Now listening to The Untouchables by Ennio Morricone and Quarterflash by Quarterflash...

On Robson Street in Downtown Vancouver. Summer of 2016.

Robson Street is a major southeast-northwest thoroughfare in downtown and West End of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Its core commercial blocks from Burrard Street to Jervis were also known as Robsonstrasse. Its name honours John Robson, a major figure in British Columbia’s entry into the Canadian Confederation, and Premier of the province from 1889 to 1892. Robson Street starts at BC Place Stadium near the north shore of False Creek, then runs northwest past Vancouver Library Square, Robson Square and the Vancouver Art Gallery, coming to an end at Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park.

As of 2006, the city of Vancouver overall had the fifth most expensive retail rental rates in the world, averaging US$135 per square foot per year, citywide. Robson Street tops Vancouver with its most expensive locations renting for up to US$200 per square foot per year. In 2006, both Robson Street and the Mink Mile on Bloor Street in Toronto were the 22nd most expensive streets in the world, with rents of $208 per square feet. In 2007, the Mink Mile and Robson slipped to 25th in the world with an average of $198 per square feet. The price of each continues to grow with Vancouver being Burberry’s first Canadian location and Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood (which is bounded on the south side by Bloor) now commanding rents of $300 per square foot.

In 1895, train tracks were laid down the street, supporting a concentration of shops and restaurants. From the early to middle-late 20th century, and especially after significant immigration from postwar Germany, the northwest end of Robson Street was known as a centre of German culture and commerce in Vancouver, earning the nickname Robsonstrasse, even among non-Germans (this name lives on in the Robsonstrasse Hotel on the street). At one time, the city had placed streetsigns reading “Robsonstrasse” though these were placed after the German presence in the area had largely vanished.

Robson Street was featured on an old edition of the Canadian Monopoly board as one of the two most expensive properties.

 

Just finished watching Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man (2026) and The Waterdance (1992)...

Just finished watching Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die (2025) and Scream 7 (2026)...

Now reading Children Of The Mind by Orson Scott Card...

Russians Keep Mysteriously Falling from Windows to Their Deaths

https://www.newsweek.com/russians-keep-mysteriously-falling-windows-deaths-1738954

Ravil Maganov, the chairman of an oil company that criticized Russia's invasion of Ukraine, reportedly died on Thursday after falling from a hospital window.

Although the cause of his death has not yet been confirmed, he is the latest in a series of prominent Russians who have died in seemingly similar circumstances.

Lukoil, Russia's second-largest oil producer confirmed Maganov's death, saying it came after "a serious illness."

However, Russian media reported that he had been found dead by medical personnel after falling out a sixth-floor window of a Moscow hospital.

This follows a number of cases of prominent Russians dying after falls from windows.

In December 2021, Yegor Prosvirnin—the founder of nationalist website Sputnik and Pogrom—died after falling out of a window of a residential building in the center of Moscow.

He allegedly threw a knife and gas canister out of the window before the fall, BBC News reported.

Prosvirnin had supported Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 but later began to predict a civil war and the collapse of the Russian Federation.

On October 19, 2021 a Russian diplomat was found dead after a fall from a window of the Russian embassy in Berlin, Der Spiegel reported.

The man was a second secretary at the embassy, but German intelligence sources told the newspaper they suspected he was an undercover officer with Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB).

Investigative outlet Bellingcat said it used open-source data to identify the deceased man as Kirill Zhalo, the son of General Alexey Zhalo, deputy director of the FSB's Second Service.

In late December 2020, Alexander "Sasha" Kagansky, a top Russian scientist reportedly working on a COVID-19 vaccine at the time, was found dead with a stab wound after falling from his high-rise apartment in St. Petersburg.

According to Russian outlet Fontanka, the suspect, a childhood friend of Kagansky, told police that Kagansky stabbed himself then jumped to his death.

There were also reports of health care workers falling out of hospital windows—some to their deaths—in Russia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two Russian doctors died and another was seriously injured after falls from hospital widows over a two-week period between April and May 2020. Reports said two of the doctors had protested working conditions and the third was being blamed after her colleagues contracted the virus.

And in July, Dan Rapoport, a 52-year-old Latvian-American investment banker and outspoken Putin critic, died after a fall from a luxury apartment building in Washington, D.C.

Police say they didn't suspect foul play, Politico reported, but the case remains under investigation.

Rapoport's friends fear he was assassinated, with one telling The Daily Beast that the circumstances of his death are "highly suspicious." Rapoport had made a fortune working in Moscow before falling out of favor with the Russian government, according to reports.

Rapoport's former business partner, Sergei Tkachenko, fell to his death from a Moscow apartment building in 2017.

Burdened by Tech, Gen Z is Flocking to DVDs and VHS

Consumer reports says 15% of Americans still watch VHS tapes and there’s plenty of evidence that Gen-Z and millennials are actively seeking them out as they yearn for physical media. NBC’s Joe Fryer reports for TODAY.