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not pay for this paper.
NEWSLETTER 401 Main Street Vancouver Canada V6A 2T7 (604) 665-2289 Email: carnnews@shaw.ca
Website/Catalogue:
carnegienewsletter.org
YEARS This issue marks the 33rd anniversary of the Camegie Newsletter. The very first publication of any kind was in 1981, when staff put out a listing of what was going on in the Community Centre for that week or month. It was one legal-size sheet with stuff on both sides. I've only ever seen one copy and don't know if it was regular or just something someone did once. A few years later money was found to start the Carnegie Crescent, which was maybe 12-16 pages in a tabloid format. It had local input, with poetry and articles. As time went on it came out 4-5 times a year (seemingly) with the content more and more about the fight for Crab Park. It got later and later between issues and eventually seemed to implode from too many editors. The current incarnation is the Carnegie Newsletter, starting on August 15, 1986. Al Mettrick was the first editor, hired on a UI Top-up program. He'd been a city editor for a Toronto daily. He chose the format and taught those interested the basics of 'how to' and was involved for the first 7 issues. Local poets, writers and graphic artists contributed and it began to take on life. Then AI's UI ran out and he left. There was no publication for Dec 1 but a few people saw it was-
n't that hard. We began the twice-monthly publishing with the Dec 15, 1~6 issue and, with very rare exceptions, the Newsletter has come out on the 1sI & 15th ever since. I've been the editor since December '86 and over two thousand individuals have contributed their energy and talents to give a valid and dynamic picture of life and living in the Downtown Eastside. One of the best teachers is lived experience and many people have given raw and invaluable insight into poverty, housing & homelessness, street life, arts as a means of survival, the drug trade, the sex trade, "free" trade, women and safety to be creative, gentrification, law and the police, racism, landlord & developer greed, community, festivals, conditions and banking and growing food and employment when you have one to multiple barriers, welfare & pensions & friendship & First Nations and being of African descent and the struggles of populations and people from here to everywhere. The Carnegie Newsletter publishes thoughts and poetry and sometimes rants and tirades but keeps xenophobia at bay. We continue. ByPAULR TAYLOR