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Published: August 28th 2009
It’s amazing the difference walking up one street makes. Exploring historic Gastown it’s hard to imagine that this was once called ‘Skid City’. The neighbourhood is trendy, polished and touristy. Walk up one street and you’re at East Hastings - the epicentre of Vancouver’s homeless and poverty crisis. They just moved everything up a few streets.
As I draw toward the area I know exactly where I am without even looking at the signs. A red-haired lady stumbles past me, dazed and unable to walk a straight line. She spits here and there. People with shopping carts filled with bags upon bags of belongings push along and as I near the intersection of E Hastings and Columbia to my left there is a huge swarm of people in dirty clothes - literally a hundred I would say.
“Don’t even walk that way. Just cross the street and walk,” says a lady to me as she pushes an elderly man in a wheelchair.
I wonder what is there. My cousin says there is always a crowd at that area - possibly a shelter or soup kitchen. I don’t feel comfortable going there to find out. We walk up one
Gastown
Thought I might as well take a picture of the famous steam powered clock. Some locals walk by and snicker at all the tourists taking pictures of the clock. Understandable.more street and we’re in Chinatown. Dragons and red lamp posts - again a trendy, maybe not as polished neighbourhood. I understand what gives East Hastings that reknown. There’s no simple answer, but there are things that can be done by our government, yet aren’t.
So after our small glimpse at E Hastings we head to Chinatown, the second largest in Canada. I wonder where’s the first? Still as we walk down Chinatown’s neater streets we still catch glimpses of the boarded up windows and dilapidated buildings of E Hastings. We walked along East Hastings further east at some point later on as well and it wasn't as bad in those areas I must say, just that one area we happened to stumble upon. Vancouver’s Chinatown didn’t make too much of an impression on me. Yes it’s big. Toronto’s Chinatown is like two streets, but I feel like I enjoyed Montreal’s Chinatown better due to its small streets with minimal cars and variety of small little shops. It left a warm impression in my mind.
Next stop was Granville Island, a colourful bohemian looking district that reminded me of Kensington Market except spread out with more space. The
Abott and Cordova
Stan Douglas's photo of the gastown riots recreated this intersection in the lower east side of Vancouver. island is host to a variety of small shops and art galleries, but I left the island feeling like I wished I saw more art galleries. Emily Carr Univeristy is also located on the island in an industrial looking warehouse that has been transformed into the university. It seems like a wicked place to go to university and I get the impression it is very difficult to get into. There was also a gallery run by the university however it was closed before we got to it. It looked worthwhile to check out.
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Max Mertens
non-member comment
I managed to find your blog again...
So I learned that Googling "Marta Iwanek + travel blog" didn't turn up too many search results, so I found this no problem again, despite your best intentions. Nice little narrative of Vancouver's different neighborhoods - remind me to play you the song "East Hastings" by Godspeed You Black Emperor next time we hang out. Oh, and we totally need to shoot photos together some day as well.