THE
HOOD, GENTRIFICATION, TACKY TOURIST
Its amazing
what you become used to and how much you miss seeing what is actually there. I
have been in the hood since May of 2007 although I actually didn’t get moved in
until July of that year. It took me two months to get moved from my Granville
street address. I leaned heavily on friends and my son and daughter in law for
transport, funds, and labor’
It was kind
of like coming home in a way. When Shelley and I first moved in with each other
we used to spend a lot of time in Gastown. One of our favorite haunts was a
small club on Cordova called “Lucy’s jazz Workshop” and we always dreamed of
actually living in the hood at that time circa 1973-74.
A lot of
water has flowed under the bridge sine then and the last time I saw Shelley was
in July of 1982. As far as I know she still lives in Vancouver but somehow our
paths have not crossed since then.
Yesterday I
was out in the hood for a coffee at Milano’s, camera in hand reflected from the
signs how much the hood has changed since I moved here. The city has put a
commemorative plaque about the fact that our co-op was the site of an early
city hall, and the DTES is rapidly changing all around
us.
We will
soon be ethnically cleansed by offshore Chinese money making it impossible by reason of expense to continue living in Vancouver.
JWL
No comments:
Post a Comment