Photo Credit: The Kitsilano Boys Band before embarking on its 8th tour of England and the continent. This tme they traveled by the Orsovo down the coast of America and through the Panama Canal and the Caribbean and across the Atlantic to Southampton, 1962.
NOSTALGIC VANCOUVER The City of Vancouver announced in 1959 that they were going to bulldoze Chinatown to make way for a FREEWAY!
The City ordered bulldozers to cut a large swath down Pender Street through Chinatown and over parts of Downtown Vancouver to build a highway. The City viewed Chinatown as shabby and full of slum dwellings and wanted to run a freeway through its heart and then through the heart of downtown Vancouver. The freeway would wipe out not only Chinatown but Block 68 which was the block bordered by Granville, Georgia, Howe, and Dunsmuir. The venerable Cunningham Drugs and Ingledew’s Shoes were two buildings expropriated in Block 68. The Pioneers in Chinatown viewed their homes as an oasis in a sea of discrimination where the aroma of Asian spices and cooking filled the air on any given day. It was shaping up to be the mother of all battles.
I had to fight with everyone. George F. Fountain, the Director of Planning for the City, and Gerald Sutton Brown, the Manager at City Hall, held seminars about the project. Their mandate was to connect the new freeway to the Upper Levels Highway, so they started demolishing houses which included my mother’s home and school at 320 East Pender Street. My parents lost all their beautiful wooden desks and oak cabinets and lots of antique furniture. It was very upsetting for our family. The Yen Ping Association had sponsored their building of which as I said, my father was a founder.
I got to know everyone at City Hall, in the process. Caucasians, lots of them, everywhere, with titles: Mayor Bill Rathie, Alderman Halford Wilson, Alderman Bill Street, Alderman John Moffitt, Alderman Earle Adams, Alderman Ernie Broome, Alderman Bert Emery, Alderman Harold Winch and Alderman Philip K. All were city councilors, during our fight to SAVE CHINATOWN and because of my winning personality those who were not already good friends became good friends and we all visited each other’s homes at Christmas time. From 1959 through 1963, we fought City Hall to go back on their decision on the freeway. I remember standing with Dean, and everyone else at a City Hall meeting and saying,
“You’re losing the heart of downtown Vancouver. You’re losing the heart of Chinatown. Los Angeles has lost its heart. San Francisco’s has not. Let’s be like San Francisco and keep the freeway out of downtown. Save the heart!” It was a really big deal and we would fight City Hall over this for the next three years. There was a misguided movement in big cities all over North America supposedly to get rid of slum housing by running a freeway through the centre of the city but we weren’t going to let this happen to our housing. More on this later. We won! -excerpts from It Ain’t Over Until Faye Leung the Hat Lady Sings!
The Best Little Movie House in Vancouver 