Vancouver Magazine, JulAug 2017

SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY ISSUE Celebrating our five solid-gold decades in this fair city, where we get to have our cake and eat it too

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Rodney Graham, Paddler, Mouth of the Seymour, 2012–13, three painted aluminum lightboxes with transmounted chromogenic transparencies, Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Purchased with funds from the Vancouver Art Gallery Acquisition Fund and a financial gift from Phil Lind, © Rodney Graham, Courtesy 303 Gallery, New York

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VA N M AG . C O M

J U LY/AU G U S T 2 0 1 7 // VO LU M E 5 0 // N U M B E R 6

City 16 We’ve Covered It All We kick off our 50th anniversary issue with notable front pages from VanMag’s history.

20 The Incredible Shifting City How Vancouver went from an industrial outpost to a bona fide metropolis.

24 Freeze Frame Exploring the big-city changes that play out at street level.

30 Building Review Board Industry experts scrutinize Vancouver’s successes and failures after five decades of architectural overhaul.

32

Vancouver’s Future Hinges on Chinatown

FONDUE: CLINTON HUSSE Y; OLIV: TRAF; WRECK BEACH: HEATHER DEAN; CHINATOWN: ANDREW QUERNER; DUNSMUIR STREET HISTORIC PHOTO: CIT Y OF VANCOUVER; FASHION: PETER GRAVELLE

As the perennial debate on density reaches a turning point, will affordability or heritage win out?

People 42 When We Were Young A photographer’s journey into Vancouver’s excellent ’80s club scene.

46

About That Story...

Our past editors and contributors share the stories, characters and triumphs that have stayed with them over the years.

Life 58 Time Capsule Wild and wonderful fashion shoots from our archives.

60 Eating Our Words A look back at 50 years of memorable meals and moments—and which spots are still standing.

64

Lonely Planet ’97 Revisited Charting the transformation of modern Vancouver with a 20-year-old travel book as your guide.

Client: C|Prime / Size: 4.6” X 4.9” / CMYK / Vancouver Magazine

General Manager | Publisher Dee Dhaliwal Editorial Director Anicka Quin Art Director Paul Roelofs Executive Editor Stacey McLachlan Senior Editor Jessica Barrett Food Editor Neal McLennan Associate Art Director Natalie Gagnon Associate Editor Julia Dilworth

A NEW YORK ITALIAN STEAKHOUSE

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Videographer Mark Philps

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Staff Writer Kaitlyn Gendemann Contributing Editor Amanda Ross Editorial Interns Christine Beyleveldt, Maansi Pandya, Aryn Strickland, Aoife Woods Art Intern Lydhia-Marie Bolduc-Gosselin Editorial Email mail@vanmag.com Account Managers Judy Johnson, Jenny Miller, Manon Paradis Sales Coordinator Theresa Tran Production Manager Lee Tidsbury Advertising Designer Swin Nung Chai Marketing & Events Manager Dale McCarthy

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VA N M A G . C O M J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 1 7

ED NOTE

Fifty Years Young Raising a glass to five decades of documenting our ever-changing city.

Anicka Quin EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

ANICK A . QUIN @VANMAG . COM

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VA N M A G . C O M J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 1 7

THE COVER Stylist Nicole Sjöstedt and typographic illustrator Ben Didier set the scene for our 50th anniversary party, and photographer Clinton Hussey captured the moment.

Sources: Distinctly Home linen tablecloth and napkin, Hudson’s Bay. Tommy Champagne saucer by Saint Louis, Ecume gold charger by Bernardaud, H-Art satin gold stainless fork

by Sambonet, Atkinson’s. 18K gold Bee Chic ring, Bee Chic Opal bracelet, gold and rose gold Oval bangles designed by Robert Coin, Maison Birks. White birthday cake, Butter Baked Goods.

SPEC IAL ANN IVER SAR Y ISSU E

Celebrating our five solid-gold

JULY / AUGUST 2017

14

FOLLOW US ON

// $4.99

decades in this fair city,

where we get to have

our cake and eat it too

PORTRAIT: EVA AN KHERA J; ST YLING BY LUISA RINO, MAKEUP BY MEL ANIE NEUFELD; DRESS COURTESY NORDSTROM; WATCH COURTESY TIFFANY AND CO. PHOTOGRAPHED AT THE AVIARY, THEAVIARY.CA . EAST VAN: MARK FAVIELL .

stick of pepperoni while his dad grabbed a beer; in another, a group of 40-somethings triumphantly listed the six breweries they’d already visited that day; and my group decided to loll a little longer in the bright white tasting room of Callister Brewing—one of our crew had her eye on a guy she’d met in meditation class that day, and he’d just wandered in.

Our young and flexible city creates these new spaces seemingly overnight, a magic trick this 50th anniversary issue explores. Fifty years is several lifetimes in Vancouver, with dramatic physical shifts—our aerial maps of early ’70s versus present-day Vancouver show a bird’s-eye view to these changes (page 20)—and cultural ones, too, some of which are documented by Michael Hingston as he attempts to navigate the city with a 1997 Lonely Planet guide (page 64).

And through all these shifts, Vancouver magazine has been a constant of sorts: here to witness, to document, to debate, and to reflect our city back to you. There are without a doubt many more changes to come in our nearand long-term future—some welcome, some controversial, some short-lived themselves.

It’s hard to imagine what this city will look like in five, 10, even another 50 years, but whatever Vancouver’s cultural and physical landscapes become, the VanMag team looks forward to many more years of documenting and debating them, and to evolving alongside our city and its citizens.

S P E C I A L 5 0 TH A N NIVERSARY ISSU E

AS I WRITE THIS, the May long weekend has just wrapped up, and the cruelty of this past spring’s incessant rain has been instantly forgiven after the greatest day at the beach. Possibly even better, on yet another sunny day, I took a leisurely and schedule-free stroll with friends through a few of the newer craft breweries that make up “Yeast Van.” It was a great weekend and the perfect set-up for me to put the finishing touches on this 50th anniversary issue.

Compared to many of our eastern counterparts, Vancouver is a young city. This means that heritage structures are thinner on the ground here (though Matt O’Grady’s “Vancouver’s Future Hinges on Chinatown” [page 32] offers plenty to think about in terms of how to move forward while protecting the heritage we have). But it also means we’re often far more open to change than older cities, and, as our editorial team has discovered in diving through 50 years of back issues, our neighbourhoods have changed quickly.

It’s well illustrated in our feature, “When We Were Young” (page 42), from the artist Oraf—whose photos appeared in the magazine in the late ’80s and early ’90s. His shots from the city’s gay bar scene of that era shine a light on a different Yaletown, when, in 1981, it was a dangerous spot to be after-hours—the empty warehouses felt foreboding after the sun set (though a bold many made their way to the Gandy Dancer, a Saturday Night Fever-esque club in its midst).

I was struck by the start of a similar transformation as we wandered through the still-industrial neighbourhoods that host Andina, Callister and Bomber breweries.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon, we were part of a scene that didn’t exist five years ago: at one stop, a toddler perched on a stool with a

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November 1976

March 1977

September 1977

February 1978

July 1979

July 1980

April 1981

October 1981

We’ve Cov 50 C OV E R S

May 1969 VanMag’s origins are rooted in the digest-sized Dick MacLean’s Greater Vancouver Greeter Guide, rebranded as Vancouver magazine in 1973.

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VA N M A G . C O M J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 1 7

Boomers, GenXers, futurists, surgeons, mayors, millennials, foodies, developers, movie stars, hockey players, chefs, singers... steaks. Fifty years of VanMag covers a lot of ground.

October 1983

October 1985

April 1986

February 1987

March 1987

May 1987

September 1987

October 1987

vered It All September 1993

January 1994

September 1996

March 1997

Jan/Feb 1999

March 1999

Jan/Feb 2000

March 2002

Vancouver 32 RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR: THE ENVELOPE,PLEASE. . .

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52 November 2011

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THEN & NOW

The Incredible Shifting City

From industrial outpost to bona fide metropolis, we’ve watched it all go down.

Jessica Barrett

NO ONE CAN ever accuse Vancouver of stagnating. Back when our first issue hit the streets in 1967—as Dick MacLean’s Greater Vancouver Greeter Guide—this city had already evolved from a coastal backwater to an urban centre of 400,000 defined by a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it pace of change. This snapshot from the early 1970s captures the city at a crucial turning point. The Georgia Viaduct had yet to open, although vigorous protests had already killed the plan for its adjoining freeway through Strathcona, and icons like Granville Island were just an idea as False Creek was a semideserted industrial slough awaiting rediscovery. Set in tandem with the same aerial view from today (next page), it’s amazing to see just how far we’ve come.

An Icon in Progress Stanley Park had long been established as Vancouver’s crown jewel, but the pathway around it? Not so much. The seawall as we know it was still under construction— a project that had been ongoing since 1917. The loop around the park was finally completed in 1980, when the stretch between Second and Third Beaches was paved.

Urbane Beginnings Once the domain of stately mansions, the West End saw more than 200 high-rise apartment towers built between 1962 and 1975, forming Vancouver’s first introduction to the vertical density that would become the backbone of downtown—and the never-ending debate over whether it should.

Then

GORDON SAYLE, CIT Y OF VANCOUVER ARCHIVES

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U R B A N E VO L U T I O N / C H I N ATOW N C O N T R OV E R SY / R E A L E S TAT E R E F L E C T I O N S

Hidden Potential The former epicentre of Vancouver’s industrial activity had been in decline for decades as sawmills closed and manufacturing companies moved away from shipping and rail lines on the waterfront toward suburban locales closer to the highway. But when a deal saw the downtown waterfront property go from provincial to city control, the stage was set for its transition into a glistening urban gem.

1981 A Bridge to the Past Another relic of Vancouver’s industrial heritage, the Cambie Bridge was originally a swing-span structure engineered to open to allow shipping vessels through. Even into the ’60s and ’70s the bridge, built in 1911, would open a few times a week. The structure didn’t get an update until the 1980s—just in time for a little thing called Expo 86.

VA N M A G . C O M J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 1 7

21

City

THEN & NOW

Money Magnet It’s no secret our heightened international presence has attracted investment from all over the world. From luxury cars to state-of-the-art hotels to the constantly increasing cost of housing, it’s clear our city is seen as a safe harbour for those seeking a stable investment. Balancing prosperity with people has become our biggest, most pressing challenge.

Defining Characteristic The West End’s mid-century towers are now emblematic of Vancouver’s evolution, with the arrival of glass condo buildings in the 1990s quickly sweeping across the city to become its most ubiquitous built form.

Our propensity for slim towers interspersed with low-rise structures even earned us a place in the international urban planning lexicon: “Vancouverism” is a thing.

Now

FIACRE MÜLLER

Neighbourhoods in Waiting Yaletown’s conversion from industrial dead zone to thriving residential community paved the way for the Olympic Village to reinvigorate the south side of False Creek. As the city now prepares to take down the Georgia and Dunsmuir Viaducts we await another ambitious industrial conversion.

Tourist Mecca If Expo 86 piqued the world’s interest in this little coastal city, the Vancouver 2010 Olympics solidified our place as an ultra-desirable travel destination. Tourism rates are skyrocketing, with more than 10 million visitors landing in the city in 2016. All this makes a big impact on our bottom line—tourism brings in $4.4 billion annually, and each cruise ship that pulls into Vancouver Harbour is worth $2 million to the local economy.

Recovery and Renewal The sightings of a grey whale in False Creek in the last few years are a testament to the city’s successful work to atone for its polluted past and install environmental sustainability as a key pillar of our civic identity.

VA N M A G . C O M J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 1 7

23

Freeze Frame

Then: Stay at the Hotel Vancouver: $16 for a single room, $21 for a double

A close-up look at some of our city’s notable areas reveals our skyline isn’t the only thing to have changed over time.

BY

Jessica Barrett

CONTEMPORARY PHOTOS BY

Lucas Finlay

Then: Car rental, mileage and gas: $9 a day at Host Rent-a-Car

Alberni and Bute It’s hard to believe character houses were once commonplace downtown. Back in 1971 (top), off ice towers were already creeping in on residential areas, but this single-family house endured with vacant lots on either side. Today (bottom) this strip at Alberni and Bute has been transformed into a crowded commercial area offering ultra-modern conveniences to West End residents, high-end tourists and business clientele in the downtown core.

Now: Six-pack of Central City Red Racer Pilsner at BC Liquor Stores: $9.99

HISTORIC PHOTO COURTESY CIT Y OF VANCOUVER

Now: Weekend stay at the Shangri-La Hotel: $645 per night for a Superior room

Now: Car2Go day rate: $65 plus tax

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Then: CP Railway standard train fare for two from Vancouver to Montreal: $224.50

Downtown Waterfront Proof of Vancouver’s birth as a port city, this photo from the 1960s (top) shows piers B and C for the Canadian Pacific Railway in front of a much-sparser downtown.

Built in 1927, the piers received cargo and visitors from all over the world until they closed in 1955. In the 1980s, the buildings came down to make way for the distinctive multi-sailed structure we now call Canada Place (bottom).

Mainland and Helmcken Like so many things, the Yaletown of the 1980s is nearly unrecognizable today. Around the time of this 1981 shot (bottom left), the area was a neighbourhood-in-waiting, home to abandoned industrial warehouses, a few gay

Then: Sale price of a “Yaletown property:” $525,000

bars (more on that on page 42) and something of a rough reputation. Today (bottom right) the über-trendy area is the epitome of urban renewal with its hip start-ups, bustling restaurants and beauty bars making it a very palatable place for a real estate investor.

Now: Assessed value of this building at 1122 Mainland St.: $51,233,000

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THEN & NOW

Then: Parking: 10 cents for the first hour at Downtown Parking Corp.

Dunsmuir and Beatty For evidence of the city’s progress in weaning us from our reliance on the car, look no further than this intersection in the southeast corner of downtown. Once a veritable ode to the automobile, as in this 1974 shot (top), this prime piece of real estate has become a city-sanctioned safe haven for cyclists, pedestrians and transit riders—much to the chagrin of anyone angling for a parking spot.

Homer and Robson

City

Back in 1981 (bottom left) T HRobson E N & Street N O Whad yet to become Vancouver’s upscale retail row. Rather, the modest houses, mom-and-pop storefronts, and concentration of German residents gave it the

Then: Gas: 29 cents a litre; minimum wage: $3.65

moniker Robsonstrasse. Today (bottom right) pricey commerical rent downtown has driven distinctly unglamorous (but necessary) amenities like gas stations entirely out of the area—but you can bet you’ll never be left without a place to fuel up on caffeine.

Now: Starbucks Grande Latte: $4.25; minimum wage: $10.85

HISTORIC PHOTOS COURTESY CIT Y OF VANCOUVER

Now: Parking: 10 cents for three minutes at a downtown parking meter (or skip it altogether and take the SkyTrain: $2.75 for a 90-minute one-zone trip).

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Huey Lewis & The News August 26th

Yestival: Yes, Todd Rundgren, and Carl Palmer of ELP September 3rd

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City

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Building Review Board

The last five decades have seen a near complete overhaul of Vancouver’s architectural landscape.

Here’s what we thought of some of the memorable buildings at the time— and some professional sober second thoughts.

Neal McLennan illustration by Josué Menjivar by

BC Place

Science World/Expo Centre

Architect Studio Philips Barratt

Architect Bruno Freschi

Date Opened June 1983

Date Opened April 1985

Our First Impression “It’s Canada’s first, North America’s largest, the world’s most beautiful air-supported dome.”

Our First Impression “Expo Centre, will be accessible to anyone with $4.50 [with] such fave fare as trains roaring through tunnels, and hot air balloons drifting over a vertiginous world.”

A Sober Second Thought “I like to think of the stadium’s awkward roof as a bit of misplaced 19th-century industrial infrastructure: views to its steel roof pylons (looking east down Georgia Street, for example) providing a large-scale antidote to the relentless living-unit-sized module of the surrounding condo towers.” —Matt McLeod, McLeod Bovell Modern Houses

A Sober Second Thought “Caught between the sparse, post-industrial flats of False Creek and the newly developed density of Olympic Village, Science World stands out as an optimistic assertion of a future that has yet to arrive.”—Piers Cunnington, Measured Architecture

Canada Place

The Central Library

Architect Eberhard Zeidler

Architect Moshe Safdie

Date Opened May 1986

Date Opened May 1995

Our First Impression “But this is an ocean liner. It has that 1930s streamline-moderne look, when the greatest of the multi-funnel liners were built. The hotel’s lobby has the feel of a Cunard-White Star ballroom.”

Our First Impression “[Moshe Safdie] says, you’ve got me all wrong. The library was never even supposed to be the Colosseum. He has said this to reporters with a straight face.”

A Sober Second Thought “Love it or hate it, it welcomes us quietly, proudly. Acontextual, yet surprisingly familiar, it reminds us that we can take architectural risks that impart a sense of place.”—Marianne Amodio, MAAStudio

30

VA N M A G . C O M J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 1 7

A Sober Second Thought “Much maligned

by West Coast purists, the Colosseumesque Library is Safdie’s post-modern rebuttal to our city of glass—it’s warm, jokingly classical, and unabashedly outof-place.”—Michael Harris, design writer

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VA N M A G . C O M J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 1 7

HIN GE S

VANCOUVER’S FUTURE

The perennial debate over density is pitting affordability against heritage in one of the city’s oldest, most distinctive neighbourhoods.

BY

Matt O’Grady Andrew Querner

IMAGE CREDIT

PHOTOS BY

ON

CHINATOWN CHI

Chinatown's historic buildings hearken back to a time when it was a bustling home for Vancouver's Chinese community. Is saving them the key to reversing the neighbourhood's decline?

IN DEPTH

ROM HER third-floor offices, Carol Lee has the perfect view into Chinatown’s storied past, as well as to the harbingers of its potential future.

Lee’s building, at 127 East Pender, is home to Linacare—a skin care company she co-founded with Dr. Henry Fung in 2003. The heritage property dates to the turn of the 20th century and has been in the Lee family since 1921, when grandfather Ron Bick Lee bought it and later opened an import-export business. In form and function, it’s similar to many of the two- or four-storey buildings on this street—the restaurants, greengrocers and general merchants who form the backbone of historic Chinatown.

“Back when I was growing up, this area was vibrant,” says Lee, surveying the trickle of foot traffic on Pender Street late on a Friday afternoon. “It was a really exciting place; it was a neighbourhood place. I don’t just mean for Chinese people—everybody. If you grew up in Vancouver, you had some sort of recollection of coming here.” In recent decades, however, Chinatown has declined— partly due to changing economic conditions, which have driven many businesses (and shoppers) to other parts of the city, and partly due to the creeping social issues spreading from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

This being Vancouver, where some see decline, others see an opportunity to develop abandoned lots

DECADE BY DECADE

There Goes the Neighbourhood From heritage to density to housing prices, panic and outrage over Vancouver real estate has formed the basis of our civic identity since time immemorial—or at least for most of the life of this magazine.

34

1974

“Some heritage! It is a throwback, an outmoded impediment to this city, a gravestone to a bankrupt period that we might better forget,” raged Mac Parry (a future VanMag editor-inchief), over the city’s plan to save the Orpheum Theatre—then a cinema— by buying it for about $7 million.

Benchmark home price: unknown; no one was tracking just yet.

VA N M A G . C O M J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 1 7

and dilapidated buildings, and inject new blood into Chinatown. In the past few years, the surrounding streets—Main, Union, East Georgia and Keefer—have received an influx of non-traditional businesses and residents looking to capitalize on the area’s central location and relatively cheap rents.

For some Chinatown stalwarts, the change is cause for concern. That is why Lee formed the Vancouver Chinatown Foundation in 2012, which counts as board trustees Bob Lee (Carol’s developer father), Robert H.N. Ho (a renowned Chinese cultural philanthropist) and Brandt Louie (CEO of the H.Y. Louie Co. and London Drugs). Their mission: to purchase and rehabilitate many of Chinatown’s historic properties, reinvigorate its business community, and preserve and enhance the neighbourhood’s unique cultural heritage.

Lee is quite animated about the last two points.

1976

“Nowhere have the cries of persecution, nay, crucifixion, by civic authority been quite so shrill as here, where owners press on with higher and longer buildings that thrust out and over the bank and into the panoramic view like so many brood sows leaning into the trough,” reads this rather dramatic lament of the loss of public waterfront in Point Grey.

Benchmark home price: $67,942

1983

In “Peril on the Slopes” we told a familiar tale: density privileges allow developers to come along and overhaul Fairview.

Outrage ensues. “People used to write poetry about the Slopes,” waxed long-time resident Netta Sterne in the story. “Today nobody writes poetry; it is strictly real estate.”

Benchmark home price: $125,776

BENCHMARK HOME PRICES FOR A DETACHED SINGLE FAMILY HOME IN METRO VANCOUVER SOURCE: REAL ESTATE BOARD OF GREATER VANCOUVER CHINATOWN: ANDREW QUERNER; ORPHEUM: COLIN KNOWLES

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IN DEPTH

“That’s how I ended up with the two restaurants,” she says, chuckling, of the iconic Foo’s Ho Ho and soon-to-open Chinatown Barbecue. The foundation also bought the nearby BMO building in 2016 and plans to open a storytelling centre dedicated to the history of ChineseCanadian immigrants there later this year. “If you don’t have any Chinese businesses here, any real culture, you have Gastown,” Lee says.

Dreaming of the future, she sees a bustling streetscape full of restaurants and businesses, school kids on field trips at the storytelling centre, old people doing exercises in the park—even an open market down the street, as there was decades ago. What the neighbourhood doesn’t need more of, she says, snapping back to reality, are hipster restaurants or bars. It definitely doesn’t need the 12-storey condo tower proposed for the now-empty parking lot at the corner of Keefer and Columbia.

The development by Beedie Development Group at 105 Keefer/544 Columbia has become a stand-in for the larger debate surrounding the future of Chinatown— and Vancouver at large. At the heart of the matter: how should the city preserve neighbourhoods without letting them ossify?

Placed in just about any other downtown context, the Beedie development would appear to be just what the city needs: a mix of market housing (including 33 two-bedrooms and four three-bedrooms—exceeding the city’s requirement for 25 percent family housing), social housing, and small-scale “shopfront” spaces, three of which open onto the laneway north of Keefer—a form of retail that’s emblematic of Chinatown. And, indeed, the city’s 2011 plan for this part of Chinatown just south of Pender specifically created the conditions for applications like this, with the aim to direct growth to areas with fewer heritage buildings.

Of course, a lot has changed in six years, including a dramatic upswing in housing prices, growing concerns about affordability, and outrage over the loss of

DECADE BY DECADE

1985

“Vancouver is, in fact, well behind every other major city in Canada when it comes to saving and refurbishing old buildings,” declares a pro-heritage column, which goes on to blame lack of incentive and an influx of “Hong Kong money” for the impending demolition of the Orillia, a wood-framed heritage building that is now an office tower at 605 Robson St. Benchmark home price: $123,173

36

1991

“Five years from now the West End, home of the city’s traditional rental apartment stock, will be surrounded and the skyline will have changed dramatically. All the vacant lots will be towers and all the towers will be condos,” reads a prescient passage from a story detailing—you guessed it—the arrival of condos in the West End. Benchmark home price: $264,076

VA N M A G . C O M J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 1 7

If you don’t have any Chinese businesses here, any real culture, you have Gastown.” — c a rol l e e neighbourhood “character”—be it historic Chinatown buildings or modest pre-war homes. In that context, it’s not surprising that public feedback on the Beedie development was intense. By mid-April of this year, the city says it had received more than 4,500 “pieces of feedback.” As city staff wrote in their report to council, the development has “become a symbol of the struggle of the Chinatown community and the city as a whole to define the future for Vancouver’s Chinatown.” (While city staff supported the proposal, council decided to refer 105 Keefer to a final public hearing in late May, which drew hundreds of speakers.)

While Beedie Group was reluctant to comment in advance of council approval, one person who isn’t shy to talk is Bob Rennie, the ubiquitous condo marketer.

The offices for Rennie Marketing Systems, as well as his eponymous art gallery, are located just a two-minute walk west of Carol Lee on Pender Street in the Wing Sang building, which dates back to 1889. From his gallery’s rooftop garden, Rennie too has a bird’s-eye view of Chinatown—but what he sees is quite different from Lee. “You know, I’m one of the biggest stakeholders— saving the oldest building in Chinatown,” says Rennie, with evident pride. “We try and stay below the radar, but I’m going to come out and speak on behalf of Beedie. We can’t have an iPhone in our hands and walk yesterday back. We have to admit where things are going and the cost of taxes, property taxes and the cost of running a business.” Rennie argues that the city should provide incentives to developers to save heritage buildings by granting more density to build in the area. For Rennie, that’s key: keep density in Chinatown.

“It’s super-controversial, because everybody wants all of Chinatown to stay ‘yesterday,’” Rennie says. “But we

1999

“Some of the city’s most respected developers lined Kitsilano, Fairview Slopes and—come to think of it, just about everywhere—with stucco-covered, doodad-trimmed, sieve-roofed disasters, blighting streetscapes, breaking hearts and ruining lives as they went.” Um…our city report card gave leaky condos a failing grade.

Benchmark home price: $355,555

2005

“Will Chinatown’s history become mere set decoration?” we asked in “Chinatown Calculations.” Or will it “fulfill its potential as a place where our polyglot community can actually remember our fraught history and turn our social cleavages into seams?” A decade and change later, the question still stands.

Benchmark home price: $589,973

WEST END: ALE X COSTIN

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need the people. So incentivize me to save something, but give density that can stay in the area. We can’t just save it to save it: it has to have an economic use.”

Rennie has fought NIMBY battles all across the city— most notably over the transformative Woodward’s development in the Downtown Eastside—and recognizes the unique challenges of Chinatown, with its history and cultural significance. Still, he worries that nobody is discussing the necessary balance.

“What can we save? What can we have? If certain blocks of Pender are the most significant, you save those,” he says. “You don’t save every Rembrandt—he did some shitty paintings.”

Vancouver’s chief planner, Gil Kelley, is navigating those battling visions. Born in San Francisco but raised in Portland, Kelley was a senior planner in both cities before being appointed to the post in Vancouver last year. He’s seen firsthand the struggles faced by West Coast cities on questions of density and neighbourhood preservation. Vancouver, he says, has arrived at a “moment of inflection.”

“These are some critical years right now, to set the course for the future,” says Kelley as we sit at his City Hall desk, looking at a planning map for Northeast False Creek. “I don’t say that tritely. The run-up in housing prices and housing costs has alarmed everybody—that’s a phenomenon I saw happening in San Francisco, even in Portland to some extent. It does bring a kind of existential moment to the city: Who are we? Who do we want the city to be for in five years, 10 years, 30 years?”

Kelley, perhaps more so than his predecessors, is not reflexively of the “density is the answer” school. “In the last year, I think we produced 7,200 or 7,500 housing units,” he notes. “We’re keeping pace with the literal population growth. What we’re not doing is producing enough housing for the missing middle strata.” While Kelley does think it’s part of the planning department’s mandate to preserve both the heritage and character of city neighbourhoods, he doesn’t think that this should exclude inserting new forms of housing, particularly ones that increase affordability for middle-income earners.

“I think character neighbourhoods will come to be recognized as not exclusively of one era, but of a sense of vitality and livability for a spectrum of incomes,” he says.

Kelley points to a planning exercise he pioneered in Portland that he’d like to try here: the 20-Minute Neighbourhood. The exercise aims to reframe the discussion around density by asking residents to visualize neighbourhoods where you don’t need a car—where you can walk from your house to a small commercial area, and back, to get most of your daily or

38

VA N M A G . C O M J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 1 7

For Vancouver's head city planner, Gil Kelley, saving Chinatown may mean it won't be exclusively Chinese. "And that's okay."

weekly needs. Rather than debating abstract concepts like floor-to-space ratios, the approach gets more community buy-in for proposed changes, he says. “Then it becomes a conversation of: Actually, I would like to walk to a grocery store—so if it took 15 or 20 or 30 percent more density in the neighbourhood to provide the basis for that market, so be it.”

According to Kelley, Chinatown is the perfect 20-minute neighbourhood—all that’s missing is the people. Successful Chinatowns across North America have a combination of somewhat restrictive zoning and a “fine-grained rhythm of storefront”—similar to what 105 Keefer is attempting to do, Kelley notes.

“But complementing that is a real focus on the social aspects: retention of affordability of housing, and the infusion and preservation—not always from government, but also from foundations and community groups—of cultural attributes.

“I think we can rescue and preserve Chinatown and revitalize it so that it’s not simply a museum,” he says, “but actually a thriving place again. It may not be exclusively Chinese. And that’s okay.”

One of the businesses that speaks to that shift—away from traditional Chinatown businesses and toward a younger, more eclectic clientele—is Bestie. The 25-seat German sausage restaurant opened in June 2013 on East

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Pender, almost equidistant from Carol Lee’s offices and Bob Rennie’s art gallery. Similarly, 36-year-old co-owner Clinton McDougall finds himself stuck between the two titans’ competing visions for the neighbourhood.

“Change is something that’s happening, and it’s inevitable—but the city and the people in Chinatown need to do their best to encourage development that’s thoughtful,” says McDougall, who served for two years on the Chinatown Historic Area Planning Committee.

“I think it’s my duty—not just as a businessperson and somebody who lives here, but as a citizen of Vancouver— to protect that heritage and ensure the culture that exists is allowed to thrive, while acknowledging that it can change, too.” He notes that, from the beginning, surrounding merchants have been very supportive of his self-described “quirky” business (built around the concept of a Berlin street dish called currywurst): “All of our neighbours said, ‘Anything is better than a boardedup building. Ultimately, more reasons for people to come to Chinatown is better—even if we don’t understand what currywurst is.’”

Andy Yan, director of SFU’s City Program and a senior urban planner at Bing Thom Architects, is supportive of the sort of small-scale retail that Bestie represents. Still, he worries that this influx of “hip” new businesses—and the mix of people they attract—overlooks and, in many ways, subjugates the commercial heritage of Chinatown.

Yan, who grew up in east Vancouver, remembers coming to Chinatown, where his great-grandfather ran a dry-cleaning business, as a child. He describes regular dim-sum outings at Ming’s Restaurant, where the Fortune Sound Club is now, and going to the greengrocers on Keefer to shop with his parents and grandparents.

“Chinatown, along with a few other neighbourhoods, is where any number of families’ futures started,” says Yan, a third-generation Canadian of Chinese descent.

“My father’s first job in re-establishing himself in Canada

R E A L E S TAT E R E V I S I T E D

A Roof Over Their Heads In January 1980, Richard and Dixie Hayduk were intent on buying a home and laying down some roots. They panicked when they saw the fast-rising mortgage rates, opting instead to rent a modest house on Alma Street for $372 a month. Rents pushed upward, and in December 1993 they moved into Habitat Villa just three blocks away, where they’re still renting today. We reported on the Hayduks’ real estate situation in our February 1981 issue and then caught up with them again in October 1993; now, 36 years after we first spoke with them, they stand by their aversion to property ownership.

40

VA N M A G . C O M J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 1 7

was in the restaurants. For me, it’s really important to recognize the economic function [of Chinatown], beyond this idea of history, shopping and consumption.”

Yan thinks that part of the answer is what he calls “bespoken urbanism”—which echoes what Kelley calls "small-grain development," with limited heights that respect the existing streetscape. Does he think the Beedie development achieves that? Not quite.

“I’m not a fan of the sense of entitlement—that what happened on Main Street, the densities and heights that are happening there, that somehow every site is now entitled to that density,” he says. He calls 105 Keefer “a failure of imagination” that speaks more to the bulk urbanism of Vancouver’s past: “The way that 105 Keefer was proposed was just the removal of constraints—the disregard of what’s around it, the disregard of what made Chinatown such a place to be.”

Carol Lee, like Yan, remembers what made Chinatown that place. As we talk, she reminisces about going to Sunday school at the Chinese Presbyterian Church on Keefer (since demolished) and playing behind the counter of what would become the family grocery store downstairs. For many long-time Vancouver Chinese, the neighbourhood represents more than a collection of buildings—it represents a community, their community, and its hard-fought struggle for acceptance.

“There are not many neighbourhoods like Chinatown.

Think about the Chinese-Canadian history—what an important role those early immigrants played in basically building the country,” she says, pointing to a blown-up photo from the 1920s, leaning against her office wall, of her grandfather with Brandt Louie’s grandfather.

“Chinatown is the physical legacy of that contribution. It’s got a very different kind of background than most other neighbourhoods. We have to decide: is it worth keeping?

I’m not saying that we have to—but I’m saying we should think about it before it’s too late.”

1981 “Our philosophy seems to be different from most people’s,” Dixie said. “We don’t want the financial commitment that buying a home would entail. I would have to work full-time, and I prefer to be with the children.”

1993 “Being married and having kids doesn’t mean you need three cars, a microwave and a house in suburbia,” Dixie told us less than a year after moving to a pristine three-bedroom townhouse in Habitat Villa for $965 per month. Richard agreed. “We live within our means; we don’t owe money. If mortgage rates or taxes go up, it doesn’t affect us much. We’ve always been lucky renting.”

1981

2017 Now paying $1,660 per month, Dixie and Richard say they have no regrets.

“It has to do with not letting pride of ownership or money run your life. There is another thing that comes with maturity. I don’t approve of money being the sole motivator.”

—Christine Beyleveldt

SPONSORED REPORT

LAO FENG XIANG Lapis Lazuli Earrings

Located in Vancouver’s ‘Luxury Zone,’ Shanghai-based jeweller Lao Feng Xiang is China’s oldest jewellery company. Founded in 1848, the brand has a reputation for quality craftsmanship, particularly in fashioning gold and silver filigree.

THE MASTERS

Five generations of master craftsmen are Lao Feng Xiang’s backbone—the keepers of its rich history and tradition. They are the creative source of the company’s longevity and its progress, allowing the company to grow to its current network of over 3,000 retail stores in China, as well as locations in Sydney, New York, and Vancouver.

THE FUTURE

Renowned for its 24-karat-gold and jade creations Lao Feng Xiang also has a long history working with silver, platinum, and diamonds.

More recently, the company’s collection has expanded to include nephrite, jadeite, pearl, coloured stone, ivory sculpture, enamel, 18K glasses, and more. The brand has also recruited young designers to build on its classic pieces with more contemporary offerings.

Tourmaline Rings

TRADITION MEETS TREND

Among the brand’s traditional pieces are those that feature the company’s emblem, the mythical phoenix, reborn from its ashes after succumbing to a fiery death. A stunning accompaniment to a barely-there summer wardrobe, Lao Feng Xiang’s Dragon and Phoenix Bangle Bracelet is hand carved from 24K gold, balancing trend and tradition with strong modern lines and detailed craftsmanship.

Likewise, the line’s Nephrite Bamboo Pendant features an architecturally shaped nephrite counterbalanced with the delicate details of 39 round brilliant-cut diamonds and an 18K-gold setting to embrace the stone. Also on-trend for summer—yet timeless—are Lao Feng Xiang’s collection of tourmaline rings. Offered in an array of colours and settings, these coloured pieces brighten even the sunniest summer day.

Visit Lao Feng Xiang in store or online to view more ways to add some oldworld luxury—or modern finery—to your jewellery collection.

1016 Alberni St, Vancouver | Toll Free: 1.855.656.6868 | Local: 604.629.9688 lfxjewelry.ca

Dragon and Phoenix Bangle Bracelets

Agate Phoenix Brooch

Nephrite Bamboo Pendant

Peo

First Pride Parade, 1981, Nelson Park “We’d started to hear that people were dying in San Francisco from something called GRID, and you got it by inhaling the fog machine on the dance floor. This was the last party. Truly. There was real optimism then.”

THE CLUB

When We Were Young

A photographer’s journey into Vancouver’s excellent ’80s club scene. by

Anicka Quin Oraf

photos by

we made many incredible discoveries searching through 50 years of Vancouver magazine’s archives, and one such delight was artist Oraf’s photographs of an early ’90s Graceland, the epic nightclub that’s synonymous with peak Vancouver for many club kids. In fact, Oraf spent the ’80s and early ’90s archiving Vancouver’s social life, including spending all of one year—1981—with the larger-than-life Oliv, in the gay bars of the city. “There were 12 gay bars in the West End in 1980,” he says. “It was the gay ghetto.”

He considers himself an artist first, photographer second.

“I still don’t know what kind of camera I have,” he says.

“I never look through it when I’m taking the shot.” j

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ople C L U B S C E N E / S TO R I E S / C E L E B S / H U N K Y M AYO R S

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THE CLUB

Most of the photos here were taken during that year with Oliv, in her run-up to being named Empress of Vancouver at the annual Coronation Ball—a tradition that still exists some 36 years later. As Oraf shares, it’s a glimpse into a time before the party ended: when the AIDS crisis was still a rumour, and optimism reigned.

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The artist Oraf in 1981.

1. Sidney Morozoff, Graceland, 1988 Legenday impresario Sidney Morozoff does his best Elvis impersonation backstage. “You couldn’t get into many places with a camera in those days—no one wanted to be caught cheating.”

2. Tough Drag Show, 1981 “This was an afterhours club called the Playpen South, a real den of iniquity.

Those tough drag shows really don’t exist anymore.

They were part of Coronation Week, when the Empress of Vancouver was crowned.”

3. Backstage at Graceland, 1981 The NYC-based performance artist Joey Arias (centre) was one of many seminal acts that Morozoff brought to Graceland. (Also seen

in the picture, the duo the Big Wigs.)

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4. Lloyd Simmonds, 1981 “I shot this on the street outside the Gandy Dancer.

Lloyd’s now the creative director of makeup for YSL—you wouldn’t recognize him without the makeup.”

5. Basement of the Gandy Dancer, 1981 “I called it the Glandy Prancer, but there were all kinds of nicknames for it. This was when Yaletown was a warehouse district, and you were literally taking your life in your hands to go down there. It was so very Saturday Night Fever—it had a Plexiglas dance floor.

It’s also when Oliv [in the mask in the centre] was running to be Empress of Vancouver, February of that year. She was Vancouver’s 10th Empress.”

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People

About

G R E AT S T O R I E S

S TA N D A N D D E L I V E R Musician Jim Byrnes, July 2009, photographed by the late Gregory Crow, art directed by Randall Watson I assigned a portrait of Jim Byrnes to Gregory for a story. I seem to recall that according to Gregory, Jim felt at home sitting on his couch being photographed without his legs. Gregory had noticed Jim’s legs were propped up to the side and thought it would be interesting if they were in the shot. Jim apparently had no objection.—Randall Watson, creative director, 2008 to 2012

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ACE IN THE HOLE ILLUSTRATION: DEREK ROOT AND DOUGL AS COUPL AND; BLOOD BROTHERS PORTRAIT: GREGORY CROW, CALLIGRAPHY: CARLOS ENGEL

That Story...

There’s always one that sticks with you: that story that was more than just an assignment, that made an impact on the not just the reader, but the storyteller, too. VanMag’s writers, editors, art directors and photographers share their favourites from the last 50 years.

In 1984 two soldiers, an Iranian and an Iraqi, meet on the battlefield.

Amazingly, 20 years later, in Vancouver, they meet again

BY T IM OT HY TAY LOR

P O R TR A I TS B Y G R E G O RY C R O W / / C A L L I G R A P H Y B Y C A R L OS ENGEL

Zahed Haftlang JANUARY 2011

AC E I N T H E H O L E June 1987, written by Douglas Coupland The piece I remember most is ‘Ace in the Hole.’

It was the first magazine piece I’d ever written.

I had a call from Mac Parry and 48 hours later I was in Beverly Hills writing about a guy originally from Vancouver, Doug Chrismas (without the t), who was involved in art-world hijinx. Within a week the piece was written, and I remember thinking, ‘You know, this writing is a great way to pay the bills.’ I had a studio in Yaletown that ate money; writing came at a very good time. That was 30 years ago, but it feels like yesterday.

—Douglas Coupland, editor and writer, 1987

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B LO O D B R O T H E R S March 2011, written by Timothy Taylor When I heard the story—from a photographer’s assistant who attended one of VanMag’s weekly editorial meetings—I wondered if it could possibly be true. She was a volunteer, she said, at VAST, the Vancouver Association for Survivors of Torture. (Who knew there was such a place?) Two attendees, an Iraqi and an Iranian, had fought on opposite sides during the Iran–Iraq War in 1982. In fact, the Iranian soldier, Zahed Haftlang, was supposed to have executed the Iraqi, Najah Aboud, but saved his life instead.

Each man ended up imprisoned in the other’s country.

Each, tortured and tormented, ultimately made his way to Vancouver. One day at VAST, a quarter century later, these seeming strangers exchanged a nod, started comparing notes, and realized they were not strangers at all.

I knew this could make not just a great magazine article, but also a book and a movie, and I needed a first-class writer to do it justice. Timothy Taylor fit the bill; he produced an extraordinary piece, ‘Blood Brothers,’ that I’ll never forget. A book-length version, I, Who Did Not Die, has been published, and a feature film, My Enemy, My Brother, recently premiered at the Hot Docs festival in Toronto.—Gary Stephen Ross, editor-in-chief, 2006 to 2012

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G R E AT S T O R I E S

THE DOCTOR IS OUT December 2007, photographed by Wendell Phillips Negotiating and developing communication with the intent of documenting the human condition in any circumstance requires integration. The terms of chronicling disadvantaged and vulnerable lives such as I found in the Downtown Eastside required special attention to people’s dignity. People were much more enthused and more likely to engage when they felt my interest in learning about their lives was sincere and my approach was respectful. Many in Vancouver consider the Downtown Eastside to be a beleaguered area of social crisis, and it certainly is home to sombre tragedies—but I’ve also witnessed extraordinary solidarity, triumphs of the human spirit and profound acts of kindness among those who call it home.

—Wendell Phillips, freelance photographer, wendellphillips.com

The Doctor Is Out Dr. Bill MacEwan is a psychiatrist with a difference —he doesn’t wait for his patients to come to him

By Marcie Good // Photographs byWendell Phillips

T

WO MEN STAND NEXT TO A DUMPSTER in an alley behind the Carnegie Centre.

“You’re back from Sudbury?” says the tall one, who’s wearing a long black coat and single earring.

Trevor, black-eyed and stubbled, nods. Two weeks ago he left his room, with its collection of broken furniture piled in front of the window. He tried the meds, he’s saying, but they made his tongue feel thick and his body ache.

Their voices disappear under the loud warning beep the garage makes as a van drives out. Further up the lane, a man sitting on the ground empties a loaded needle into his arm. It’s a scene loved by television cameras: a tunnel of brick and pavement with no apparent exit. The tall man takes a small rectangular package out of his briefcase.

“I don’t mean to be rude or nothin’,” Trevor says, shaking his head. In other meetings, Trevor has talked about his childhood: a rambling, almost feral story including an incident in which, at seven years old, he shot a man. The taller man doesn’t know if this is true, but he knows that under Trevor’s black bomber, buttoned-up jean jacket, and chain with fist-sized links is a scared and skinny little boy.

Trevor resorts to a familiar theme: the homosexual gangs chasing him. He’s schizophrenic and suffers from paranoia, but these fears have a kernel of truth. Just before he left for Ontario he was stabbed.

A ball-capped man taps him on the shoulder. “Hey Big Dog, need anything?”

“I’m with my psychiatrist!” Trevor admonishes him. “Y’know what I’m sayin?”

At the Stanley Hotel. Dr. Bill MacEwan talks with a patient who, like many of the people he sees, is incapable of keeping a hospital appointment

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SAIREEN NEILSEN CERTIFIED NUTRITIONAL ADVISOR 604-813-0808 SAIREEN321@YAH0O.CA ACTIVE LIVING AND HEALTHY LIFESTYLES

KITS BEACH TENNIS CLUB MAIN IDENTITY

OS DESIGN MARCH 2014

© OSDESIGN

People

G R E AT S T O R I E S

T H E WAY W E ’ L L L I V E IN ONE EAR June 1978 ‘What this magazine needs is a rock column.’—Les Wiseman ‘What this magazine does not need is a rock column.’—Mac Parry Yet, a year later, my rock music column, In One Ear, first appeared in Vancouver magazine. It started off conservative, with the likes of Jerry Doucette and Nick Gilder. But as the column gelled it became more of a punk Creem North. I was a fan of Lester Bangs and patently emulated him. Years later, his book Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung was the text for my pop-music writing course at the University of Victoria. The punk and new wave genres had boomed and Vancouver’s former blues-can status was enlarged to include cutting-edge bands. The Stranglers, Siouxsie, DOA, Subhumans, Cramps, Ramones, Frank Zappa, Iggy Pop all got in with ‘those swell album reviews.’ Over 35 years later, I still get recognized from that column. As one music industry insider put it (about our November 1981 issue): ‘I love that I can read the cover story about [then-mayor] Art Phillips and then I can turn back to In One Ear, where I can read about Wiseman up to no good with heroin-addict guitarist Johnny Thunders until five in the morning.’—Les Wiseman, editor and writer, 1978 to 1989

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January 2000, concept by Douglas Coupland, photographed by Chris Gergley, produced by Anna Belluz It was kind of important to Doug [Coupland] that we hire a style of photography that was reminiscent of Jeff Wall. We found Chris Gergley, who had just graduated from Emily Carr, but his style was all his own.

Doug’s take on the future wasn’t a clean one.

It had elements of sci-fi, but really it was an interpretation of how we’ll bring things from today into tomorrow. We sat down and talked about the ideas and it was easy for me to go, oh bang, that’s it. Things like the octopus, I knew where to find residual catch—the boats come into Vancouver and they’ll freeze it and they know they can sell it to a specific restaurant.

The only ode to Jeff Wall is really that octopus, and the fact it’s frozen makes it our own.

There were so many stories within each illustration and photograph that you didn’t need words. When I showed it to people, they were like, ‘You were actually allowed to do this? A magazine story that was pure image?’ Words, I’ve always said, are secondary: we look to image first. —Anna Belluz, art director, 1995 to 2000

People

G R E AT S T O R I E S

WA S T E L A N D October 2006, photographed by Marina Dodis It was disgusting and shocking and very smelly. I think when we’re faced with the consequences of the way we live, it is pretty shocking, especially because we don’t live in that big a city—it’s surprising how big the area was. The writer is in the photo. It just helps to see the scale; it’s difficult to grasp unless you get the tractors in there and a person. I usually shoot portraits, so this was a change of pace—he almost disappeared in the shot. Which actually worked as a little bit of a metaphor.—Marina Dodis, freelance photographer

ON THE HEROIN TRAIL May 1978, written by Garry Marchant

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R AT I O N A L E N Q U I R E R January 1999, written by Steve Burgess Long-ago editor Jim Sutherland and I came up with a column called Rational Enquirer, a sort of ‘fake news’ column before its time. The concept: every month I would pull a weird stunt designed to throw light on a current issue. In 1999, rusty ships full of Chinese refugees landed on our coast, causing some hysteria.

So I set up a table in Kerrisdale with a petition titled ‘Support Chinese Refugees!’ Twenty minutes later I changed the petition to ‘Support Chinese Dogs!’ Dogs beat refugees by a ratio of seven signatures to one.

Once, I picketed outside the Greek consulate with a sign reading ‘Rice, pita bread AND potatoes? Too much starch! Greek food: the silent killer!’—Steve Burgess, writer, 1994 to present

HEROIN TRAIL: GARRY MARCHANT

My decade as the Vancouver magazine travel columnist changed my life, turning my long-time love of travel into a full-time job. I ventured from the icy wastes of the Antarctic to the sultry beaches of Polynesia and from the Galapagos to Tibet. I rode the Concorde from New York to London and savoured the luxury of a suite on the legendary liner QE2 on the way back.

I also wrote features, including an exposé of Filipino faith healers, an account of my year as editor of the Brazil Herald in Rio de Janeiro, and a story on the heroin trail from Thailand to Vancouver.

For that story I went to northern Thailand, where I saw hill tribes harvesting the opium, making incisions on the poppy buds, then scraping off the sap. In Bangkok, I learned how the labs turned the opium into heroin and how it was smuggled out. I also visited a prison in Bangkok to interview Canadian drug dealers, including Ricky from Montreal.

Back home, I spent a night on the streets with the Vancouver Police drug squad.

Sometime after the story appeared, I got a letter from Ricky.

He was being released from prison and intended to stay with me in Vancouver for a while before continuing on to Montreal.

I fretted about this for months, but Ricky never turned up.

On my next visit to Bangkok, I contacted an RCMP officer at the Canadian embassy. He told me that Ricky was stopped at the airport with a load of heroin and was back in prison.

Travel writing was never so nerve-racking.

—Garry Marchant, columnist, 1977 to 1989

CANADA DAY LONG WEEKEND IN THE OLYMPIC VILLAGE

BIGGEST + TASTIEST FOOD EVENT OF THE SUMMER! THURS JUNE 29

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: FRESH IDEAS ABOUT FOOD A food-centric TED Talks-style speaker series, presented by

FRI JUNE 30

GATHER | COLLABORATIVE LONG TABLE DINNER Long table dinner with top local + international chefs.

SAT JULY 01

CANADA DAY COOKOUT | BEER, BANDS + BBQ A massive outoor celebration of food, music, and summer.

SUN JULY 02

THE STREET FOOD SHOWDOWN A gathering of 60+ food carts, restaurants, breweries + more.

MON JULY 03

THE BIG BRUNCH The largest outdoor brunch event in the history of the city.

TICKETS + INFO AT: WWW.YVRFOODFEST.COM YVRFOODFEST

People

G R E AT S T O R I E S

POLITICS

MAYORS GONE WILD

Our current choice is a source of swooning civic pride (see above), but over the past five decades we’ve had more than our share of galivanters (and, still, dudes only) at 12th and Cambie.

HOT SHOTS

ART PHILLIPS

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Before there was Michael Bloomberg there was Art Phillips, a fantastically successful businessman who also took up the politics mantle—and looked good doing it in a sweet leather jacket and white horse combo.

JACK VOLRICH

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A lawyer who was defeated by Mike Harcourt, Volrich (third from left) cut an imposing figure on the courts, like when he dabbled in mixed doubles with Premier Bill Bennet, Nancy Bell-Irving and, of course, Ginger Rogers.

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’Hot Shots’ was an 18-page photo essay that celebrated famous Vancouver landmarks by shooting them from unusual angles. The design of the story was easy—just run the photos as big as possible—but assigning and coordinating each shoot was tougher.

Alex Waterhouse-Hayward was the photo wrangler and took some of the pictures, including the jaw-dropping cover image of Squamish rock climber Kevin McLane on top of the old Woodward’s sign. That image was secured with permission and permits while others, including a revealing aerial of Wreck Beach that irked Transport Canada, were not. Craziest of all was the photo session atop the Lions Gate Bridge. On the afternoon of the scheduled shoot (and two days before we went to press), our photographer refused to climb the bridge’s inner ladder. So editor Mac Parry hurriedly left our Richards Street off ice, drove to Stanley Park and the bridge, and took the shot himself. It’s a beauty and ended up opening the story.

—Rick Staehling, art director, 1976 to 1994

GREGOR ROBERTSON: DAVID FIERRO; ART PHILLIPS: RALPH BOWER/PNG; JACK VOLRICH: EAGL AND/VANCOUVER SUN; WRECK BEACH: HEATHER DEAN; WOODWARD’S SIGN: KEVIN M C L ANE; LIONS GATE BRIDGE: MAC PARRY

September 1987

Visit and fall in love with our wines.

SUMMERLAND Open daily 10:30 – 5:30 okanagancrushpad.com

People

G R E AT S T O R I E S

CELEBRITIES

STAR POWER

Vancouver celebs have had plenty of moments on our covers and in our pages. Here are a few of our favourites.

BRYAN ADAMS

DOCTORS IN THE HOUSE

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Adams’s hit single Let Me Take You Dancing earned him a spot on our “Nine Bands for the Eighties” list in April 1980 (alongside Bob Coulter, Cover Boys and The Young Canadians); he later appeared on the cover of VanMag’s February 1986 issue... in a pair of purple tights.

DAVID SUZUKI

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The Vancouver-born activist took his daughter, Severn, on a week-long trip to Toronto sans mother (“Feminist Tara was in no position to deny this, and there was just a slight hesitation before she nodded assent”) and shared his thoughts on travelling alone with an eight-month-old baby.

SETH ROGEN

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After landing a starring role in Knocked Up, the Vancouver-born comedian had lofty goals for the future: screenwriting (Pineapple Express Q&A SethRogen hit the big screen just one year later) and commissioning the Seth Rogan Public Restroom in his hometown.

Panorama

Actor, Writer

At 25, you’ve appeared in movies like Anchorman, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and You, Me and Dupree; now you’re starring in your own feature, Knocked Up. How did a kid from Point Grey Secondary end up in Hollywood? I started doing stand-up when I was 13.

I performed at the Urban Well a lot, Yuk Yuks and Laff Lines. Guys like Brent Butt helped me out.

What kind of material did you do at 13? I just talked about my life: dating, trying to get with girls, my grandparents, getting a driver’s license. When I was 16, I auditioned for Freaks and Geeks. I got cast. And then I moved to L.A.

In Knocked Up, you team up again with director Judd Apatow on a movie about a stoner who gets a woman pregnant in a onenight stand. How did that come about? Judd wanted to

make a movie where I had a more leading-type role. We had a lot of conversations, and this was one idea that came out. He has kids and I’m very awkward around them. I had a lot of insight into the fear and anxiety I’d face if I actually got someone pregnant.

Knocked Up is your first starring role. Was it a challenge to convince a studio to allow you to play the lead? Were you nervous about it?

After 40-Year-Old Virgin, we had a really good relationship with Universal. And Judd had already put a supporting guy, Steve Carell, in the forefront, and it worked wonders.

Yeah, it was nerve-wracking, but I tried to approach it scene by scene.

You’ve also written for Undeclared and Da Ali G Show. Were you a writer before you

were an actor? In high school, me and my writing partner Evan Goldberg started writing this movie Superbad. When I was on Freaks and Geeks, I gave it to Judd to read.

No one wanted to make it, but because of it I got hired as a writer on Undeclared. After Undeclared was cancelled, I wrote some other screenplays around that time. It was several years after Undeclared that we got hooked up with Sacha Baron Cohen and me and Evan started writing for Ali G.

© Sam Jones/Universal Pictures

What are you doing right now?

Eating lunch on the set.

You’re working on a movie? Pineapple Express.

I play a process server who witnesses a murder and ends up going on the run with a pot dealer to avoid being killed.

You’re about to become the biggest Vancouver movie star since Michael J. Fox, who has a theatre named after him in Burnaby. If you had a public place in Vancouver named after you, what would it be? Probably the Seth Rogen Public Restroom.

So now that you’ve done a Q&A for Vancouver magazine, what’s left? Nothing. I’ve got nothing under my hat after this.—Kevin Chong

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March 2015, photographed by Pooya Nabei, fashion styling by Joanna Kulpa, hair and makeup by Sonia Leal-Serafim, prop styling by Nicole Sjöstedt It was ambitious. We had to have everyone come in at different hours and did it as a composite image, just because of the logistics: they all had surgery and appointments. It took us 12 hours. They would come in and we would place them and shoot them one by one, slowly building the full picture. There was a couple who came separately but we wound up sitting them together in the final shot. Time goes quickly when you realize, ‘this is a really special moment.’ —Pooya Nabei, freelance photographer

TA S E D A N D C O N F U S E D May 2008, written by Danielle Egan I asked the RCMP to shoot me. It was 2008, a few months after Robert Dziekanski died, after being tasered by the RCMP. I filed a request to attend Taser training, which at that time included mandatory exposure (to 50,000 volts of electricity). I thought they’d say no and I’d get something on the record about potential dangers to civilians. To my shock, the Use of Force instructor agreed— tasering included. My editor loved the angle. As I geared up for that day, doing hair-raising scientific research on tasered pigs and watching too many tasering videos, the RCMP didn’t back out.

I showed up for training. The Use of Force instructor—I’ll call him UOF—said the tasering offer stood. I started to sweat when he passed around the barbed darts, displaying his numerous tasing scars. Would I risk muscle tear? A rogue shot to the eye or genitals? The rare chance of seizure or cardiac arrest? A lifetime of disappointment from my parents?

At lunch break, I choked down a muffin. Many hours later, live cartridges loaded, UOF said the RCMP’s lawyers wouldn’t allow a reporter to be tasered. I felt jilted. I said I’d sign a waiver. No deal. I did get some choice quotes. But I still wonder if I’d have done it, given the choice.—Danielle Egan, writer, 1997 to present

PROMOTION

Assorted Macarons Enrobed in Chocolate from Thomas Haas

The Pear Tree’s Spring Vegetable Tarts

Thanks

to our Chef’s Showcase restaurants for not only making the 2017 Restaurant Awards possible—but also delicious.

The generous spread of hors d’oeuvres from nominated restaurants such as Ancora, Cactus Club, and Jitlada was enjoyed alongside local wines. As for who won, visit vanmag.com/ra2017 for the full list of winners.

Attendees enjoy samples of Vancouver’s top restaurants

Beef and Water Spinach Salad from Anh and Chi Maple Syrup Roasted Duck Breast with Steamed Mini Bun from Dynasty Seafood

A guest plates an assortment of canapés from Chef Showcase display

Mandarin Passionfruit Coconut Vanilla Bean Tapioca from Chau Veggie Express Smoked Ham Hock Terrine with Pickled Mustard Seed from Hawksworth

Double Baked Almond Croissants with Gold Award Whisky Marmalade from Bâtard Boulangerie

THANK YOU TO THESE PARTICIPATING CHEFS’ SHOWCASE RESTAURANTS Ancora Anh and Chi Bâtard Boulangerie and Café Moderne Bauhaus

Beta5 Chocolates Bistro Sakana Bistro Wagon Rouge Blue Water Cafe Cacao Progressive Latin Cactus Club Cafe

Chau Veggie Express Chez Christophe Chickpea Craft Corner Kitchen Dynasty Seafood El Santo

Farmer’s Apprentice Hawksworth Heritage Asian Eastery House Special Jitlada Masayoshi

Molli Cafe Mr. Red Café Phnom Penh Royal Dinette Royal Seoul House Korean Restaurant

The Mackenzie Room The Pear Tree Thomas Haas Chocolates & Pâtisserie Torafuku

#1: MARK MAINGUY; #2: CHRIS HAYLET T; #4: CHRIS HAYLET T; #5: PETER GRAVELLE; #7: HOWARD FRY

Life 2

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FASHION

Time Capsule

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Nothing preserves a moment in time quite like an outfit. Here’s to the jungle bathing suits, pirate shirts and ultra-teased perms that have graced our historic fashion pages. by

Julia Dilworth

1 These power-pigment blouses from the (still) Vancouver-based designer Catherine Regehr show how she always pushed the envelope on West Coast style. March 1991 2 This sizzling trend report urged readers to branch out and mix prints and plaids—“especially when the print is a paisley shirt.” Summer 1985

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3 We love this parachute-inspired “contemporary sportswear” accessorized with bold plastic bling from Martha Sturdy. Spring 1983 4 A leopard spot and checker two-piece was the perfect look for that “jungle beat”—courtesy of the swimwear feature “Splish Splash.” May 1987 5 Evening jumpsuits from Canadian designer Wayne Clarke got the Midas touch and the largerthan-life hair to match. Winter 1981 6 This fabulously ’70s scarf-braculottes ensemble serves as spookily on-point foreshadowing for where current trends are going. June 1972 7 Look familiar, hipsters of today?

Toque, big frames, ’stache and a dad-chic sweater from “Where There’s a Wool.” October 1977

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A look back at 50 years of memorable meals and moments.

First Taste Food trends and “It” restaurants come and go, but first impressions are always delicious.

MAY 197 1

Donald Stainsby’s review of the Princess Louisa II floating restaurant “For a touch of difference to start with there’s spinach salad—something new brought to the Vancouver scene by [owner] Raymond Foat, who confesses he had a bit of trouble getting locals to try it.”

JUNE 1973

Jack Moore’s review of the Fondue Inn “Fondue is probably the most international of the audience participation meals, a fact well illustrated by the Fondue Inn at 2220 Marine Drive, West Vancouver.”

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Bimini review “…the clientele is still very much on the make. It’s like a slight tang in the air, a noticeable restlessness. Eyes are a little more active, drinks tend to last longer, postures are struck up throughout the establishment and newcomers are given the once-over when they enter.”

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Another Bite

Twenty-four years after first reviewing the Water St. Cafe, our critic returns.

I’M A LONG AGO Vancouver magazine stalwart who back in 1993 wrote a largely positive review of Gastown’s Water St. Cafe. Liked the room, vacillated over the food, lamented the wine list. Now, almost 25 years later, I’ve been sent back. Magazines, always so up to the minute.

Then again, the place has not required instant updates. Rather incredibly in this city of glass, the same Domenique Sabatino who in 1988 converted it from Brasserie de L’Horloge still presides over the room, which has changed but little. And thank goodness, too, as it’s a beauty and always will be, even if I’d make the case for something other than silk plants above the doorways.

There will be no vacillating over the food this time, either. On occasional visits over the years, I felt the place was rolling up a magnetic hill, seemingly worsening because everything around it was bettering. Then, a few years ago, the kitchen seemed to kick it up several notches. The menu remained a time capsule of casual French and northern Italian with West Coast influences, but the pastas were better and the vegetables, in particular, less boilerplate and more delicious. Sabatino confirms this was no illusion but a real thing, sparked by the arrival in 2013 of chef Kevin Shawcross (since departed for Barbados) combined with the proprietor’s decision to move a little upscale.

Successor Zachary Steele (ex of now-closed Baccano Restaurant) has been there only a few months, and there’s a sense that he’d love to push things a little further, but whether he does or doesn’t, few will be disappointed by their kale and farro salad, gnocchi with mushrooms, truffle butter and chèvre, or rack of lamb with sun-dried tomato, apricot-pistachio nut fregola, mint gremolata and cumin emulsion. Instead, letdowns will be reserved for a wine list that seems rather suburban, and taps that extend only to two pedestrian Granville Island brews.

In conclusion, let’s call this update highly positive, with a couple of reservations—which, by the way, you’re going to need on most summer evenings, as the patio’s a treat and, across the street, there’s a certain steam clock, which has also proved to be timeless, or something like that.—Jim Sutherland, editor, 1993 to 1999 For the full text of Jim’s 1993 two-star (out of three) review of the Water St. Cafe, visit vanmag.com

WATER STREET CAFE: K AREN LEE PHOTOGRAPHY; FONDUE: CLINTON HUSSE Y

Eating Our Words

“BEST UPSCALE, GOLD (6TH CONSECUTIVE YEAR)” VANCOUVER MAGAZINE

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DINING

Play Us a Song, Piano Man

It turns out a surprising guest attended the first-ever Restaurant Awards party.

IN 1996 we held our first Restaurant Awards celebration (prior to then, they had simply been published in the pages of the magazine). Compared to the production values of the ceremony now, it was a decidedly modest affair: about 150 chefs, restaurateurs and PR types gathered at the Metropolitan Hotel. In addition to quality hors d’oeuvres and drink, there was a pianist in the back of the ballroom, crooning tunes that were soon buried by the boozy crowd. Toward the end of the proceedings, I panicked when I realized that we had forgotten his payment, and slipped downstairs to grab 10 crisp twenties from the “Green Machine.”

Back at the podium, I thanked our entertainer. “Ladies and gentlemen, I know that we would all like to thank our fine young performer today —so please put your hands together for Michel Bublé!” The singer leaned into his mic and, rather confidently for a kid barely out of his teens, announced: “Actually, it’s Michael Bublé. Keep an eye on me.”

—Jamie Maw, food editor, 1996 to 2008

The Food Bard of VanMag

Our ’80s food columnist could make almost anything sound poetic.

AUGUST 1983

Wine Nostradamus In our October 1993 issue we asked wine guru Anthony Gismondi to pick wine that would appreciate in value and quality —we went on wine-searcher.com to see how he did on his case.

1993 PRICE

1989 Grand-Puy-Lacoste

$

1990 Mouton Rothschild

$

1990 Cos d’Estournel

$

1990 Clos de Tart

2017 PRICE

50

$

106

110

$

464

54

$

203

$

110

$

614

1988 Guigal Côte Rôtie Brune et Blonde

$

45

$

150

1990 Chapoutier Hermitage La Sizeranne

$

45

$

135

1990 Jadot Clos des Ursules

$

57

$

191

1990 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Reserve

$

45

$

190

1985 Graham’s Port

$

50

$

130

1977 Gould Campbell Port

$

54

$

175

1988 Produttori del Barbaresco

$

32

$

123

1988 Prunotto Cannubi Barolo

$

43

$

185

TOTAL

$

695

“Big Red” article “Four pounds of steak per man per meal, four pounds of chicken, four pounds of pork chops. Meat was the fuel that pushed the tunnel through the mountain, that built the transmission towers and poured the concrete of the Alcan aluminium project in Northern B.C. Sometimes it was cold, and we ate more, but very seldom did we eat less.

The rule was that everybody got as much as he could eat, a rule that newcomers to Canada found hard to believe.”

—James Barber, food columnist

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S&P RETURN

$

2,093

(k300%) $

1,458

(k 210%)

FOOD BARD: ROBIN SMITH/IMAGE FINDERS PHOTO AGENCY INC.

Life

by Michael Hingston

Lonely Planet ’97

Revisited 64

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START HERE

BC PL ACE OLD SPAGHET TI FACTORY THE WORLD’S THINNEST OFFICE BUILDING

he stereotypes about Vancouver are well known and, at this point, equally well worn. Weed.

Rain. Yoga pants. These images are easy to digest, which is why they tend to hang around in the larger public imagination, often to the point of frustration for the locals. But when you look past the clichés, you’ll see that cities can change, and usually a lot faster than we think.

Consider, for a moment, the Vancouver of just 20 years ago.

The year 1997 brought both proud memories (the debut of the Canucks’ orca logo) and darker ones (the RCMP’s aggressive use of pepper spray and strip searches on APEC protesters that led to a public inquiry) to Terminal City. And when you consider Vancouver as a whole in that 12-month snapshot, a slightly different kind of place emerges than the one we know today—especially if you’re also holding an old Lonely Planet guide from that same year.

Which I am.

Travel guides are fascinating documents. They speak exclusively to, and are consumed exclusively by, outsiders to the place being discussed. The kinds of things a guide focuses on aren’t always of interest to the people who actually live there.

That goes for the positives—“Its physical setting and features make it easily one of the most scenically attractive cities in Canada, if not the world,” no duh—and the negatives.

“The only drawback is the rain, particularly in winter when it rarely stops.” The people at Lonely Planet have a clear audience in mind, and residents of the 604/778 are not included. And not only because the latter area code didn’t exist then.

Still, the Vancouver section of the 1997 Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit for Canada provides a clear, if incomplete, snapshot of

ROBSONSTRASSE

Want to see exactly how much Vancouver has changed over the last 20 years?

Try exploring from Downtown to Chinatown to Commercial Drive to Mount Pleasant with just a two-decadesold travel book as your guide.

CANADA PL ACE

GREAT WALL MONGOLIAN BBQ

CANADA PL ACE: DENYS KUVAIEV

Canada Place

a city that was in the middle of a drastic transition. Expo 86, now a decade in the rear-view, had brought enormous international attention to the city (soon followed by enormous international money). In 1997, the half-million residents of Vancouver proper were served by a single SkyTrain line. The place Douglas Coupland dubbed “City of Glass” contained a lot less of it back then— fewer glittering waterfront condos and a far more modest skyline.

Dedicated downtown bike lanes were an ambitious goal, electric cars an outright fantasy. The average size of a yacht in False Creek was a category or two smaller.

Recently, I set out with a mind to try to bridge this gap between the present and the not-too-distant past.

How, exactly, does the Vancouver of 2017 square with its mid-’90s self?

Along the way I would also try to connect my own past and present, as a born-and-bred Vancouverite who’s spent the past decade in absentia, a province away. Back in 1997, I was 12 years old, safely nestled in the forests of North Vancouver, insulated from much of what was happening across the water. How much of the Vancouver of my youth remains—and how much would I even recognize in the first place?

Downtown Core

The question stands: how do you make a fresh start with an entire city? I decide to kick off alongside a boatload of people who are doing exactly this, and that means beginning at Canada Place, which was a big deal in ’97 but today feels dwarfed by the shinier Olympicrelated developments next door.

Here, I’m surrounded by tourists delightedly snapping photos, many of whom are catching their very first glimpses of Vancouver, as they’ve been ferried to its doorstep by a huge Disney cruise ship that is now choogling away in the harbour.

DR . SUN YAT-SEN CL ASSICAL CHINESE GARDEN

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GASTOWN VANCOUVER ART GALLERY BUD’S HALIBUT AND CHIPS BROKEN COLUMN

downtown—just listen for the novelty song about marijuana being sung into karaoke-quality speakers. Also intact is Alan Storey’s Broken Column, the 27-metre kinetic sculpture inside what is now the HSBC Building. Just before turning toward Gastown, I catch a glimpse of BC Place in the distance. Once a lovable marshmallow of a stadium, the inflatable roof has been replaced to more closely resemble some spiky super-race of spider-people.

It’s now approaching lunchtime, and I’ve already walked more than 10 kilometres. Gastown has options for hungry tourists, none more prominent than the Old Spaghetti Factory, which has been luring diners with its inexplicably popular sourdough bread for decades. But the guide’s restaurant recommendations for the area instead lead, rather smartly, with Brother’s Restaurant, which has monastic-themed decor, “and the staff are dressed in monks’ habits.” In a word: what? Is this the kind of big-city experience I was missing out on in my preteen years, marooned across the inlet? Obviously, Brother’s no longer exists; it is now a confusing combination of high-end boutique and brunch spot. That change feels of a piece with Gastown generally, as the neighbourhood has shifted from tourist trap to a web of expensive shops for the hip. Lonely Planet observes that Gastown used to be “a skid row,” but even by the ’90s, renovations had pushed the city’s “seedier characters a little further south.” In the end, I duck into a waterfront pub to eat—but not before making a mandatory stop at the steam clock. “You can see it work through the side panels,” enthuses the guide, “and will hear it toot every 15 minutes.” I wonder how many of the people taking pictures know that this ancient-looking clock was actually built in 1977 as a creative means of masking excess steam from a sidewalk vent. Oh well. It still toots with the best of ’em.

Beyond Downtown

Feet rested and energy restored, I head south on Carrall until I come up against the Millennium Gate (whose existence the guide obviously predates). Lonely Planet has a decidedly mixed opinion

BC PL ACE STADIUM: SONGQUAN DENG

HOT PEPPER CAFE

BC Place Stadium

MUSEUM OF E XOTIC WORLD

The tourists are taking selfies with the 65-foot The Drop statue (built in 2009), with the North Shore mountains photobombing in the background. All things considered, not the worst first impression.

I take my book and head west, weaving along the side streets of Coal Harbour before arriving at Denman Street. The guide has promised me “a lively, pleasant” streetscape with “a good selection of eateries.”

That’s no doubt true—but almost nothing suggested back in ’97 is still standing. No Cafe Slavia, no Bud’s Halibut and Chips, no Pepitas. One of the few places that have endured, however, is Great Wall Mongolian BBQ, near the foot of Denman, home to acclaimed “giant stir-fries” created “while you watch.” Turning onto Davie, I’m pleased to note that Lonely Planet was progressive enough to recommend gay clubs like the Royal Hotel and Denman Station (again, neither in operation today).

But it does oddly leave out LGBT culture as one of the key appeals of the West End itself. C’mon, Lonely Planet. I know there weren’t rainbow crosswalks back in ’97, but still.

There’s slightly more continuity with the past on Robson Street, which the guide describes as “an interesting area with a blend of many ethnic shops, designer clothing stores and restaurants.” It shouts out the stretch from Howe to Broughton in particular. Once colloquially known as Robsonstrasse, thanks to the neighbourhood’s outsized German population, the dominant culture on the street is now almost entirely Asian: once the domain of schnitzel, ramen now reigns supreme.

I walk east along Robson, then zigzag through some of the larger attractions, most of which are unchanged since ’97. The Vancouver Art Gallery is still there (albeit with tentative plans to relocate in the near future) and still easily findable, no matter where you are

Untitled-2 1

2017-05-23 5:17 PM

Items on the menu are rotated seasonally and may not be served as displayed in these photos.

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THE DROP

WRECK BEACH

THE DRIVE

STEAM CLOCK ALE X ANDER L AMB ANTIQUES MOUNT PLEASANT

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BROTHER’S RESTAURANT

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of Vancouver’s Chinatown: on the one hand it’s “for the most part” genuine, while trade, it says, has slowed in recent years. “Much of the new population and investment has headed to Richmond. Now at night it’s a pretty quiet area.” Lonely Planet couldn’t have foreseen the influx of hip restaurants that now dot the area, but on this weekend afternoon, at least, things are fairly quiet on the streets. I drop by the Sam Kee, also known as the World’s Thinnest Office Building, whose bizarre six-foot depth—the result of a brutal, decades-old expropriation tactic by the city against its original owner—has been featured on Ripley’s Believe It or Not! The building is closed today, so I am unable to take the tour, which now costs $15.

My personal verdict, however, remains unchanged: believe it.

Instead, I head down a block and into the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. As of 1997, it was apparently the world’s only full-scale classical garden found outside of China. According to the tour group I briefly shadowed, this distinction has to do with where the rocks are sourced from: namely, the bottom of Chinese lakes. The garden is laid out asymmetrically, with a variety of paths and corridors around the artificial lake and its many species of plant. Says Lonely Planet: “Its design is subtle but exquisite in execution and effect.” I couldn’t agree more.

DR . SUN YAT-SEN GARDEN: V. J. MAT THEW

Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden

I intended to whip through in 15 minutes and end up staying the better part of an hour.

Time, I’m realizing, has gotten away from me. It turns out that Vancouver is simply too large of a city to cover in a single day. That means there’s no way to get out to attractions like the Old Hastings Mill Store or VanDusen Botanical Garden. I also would’ve liked to compare the guide’s descriptions of Wreck Beach—“the bestknown stretch of sand in the country even though most people have never seen it”—to the present day, especially given the recent outcry from nude patrons that they’re being outnumbered by fully clothed gawkers. Well, that’s one less gawker, anyway.

It’s time for tourist triage. Weighing my options, I decide to head over to Commercial Drive, home, then and now, to a “mix of artists, professionals and various alternative types.” Plus Italians. It’s with this demographic in mind that I walk past the former sites of greasy spoons (Hot Pepper Cafe) and left-wing coffee shops (La Quena) all the way to Joe’s Cafe, which has been a reliable source of gelato and Eurocentric sports programming for decades. To my eye, it hasn’t changed a bit, but I want to hear Tony Antunes’s thoughts on the matter. Tony, along with his brother, the café’s namesake, opened Joe’s in 1974, and I catch him in a spare moment between pulling espresso shots and taking out the recycling. Has Commercial changed much in the last 20 years?

Sure, he allows. A bit. “Some good, some bad.” But that’s just the way it goes, he says. What matters is that his regulars, a mixture of undergrads and Italians, have remained the same. Now, if I’ll excuse him, Antunes says, gesturing. There’s a lineup of people in front of the gelato freezer that needs attending to.

Time for one last stop. Luckily, there are two final entries in the Lonely Planet book that I can’t resist looking into, and both are in the Mount Pleasant area. This part of Main Street has felt the creep of the young creative class even more strongly than Gastown has. I’ve got nothing against coffee, bicycles and beer, but their hegemonic rule leaves little room for oddities like the Museum of Exotic World, which is recommended in the guide but now long gone. Owned and operated for years by Harold Morgan and his wife, Barbara, the museum was a jam-packed, “stunningly colourful” collection of objects retrieved from all over the world. Plus, it was open to the public every day, charged no admission, and Harold offered personally guided tours. Now it’s gone, and that’s a shame.

But wait: it turns out that the Morgans’ collection hasn’t been dismantled, only moved down the block. After Harold’s death, about 15 years ago, Barbara put the Exotic World’s contents up for auction, where they were snapped up by local antique dealer Alexander Lamb, and then displayed (in part) in the back of his eponymous shop at Main and 16th. “It was kind of an impulsive thing,” Lamb says of the purchase. “[Exotic World] was a cool, strange neighbourhood institution. I thought it’d be fun to keep it going. There wasn’t anything of value; it was a kind of folk art.”

There’s another twist. Lamb says that, despite Lonely Planet’s earnest endorsement, the Exotic World collection wasn’t really as noteworthy as it appeared. Most of it, according to Lamb, consisted of framed exotic photographs that Harold claimed to have taken himself on his travels. In reality, if you looked closely enough, you could see they were actually clipped out of back issues of National Geographic.

Presented by

presented by NOV. 6-11, 2017

35

35 spectacular chefs 13 exclusive events Benefitting Project Chef

13

Young Project Chefs practice their skills under the watchful eyes of chefs (L-R) Makoto Ono of Mak N Ming, Robert Belcham of Campagnolo, Andrea Carlson of Burdock and Co, Trevor Bird of Fable, Hamid Salimian of Nextjen, Angus An of Maenam and Lucais Syme of Cinara. HAMID ATTIE

visit eat-vancouver.com in late June for event schedule, chef lineup and tickets

END HERE

GETTING OLDER NEVER LOOKED SO FUN! CONGRATULATIONS VANCOUVER MAGAZINE ON 50 GREAT YEARS.

Gastown Steam Clock

TICKETS FROM $ 2017-05-25 2:19

21

Kevin MacDonald & Amber Lewis – Much Ado About Nothing (2017)

The only place in the guide that piqued my interest as much as Exotic World is part of the B & B section. Among a bunch of ordinary recommendations is this memorable description of Paul’s Guest House, on West 14th Avenue: “Paul speaks 11 languages and that should cover most guests!

Breakfast includes all the eggs you can eat.” It’s now approaching dinnertime, but I decide to drop by anyway. As I approach the front door of the Craftsman-style home, I see a couple sitting on the porch, enjoying a glass of wine. The man notices my guidebook right away and jumps to his feet. When I askPNEJULAUG17TS_lt.indd 1 if Paul is around, he smiles and PL17 - Vancouver Magazine - 1/6 page shakes his head.

4.6” x 4.9” Apparently, Paul died shortly June 19 — September 2017 after the ’97 Lonely Planet guide May 25, 2017 was published, and the couple who has lived here ever since inherited a steady stream of tourists, more often than not dragging a copy of the same book I’ve been carrying around all day. I hadn’t stopped to consider the after-effects of a bigname guidebook recommendation and how long it might take to update incorrect information. In this case, it took a written letter to Lonely Planet headquarters— and even then, the tourists kept Because we approach baking coming, albeit fewer each year. from a culinary mindset, quality In fact, the man says with ingredients are of the utmost wonder, it’s been years since importance to us. Local, seasonal, anyone has shown up on their free range, non gmo, organic. doorstep, asking for Paul. But on this early Sunday evening, if only for a few minutes, it feels like the MT. PLEASANT ● OLYMPIC VILLAGE KITSILANO ● GRANVILLE ISLAND ’90s all over again.

GASTOWN STEAM CLOCK: SHERSS

MktgData:MKTGMAC:back up drive:ADS:2017:Vancouver Magazine:Playland:June 19 - September :PNE_PL17-VanMag-PLGen-June-Sept

and your local grocer

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PROMOTION

1.

On April 18th, the city’s top chefs

and restaurateurs gathered in the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre for the de facto Oscars of Vancouver’s restaurant industry: the 2017 Vancouver Magazine Restaurant Awards.

Here’s a peek behind the curtain.

4.

1. Guests mingle during the pre-reception at the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre 2. Chef Frank Pabst of Blue Water Cafe chats with Shelley Kekuna from Ka’anapali Beach Resort 3. CBC hosts for the evening, Stephen Quinn and Gloria Macarenko pose with Dynasty Seafood, winners of the coveted Restaurant of the Year award 4. Well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award winners Sid and Joan Cross 5. A Sheraton chef plates hot hors d’oeuvres for attendees 6. Gordon Food Service receiving a thumbs up for their delicious canapés 7. Students from PICA put their culinary skills to the test during the Knife Skills competition sponsored by Knifewear, Restaurants Canada, and Kin’s Farm Market 8. Chef Mark Perrier of Savio Volpe accepts the Best New Restaurant award 9. Crisp rosé being poured before the awards 10. Backyard Vineyard Pinot Gris wines staying perfectly chilled for guests 11. Zest claims gold for Best Sushi category 12. A JOEY chef entertains guests as she prepares sushi 13. Vancouver magazine’s Food Editor Neal McLennan and Bartender of the Year Sabrine Dhaliwal 14. Editorial Director Anicka Quin and Chef of the Year Joël Wantanabe 15. Lisa Haley, 2017 Sommelier of the Year, strikes a pose with previous winners Roger Maniwa and Bryant Mao 16. A packed room celebrates another year of excellent dining in Vancouver at the JOEY After Party

5.

9.

14.

13.

HOST SPONSOR

A/V SPONSOR

EVENT PRODUCTION SPONSOR

MEDIA SPONSOR

RENTAL SPONSOR

KNIFE SKILLS SPONSORS

FLORAL SPONSOR

ACCOUNTING SPONSOR

2.

3.

7.

8.

6.

10.

11.

12.

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16.

SHOWCASE SPONSORS

Andina Brewing Authentic Wine & Spirits Backyard Vineyards Burrowing Owl Estate Winery Caffè Umbria Charton Hobbs Inc. Concord Pacific

Culmina Family Estate Winery Desert Hills Estate Winery Flower Factory FreshTAP Gordon Food Service Kin’s Farm Market McClelland Premium Imports

Narrative Wines Peacock & Martin Imports Ponderosa Mushrooms Poplar Grove Richard Massey Wine + Spirits Russell Food Equipment Stanley Park Brewing

Strange Fellows Brewing Strathcona Beer Summit Fine Wines Tinhorn Creek Vineyards Trimpac/FreshPoint Unsworth Vineyards Yellow Dog Brewing

Where There’s Smoke Not so loNg ago, “got a light?” was the mating call of the nightlife scene, so when the province banned smoking in bars in 2000, the lonely and the black-lunged found themselves at a loss.

Smoking booths (like this one, pictured at the now-defunct Fred’s Uptown Tavern in our April 2001 issue) were a valiant attempt to keep those nicotine-fuelled flirtations inside, but the quarantine vibe wasn’t sexy enough (hard to believe, we know) to last.

@vanmag_com

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THROW B AC K

Dr. Jozef Straus

CIBC Private Wealth Client as painted by Charles Pachter

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