royal remnants

New Westminster, "the Royal City", has not been royal for a very long time...but is undergoing a revitalization bloom to accommodate the ever expanding population bulge.

I had been wanting to see how much change is happening and on a recent Saturday afternoon we drove out to explore this first capital [from 1858-1866] of the colony of British Columbia.  The original main street, Columbia, has perked up somewhat from its drawn out slump since the completion of Highway 1 in the mid-1960's, and the old Royal City Cafe sign is still hanging - but the cafe is no more and a Thai restaurant now spices up the space.

More bizarrely, Columbia Street is afluffed in more bridal salons and ballgown "outlets" than any town has a need for - which begs the question, what really goes on behind the walls of all those Queen Anne mansions??

Not so far from the gracious [and ballgown-filled!] mansions of Queens Park is dark and gritty Front Street, running along the railway tracks and the river, and the location of the original Chinatown of which there is no trace of now in NW...

The rough and tumble dockside atmosphere has been incorporated in certain movie scenes and the few antique stores on this section of Front Street still cater to the movie industry.

[The staircase above leads to an elevated parkade built in the 1960's to facilitate overflow parking from the commercial district.]

sloping side street onto Front Street

the "blue brick" building on a slightly more decrepit 19th century block of Front Street

the contrast of early and late 20th century apartment dwellings - 

[the Telford Block on Royal Avenue is the oldest standing apartment building in this "Brow of the Hill" neighbourhood, and will be preserved and rehabilitated with modest living units.]

We had parked across from this large old factory in the industrial backside of the Royal seat and approached the commercial area through an alley of mechanic garages and small manufacturing plants, descending upon an upscale Salvation Army thrift store encamped in the resplendently restored B.C. Electric streetcar/tram station across the street from a meaty Keg restaurant lodged in the old CPR station...

And such is the essence and mildly outlandish state of New Westminster on one dreary winter's afternoon in the year 2011...

stripped, pickled and stuffed

 25 meter long blue whale skeleton hovers over puny humans in the atrium space

Millions of specimens of animals, plants and fossils are encased in glass, preserved in jars, pressed inside folders, stored in old shoe boxes, taxidermied and displayed in cabinets within the Beaty Biodiversity Museum on the campus of the University of British Columbia, all accessible now to the curious public and serious researchers alike...

The collection is massive and comprehensive, contributing to contemporary progressive studies into the incredibly complex biodiversity of our little planet...

On a rainy winter afternoon we roamed the long repository of darkened corridors inventoried with its enormous and carefully catalogued collections, stopping often to be awed by the specimens on view and being constantly reminded that we have the capability to be cognizant of such a superabundant and wondrous diversity of life forms that we are only a very very minuscule part of - and hopefully help to preserve for a while longer...

 ancient reindeer skull

ugandan giraffe skull

 malaysian long-nosed horned frog, marinated since 1963

 the older cabinets of traditional specimens display...

white swan, black swan... dance no more...

tunnel vision

 in the underbelly of Vancouver General Hospital, hollow arteries snake between the main organs...

walkways the colour of dried blood disappear into nether regions, the cold lights casting a ghoulish pall...

 a small heart lies unbeating on the hardened vein...

a microbial creature is tethered by its umbilical cord...

 the efficient processing of the elimination system...

a mysterious instrument clogging one of the vascular tunnels...

*thanks to the intrepid Jan Snow for forging ahead through some of these underground capillaries of the VGH - with me ever so squeamishly following along!

 

"quietly to night"*

 "in the evening the water in our jug is finished and perched on stone, or sometimes concrete, our birds all fly away...

one piece of lokum remains on the rose-patterned plate...
the fruit on the branch consumes night for us...

if they submit quietly to night and lose their lives in all their fineness, new generations will arise and sing the songs behind the mountain,

so the sail can be furled all day with song,

so if water wants the sea it can reach it,

or if it wants it can end on the plain,

so the lokum can remain on the rose-patterned plate."*

[*selected lines excerpted from Agamemnon I by Oktay RIFAT (1914-1988), translated from the Turkish by Ruth Christie and Richard McKane in Tablet and Pen:: Literary Landscapes from The Modern Middle East, A Words Without Borders Anthology Edited by Reza ASLAN, Copyright 2011, W.W. Norton & Company]

strathcona corners:: round one

good to know that we can renew our luck - or get lucky again - in this one particular room, for rent [I presume!] in the Strathcona neighbourhood just east of Chinatown...

the ethnic mix here has shifted from immigrant italians early on to chinese workers to artists, mostly white, to determined home renovators and staunch heritage buffs, also mostly white...

still, many cool old houses from the turn of the 20th century remain, albeit in various states of redressing, making for an interesting residential pocket in the downtown eastside that is easy to miss buffeted as it is by the industrial edges of Clark Drive, the messy distractions of East Hastings Street, and the bright lights of Chinatown...

during a recent culture crawl event that encouraged the opening up of artists' studios/homes to curious outsiders, I wandered around briefly mostly looking in, but plan to return for more photos when the streets are less lively...

 [this was taken in the summer when visiting a friend staying here in this truly haunted house!]

tosi time toss

 Sandwiched between the Chinatown cacophony of East Georgia and Keefer Street on Main Street sprawls the cavernous premises of the nostalgically real italiano deli and import foodstore of TOSI and Company...

I have never known of its existence until walking by the other day and noticing the grimy and haphazard window display - or rather, non-display of boxes and cans with seriously faded labels and dusty plastic canisters! 

I had to ring a bell to be let in and I walked into a murky time warped chamber filled with an epicurean jumble of a more peasanty persuasion from another era - I don't believe the shelves and counter tops have changed much since like about 1910!

In a Vancouver that is constantly in flux and nestled in a Chinatown that is losing its original lustre, this throw-back of an authentic italian pioneer enterprise was an unexpected and oddly delightful stumbled upon discovery for someone who has only lived here for over 30 years!

[when we were waiting to pay for a package of tagliatelle, the character from central casting behind the counter was speaking in italian on the telephone to Signore Tosi Jr. himself to ask for instructions about when to plant the chicory seeds that the customer ahead of us was buying...

needless to say, it was slightly jarring to walk out the door of this time-[and scent]-muddled yet shabbily atmospheric food emporium of the TOSI family and be right back in Vancouver Chinatown again!]

a tall tree tally

 two weeks before Christmas and the seasonal betrunking of evergreen trees is well underway...

just off Commercial Drive this tallest of them all will not enjoy its regal solitary stance in a small private garden anymore...

silhouetted for one last moment against the pale winter sky before its silent majesty is no more...

*please save a tree this holiday season* 

chinatown remains

It has been much too long since I have been down to Vancouver's Chinatown and really take notice of the upscale changes going on as well as sadly, what is still barely clinging on...

The establishment of well-funded vanity projects in art galleries, stylish lounges and uptown priced

cuisine nouvelle-chinoise contrasts even more starkly with what remains of a once bustling enclave of working-class chinese culture and commerce...

On a late winter afternoon, as the sun dips low behind the buildings and the street lamps begin to turn on, I walk the few blocks of East Georgia Street, Keefer Street and East Pender Street where the majority of the shoppers are still Asian but just not as unrepentantly chic in dress as the few non-Asians making their way to be seen in the uplifted high brow cool spots...

savage snow

on my portuguese fig...

on my spanish grape...

on my french rose...

on my italian jardiniere...