s favourite emporium back in the 60's and many years after this photo was taken I had the good fortune to work with one of the founder’s sons, Yosef Wosk. It was Yosef who honored our family recently by establishing a scholarship in my father’s name at the BCIT School of Aviation."
The story behind the man who captured this photo? Well, from 1934 to 1979, street photographer Foncie Pulice set up his camera on Vancouver city sidewalks and snapped candid shots of people strolling by. For almost half a century, he took thousands of photos, unwittingly capturing moments in time, the history of a city, and the lives of British Columbians. Photo negatives of Foncie’s images do not exist. He destroyed most of them when he retired. Until recently there was no central archive or collection.
Documentary filmmaker Melanie Wood and British Columbia’s Knowledge Network changed that by bringing these photographs together – collecting them from albums around the province and giving them a public home online and in the film Foncie's Corner. The photos continue to stream in and Melanie shares them with us regularly so we can share them here on our blog.
This is a story about Vancouver, about British Columbia, and about it’s people... so they need your help. Visit Knowledge.ca/FonciesCorner to add your photos and stories to the collection.
