Widely read as a gossip columnist and "saloon reporter" for The Vancouver Sun, downtown gadfly Jack Wasserman was born in Winnipeg on February 17, 1927. He joined the Sun in 1949 after working for the Ubyssey student newspaper at UBC where he had entertained ambitions to become a lawyer. His long association with the nightlife scene resulted in part of Seymour Street being renamed Wasserman's Beat after he suddenly died of a heart attack on April 6, 1977 while delivering a speech at the Hotel Vancouver as part of a roast for Gordon Gibson Sr.

Wasserman also hosted a CJOR open line show that resulted in his being fired by the Sun, only to be rehired 18 months later. Jack Wasserman hosted the CBC television program Hourglass but he is not to be confused with a different Jack Wassermann who published Vancouver on 5,000 Calories A Day: A Guide to Dining Out (November House, 1971). The post office learned to differentiate the two writers by noting the different spellings of their surnames.

[See Jack Wassermann entry].

[BCBW 2006] "Journalism"