July 06, 2012

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SUMMERFEST BACK AT GRIMSTON PARK

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NEW WEST’S FIGHT IS ABOUT CIVIC PRIDE

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AN INVITATION TO A WILD RIDE

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FRIDAY

JULY 6 2012 www.newwestnewsleader.com

After a slow start, the junior ’Bellies took down the PoCo Saints Tuesday night. See Page A10

’Boro could join new riding Boundary changes ‘strange’: MP Grant Granger newwestnewsleader.com

MARIO BARTEL/NEWSLEADER

A poem fragment installed on the exterior of Plaza 88 looms over Columbia Street in Downtown New Westminster.

Poetry, history on Plaza 88 facades Grant Granger ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com

A line from a short poem inscribed on the facade of the Plaza 88 building in Downtown New Westminster is meant to evoke visions of the city’s history. One of the ¿nal tweaks to the project currently being built is a line on the Columbia Street facade that reads, “In making Canada, a tented canopy set upon a hill ...” It’s a line from a very short poem written by Graham McGarva, a founding partner of VIA Architecture, designers of the building.

McGarva said the line is about the city’s earliest days when the Royal Engineers designed and built the area’s earliest infrastructure. “It’s referring back to Col. Richard Moody setting up the encampment up on the hill and they were laying out the communication network, the trails at ¿rst, and then the harbour, then the telegraph and then the interurban railway,” said McGarva. “It’s referring to those soldiers up on the hill.” He said it also refers to other encampments from different workers and parts of society that emerged in the early years, including Chinatown.

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“I’m trying to capture both the noble and the modest parts of New Westminster’s history.” McGarva said not many cities can say they were part of making Canada. New Westminster played that role in 1859 when it became the capital of British Columbia when it was moved from Fort Langley. “It was a key moment in making this country.” A comment to Rhonda Larrabee from her mother is the inspiration for the Eighth Street facade which has a quote saying, “I will tell you once, but you must never ask me again.”

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Larrabee is the Chief of the Qayqayt First Nation that lived in New Westminster along the Fraser River. A smallpox epidemic reduced its population from about 400 to less than 100. Many of those who survived were assimilated into other local reserves or drifted away, and the government seized the band’s reserve lands in 1916. One of its members, Marie Lee Bandura moved to Chinatown to live with her sister, and when she married raised her children as Chinese. Please see ‘YOU MUST NEVER’, A4

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FRESH SOCKEYE SALMON

Queensborough could be separated from the rest of New Westminster on the federal riding map if proposed boundary changes are adopted. The Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for British Columbia is proposing Queensborough become part of the new Richmond East riding. It is currently part of Burnaby-New Westminster, but the commission’s draft boundaries put mainland New Westminster in a New WestminsterEast Burnaby riding, which would include southeast Burnaby (the area north of Grif¿ths Drive from 10th Avenue to Kingsway, then Sperling to the freeway, which would be the northern border). Since 2003, New Westminster has been served by two ridings, Burnaby-New Westminster, currently held by the NDP’s Peter Julian, and New WestminsterCoquitlam and Port Moody served by New Democrat Fin Donnelly. Eighth Street divides the two ridings. Please see CUTTING, A4


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