THE TALK OF THE TOWN

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What Do We Have For You This Month?

Welcome to “The Talk of The Town” for March, 2023. Scroll through the following features to find (and click on images to enlarge):

  • Our Lead Story: The Park Board chooses “Option C” to resolve the Stanley Park bike lane issue.

  • West End News & Notes: A 111th birthday celebration, an explosion and fire just off Burrard, and notes about the Beach Avenue Wishing Tree and those weird sculptures at the Bentall Centre.

  • West End Street Names: Many West End lanes are now named for notable persons who made contributions to the political, social, and business life of our community. This month we look at the story behind Jung Lane.

  • The West End - Coal Harbour In The News: In case you missed it, West End and Coal Harbour news as reported in local media in February.

Our Lead Story

PLAYING THE LANE GAME

by Nate Lewis
At a February 13 board meeting ABC Park Board commissioners chose to double down on the removal of the Stanley Park bike lane.  

Option C was the Park Board’s choice to address the Stanley Park bike lane challenges.

In an attempt to balance the new commissioners’ directives to return Stanley Park Drive to a pre-COVID traffic flow, as well as to deliver a permanent bike lane in the future, Park Board staff offered three options to commissioners at the meeting. 

In choosing option C, ABC commissioners are pushing forward with their effort to remove most of the dedicated bike lane, with the exception of safety and access upgrades in a few areas.

Access will be reopened for vehicles travelling southbound past North Lagoon Drive, to enable easier access from inside the park to the Ceperley Meadow washroom and the Lawn Bowling Club. Notably for West End residents, under the new plan cars will be able to exit the park into the West End along Nelson, Barclay, and Robson. This new traffic configuration was included in all three options. 

Traffic volume along those streets will be monitored and inform future plans for Beach Avenue, which is currently one-way entry access only. Any changes to the Beach Avenue entrance would have to come from Vancouver city council rather than the Park Board.

In addition, all three options were a move away from the ‘temporary’ nature of the bike lane. The orange cones splitting Stanley Park Drive are something cycling advocate Jeff Leigh suggested has generated some of the opposition to the lane. By-pass areas at Brockton Point and Lumberman’s Arch were also included in each plan for people riding on the seawall route.

The report notes that by choosing option C, “a new bike lane [in the future] would have to be built either all at once, or in two phases.”

Preliminary cost estimates in the report peg the cost of each of these phases between $20 and $50 million dollars, which could not occur until 2027 at the earliest. The removal itself will cost around $330,000 and be completed by spring 2023.

West End News & Notes

Neil Fernyhough, the recently appointed executive director at the WECHCPC, invites you to a webinar on the rights and obligations of landlords and tenants.

TENANT RESOURCE WEBINAR
Know Your Rights & Responsibilities

The West End-Coal Harbour Community Policing Centre (WECHCPC) often fields concerns and inquiries from renters, who form over 80 percent of the residents in our neighbourhood.

To help educate the community and their volunteers about the legal obligations of landlords and tenants, WECHCPC we’ll be hosting a free webinar, presented by the Tenant Resource & Advisory Centre (TRAC) in collaboration with the Vancouver-West End constituency office of Spencer Chandra-Herbert, MLA.

Since 1997, the WECHCPC has been our local resource for answering the crime and safety concerns of our neighbourhood.

“No one knows the community better than the people who live, work, and play there” they believe. “When community members join in partnership with the Vancouver Police Department, it means we can all live more safely and without fear. An active community is a safe community.”

This webinar takes place on Wednesday, March 22, from 7 to 9 p.m. You can register here or you can email executivedirector@wechcpc.com.

111-year-old West Ender Merle O’Hara.

MERLE MILLICENT ROMNEY O’HARA
Happy 111th Birthday!

At 111 years old, Merle Millicent Romney O'Hara can still make every day amazing, according to her caretaker at the West End’s Haro Park Centre. “She’s just fun, she’s like a child,” Robert told CTV Vancouver’s Mike McCardell, on the occassion of her birthday last month, for one of his “The Last Word” broadcasts on CTV.

A giant birthday card was filled with well wishes for Merle, and on display in the common space of the care centre. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau even sent her a birthday note saying: “It is a great pleasure to send you best wishes and warmest congratulations on the occasion of your one hundred and eleventh birthday.”

O’Hara was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1912, the year the Titanic sank. She and her husband moved to B.C. after their daughter Bridget's wedding. Both women's husbands are now widows, and 85-year-old Bridget lives at the same home as her mother, making Family Day and birthday celebrations easy for the pair. 

O'Hara is one of the five oldest living people in Canada.

A VFD battallion chief speaks to reporters as firefighters fight the post-explosion blaze.

EXPLOSION ROCKS BURRARD CORNER
J.J. Bean In The Marine Building Closed

An explosion and fire in an underground An investigation has been launched after an explosion and fire in an underground electrical vault rocked the lane north of the Marine Building on Burrard Street the evening of Friday, February 24.

According to a BC Hydro spokesperson “The root cause is really something that we do need to determine. We have preserved the scene and all of the equipment that was damaged by the fire, and we will send it to a third party for testing.”

Witnesses described a deafening blast around 6 p.m., followed by flames shooting from the sidewalk outside the JJ Bean coffee shop in the historic Marine Building on Burrard Street near West Hastings Street.

According to Nicholas Davies, who was working in an adjoining building when the explosion happened, “We heard an explosion and some of us saw a flash of light, and couldn’t really figure out where it came from. But it swayed our building and the windows all shook.” Davies and his co-workers quickly evacuated the building.

Two people were treated for facial burns and lacerations from the blast.

“That’s right in the sidewalk and six o’clock at night, people are walking home from work, going for dinner. I think we are very fortunate not more people were injured,” added Davies.

As the investigation continues it’s too early to say if a third party could be at fault for the explosion and fire. According BC Hydro, the damage to the underground electrical vault and the infrastructure above it will take weeks to repair, and the investigation into the cause could take months. 

A PILE OF JUNK / A WORK OF ART

In case you were wondering about those two unusual sculptures that popped up last month at the Bentall Centre on Burrard, they were new contributions to the Vancouver Mural Festival’s Winter Arts Fest, by an otherwise anonymous artist who goes by Junko.

Looking a bit like a cross between a dog, a grasshopper, and a Transformer from a Michael Bay film, they were part of the festival which ran to February 26.

The artist is based in Montreal, and last summer came out to Vancouver to set up Queen BX1000, a massive yellow piece made mostly of old car parts which sat for several weeks in an empty lot near the Sky Bridge that connects New Westminster with Surrey.

He has also set up pieces in other parts of Canada wherever he feels like building them, and leaves them for people to discover, sitting in unusual spots for weeks. 

All his pieces, while looking like something transported from the future, are made out of found items (hence the name 'Junko'). Habitat was no different, with parts coming from cars, vacuums, and other reclaimed items including skis and old shoes.

"The installation is built with objects that have served their intended purpose and have been disregarded as waste," read a write-up at the installation. "The artist has adapted these objects to serve a new purpose, creating a unique composition amongst already existing structures and depicting forms inspired by the natural world as well as fantasy."

And now you know.

MAKE A WISH FOR NATURE

You have until March 5 to make a wish for Nature, make the Wishing Tree on Beach Avenue twinkle, and prompt donors to contribute another $10 towards creating more parks and protected areas for British Columbians and the many species we share those areas with to enjoy now and forever.

The Wishing Tree, which many have admired since its installation at Barge Chilling Beach, is part of the ambitious campaign by the BC Parks Foundation (BCPF) to set the pace for action in achieving the protection of 25 percent of land and sea in this province by 2025 — hence the campaign’s name “25x25”.

Every time someone registers a wish at 25x25.ca the tree will respond with a flurry of lights and donors will contribute $10 to the cause.

So make a wish”

West End Street Names

In 2017 the City started naming eight of the lane ways that run east and west through the West End. Here is the story behind Jung Lane, which runs between Harwood and Pacific. The West End Journal series “Name That Lane” first ran in 2020/2021.

Vivian Jung circa 1940s. (Chinatown Storytelling Centre Photo)

JUNG LANE

by Lucas Pilleri
Vivian Jung (1924-2014), born in Merritt, BC, was the first Chinese-Canadian teacher hired by the Vancouver School Board. In 1945, at a time when discriminatory policies were prevalent, she became the first woman of Chinese descent to use a public swimming pool, a space then forbidden to non-white people.

To become a teacher, Vivian Jung needed a lifesaving certificate. Her instructor and classmates would train at the Crystal Pool at Sunset Beach, Vancouver’s only public swimming pool in the 1940s. However, Jung was denied access as public policy prevented Chinese-Canadians from using the facilities. In protest, the group refused to enter without her. This act of solidarity proved effective, ending the long-standing discriminatory practice established in 1928.

This was 1945 and City policies included segregation against the Chinese people in schools, public spaces, residential housing areas, hospitals, and even cemeteries. Vivian Jung’s story therefore symbolizes the beginning of a new era when courage and perseverance were common tools.

After she got her certification, Jung was hired at Tecumseh School, where she taught for 35 years. Once retired, she became a student and then a teacher of Tai Chi, volunteered for many local organizations such as the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, the Chinese-Canadian Military Museum Society, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Vivian’s story is showcased at the Chinatown Storytelling Centre, giving visibility and resonance to her narrative – an inheritance that helped shape today’s social climate.

Vivian Jung passed away in 2014 at the age of 89 years.

The West End - Coal Harbour In The News