Vancouver Sandwich Challenge Winners

Join us on the evening of Wednesday, June 19, 2024 for a discussion on the ways in which people in Vancouver are ‘gardening the streets’ and helping to turn roadways into verdant and vibrant public spaces. The event features two presentations – one longer, one shorter – that touch on the practice of transforming streets into beautiful green spaces. The event will also showcase some of the programs and opportunities that community members can access to take a turn at ‘greening’ our city streets and improving local public space. Joining us for the evening are: SABA FARMAND – a landscape architect and arborist. In 2019 he started documenting the many ways that community members have been stewarding street and boulevard gardens. His @eastvan_blvd_gardens instagram account project has almost 5,000 followers and has led to several successful walking tours and speaking events. ROSINA CUK – a horticulturalist and arborist who has been managing the boulevard garden on Heather and 16th and the traffic circle on Heather and 18th for the past five years. Presentations will be followed by an open conversation with audience members. Bring your questions and ideas and join in the discussion! Gardening the Streets is the first event in the VPSN’s Access Public Space series, which explores the overall accessibility – physical, economic, cultural, etc. – of the city’s open spaces, streets and civic buildings to community members and visitors. The event is FREE, but registration is required . Some light snacks will be available. * * * * * Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House (MPNH) Accessibility MPNH is located one block away from the 99 B-Line, and the #8 and #9 buses. The first and second floors are fully wheelchair accessible. There are single stall, all-gender, wheelchair accessible washrooms on the first and second floors, as well as multi-stall gendered washrooms. MPNH is a scent-reduced space to help support the wellbeing of neighbours with sensitivities. The House offers free WiFi for guests, which may impact those with electromagnetic sensitivities.

Unless negotiation is successful Monday night, Metro Vancouver will face a SkyTrain shutdown starting at 5 a.m. on Tuesday, December 10. Photo by Dan Toulgoet Many Metro Vancouver  commuters may be on edge Monday wondering if car-mageddon will kick in Tuesday if there’s a SkyTrain shutdown. With the union discontinuing media statements and negotiations under a media blackout, The Tri-City News reached out to TransLink to find out what’s going on. For now, it appears talks are ongoing as both sides in the dispute try to reach an agreement before the union’s deadline strike beginning Tuesday morning. In its latest press release, CUPE Local 7000 said it is committed to negotiating for a new contract at the bargaining table and reaching a deal with no disruption of service. However, due to concerns about TransLink statements to the media, the union stated in a press release it will be making no more media statements until further notice. “If no agreement is reached, job action will begin with a full shutdown from Tuesday through Thursday,” according to a press release. CUPE Local 7000 represents approximately 900 SkyTrain workers who provide service as SkyTrain attendants and control operators as well as administration, maintenance and technical staff. Its last contract expired Aug. 31. The union is negotiating with the British Columbia Rapid Transit Co. In its press release, TransLink stated it “remains committed to getting a deal done. We will continue bargaining until the last moment to avoid this unnecessary and disruptive job action.” The last SkyTrain strike was a single-day shutdown more than 20 years ago. Additionally, Coast Mountain Bus Company has announced that it will not be increasing bus service in response to the planned strike, citing their “operational constraints and labour considerations.” Here are five things you need to know based on TransLink’s answers to questions: 1. Are there any talks scheduled today between BCRTC and CUPE 7000? Yes. Talks will continue as long as needed today (Monday). 2. What is the union is asking for? We are respecting the process and not talking about the contents of the offer at this stage. 3. Why can’t SkyTrain operate with excluded staff? While trains are automated, we need staff in the control room telling trains what to do. We can’t operate the system without these people. 4. How will you be communicating a shutdown? Customers should assume the strike is happening and prepare for it, even if there’s a chance for a last-minute deal. We will send a statement and use social media should job action be averted. We will be sending some info for customers later today. It’s important to note while all other services will be running, there will be no additional bus service. It’s regular operations. 5. What time is the shutdown to take place Tuesday if no agreement is reached? The shutdown will be effective at the start of the service day. No trains will be leaving the yard Tuesday morning if there’s no deal. If no agreement is reached, the system-wide shutdown affecting the Millennium and Expo lines (including the Evergreen Extension to Port Moody and Coquitlam) is scheduled to begin Tuesday at 5 a.m. with normal service set to resume by Friday at 5 a.m. Buses, the Canada Line, SeaBus, West Coast Express and HandyDart will not be affected. With files from Elana Shepert/Vancouver Is Awesome

One of the more disturbing criticisms of the housing affordability discussion is coming from some pretty obnoxious baby boomers. They are telling younger Canadians to “stop whining” and accusing them of “entitlement”. Talk about irony! The typical boomer was raised in a home where mom stayed home and dad worked an 8-hour day. Back then, the average Canadian family could afford a comfortable middle-class life in a single-family home with only one income and little household debt (less than 30% of GDP). Today families are weighed down by record-high household debt which is approaching 100% of GDP. When it came time for university, boomers graduated without the need for large student loans. Their parent’s generation picked-up the tab thanks to a top tax rate of 80%. Now, university students are being asked to finance their own education, so boomers can enjoy the lowest tax rates since the Great Depression. The situation is especially bad in BC, where the 2013 BMO Student Survey found students here graduating with almost $35,000 in student debt. When the boomers started working, they enjoyed good starting wages and generous retirement benefits — thanks to strong labour unions. As they moved up the income ladder and as some of them took over positions in government, they gave themselves huge tax cuts, greatly weakened the strength of labour unions, and put in place plenty of other perks that they disproportionately benefited from — like income splitting and TFSAs . In a report from earlier this year, the parliamentary budget officer concluded that TFSAs overwhelmingly benefit older, wealthier Canadians. Did I mention the TFSA was first proposed by one of Canada’s most prolific millennial-mocking boomers, Garth Turner? As the baby boomers stock holdings grew, corporate income tax rates fell. Since the 1980s, the Canadian corporate income tax rate has been cut in half. This has done wonders for after-tax profits, and been yet another windfall for the boomers. Ask any millennial if they expect to get the same generous government retirement benefits that older boomers now enjoy. The age for OAS is already going up. Sorry, you young entitled whiners, but there’s a good chance you’ll be working many years more than the boomers had to. When it comes to housing, boomers were able to buy a single-family home on one income. Then they got to enjoy decades of falling mortgage rates, giving them a nice bonus every time they renewed their mortgage. The outlook for millennials is much less rosy. As hard as it is now to buy a place, it’s likely to get much worse when they renew as interest rates have nowhere to go but up. One of the regional perks enjoyed by boomers has been the Agricultural Land Reserve. In the mid-1970s, after many of them bought cheap land for their homes, restrictions were put in place on future development. As a result, the ALR helped ensure that the homes of baby boomers would appreciate handsomely. We got ours, tough luck future generations! Now stop whining! And one of the most outrageous examples of boomer entitlement comes courtesy of the BC Liberals. For homeowners over the age of 55 — most of whom are equity rich — the BC government will now give you a super-low 1 per cent loan. The only requirement is that you don’t pay your property taxes. Meanwhile, the whiners get to pay over 5 per cent on their student loans. I don’t think there’s been a generation in history that’s had it as easy economically as the baby boomers. They’ve enjoyed economic tailwinds their entire life. Now that millennials are rightfully complaining that their prospects are much worse than baby boomers enjoyed, some of those boomers now have the audacity to call millennials entitled?

We looked at an image of the Empress, and her next-door neighbour, the Phoenix, in a post we wrote six years ago. Then we saw a horizontal slice of the buildings, but this Archives image from 50 years ago shows the full vertical extent of a tall building on a 25 foot lot. The $90,000 construction was developed by L L Mills, and designed by his brother-in-law who worked in Independence, Kansas, and who almost certainly got the job because he was married to Lyle’s sister, Emma. Lyle Le Roy Mills was born in the US, in Iowa, and in 1912 when he obtained the permit for the building he was 43. His wife Elsie was from originally from Sweden, shown in the 1911 census as three years younger, (although actually three years older). They had married in Seattle in 1904, and were living in the West End with an extended family; Lyle’s mother, Margaret who was 85 was living with them, and Elsie’s mother, Carrie Swensen, and her sister, Ellen. Lyle’s brother, Oscar and his wife Cora were also living at 1967 Barclay with their children, Oscar Le Roy, 13, and Earl Van, 11. Oscar worked as a barman at what was described as the ‘world’s narrowest tallest hotel’ when it was built. Lyle and Elsie had married in Washington state in 1904, and it wasn’t Elsie’s first marriage as she was recorded then as Elsie Anderson. After a few years Mr Mills ran into problems. In 1916 it was alleged that a young woman stayed at the hotel without registering. On the strength of the allegation (which was never tested in court), Mr Mills was threatened with the loss of his hotel licence. Mayor McBeath, and the City’s Licence Inspector held the view that the board could arbitarily cancel a licence. They suggested that if he wanted his day in court, Mr Mills could always appeal. Lawyers appearing for Mr Mills initially persuaded other board members that they could only cancel a licence after a conviction in police court, but a temporary suspension was agreed Unwilling to drop the case, the board launched its own inquiry, and called the girl to give evidence. She admitted staying with two men for two nights without having registered. Detectives said that they had seen the girl leaving the hotel, and the hotel clerks were called and confirmed she was not registered. But they also stated that they, and Mr Mills, did not know she was staying, and they were under instructions to not allow unaccompanied women to use the hotel rooms. The lawyer for Mr Mills throughout the proceeedings objected that they lay beyond the board’s powers, and that there was no proof (or accusation) that Mr Mills knew of the woman’s presence. Just as the board were about to debate suspending the licence, Frank Lyons, the lawyer, produced writs claiming damages against the board members for usurpation of powers, and an injunction preventing them from suspending the hotel licence. “Remember that I am telling you now that you have no power, no authority, no right; your action is unfair, improper, illegal, unjust.” The mayor wasn’t willing to back down, and by the summer of 1917 the case was in the Supreme Court, where Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper was representing Mr Mills. (He was a former conservative politician, Minister of Justice and Solicitor General for Canada). There had also been something of a PR disaster for the hotel, when a sensational case arose concerning the death of Mrs Nora Cowan. She fell – or jumped – from a fifth floor window, and died as a result. The circumstances filled the papers for days. A coroner’s jury handed down an open verdict after hearing that Mrs Cowan (married to a soldier serving in Europe) had met Vernon Cole (a married man with a wife and children) and after several drinks in the hotel had appeared to have had too much alcohol, and had been taken to a room usually occupied by one of the hotel barmen. A doctor (a friend of Mr Cole) had seen she was asleep, and she was left alone. Mr Mills had briefly interacted with the party, as he was a friend of Mr Cole, but there was no suggestion of any inpropriety on his part. Nevertheless the mayor used the episode as another reason for the removal of the licence, and this time the board agreed. Sir Charles Tupper declared the board’s actions to be illegal, as they had determined to remove the licence and then tried to find grounds to support that position. There was a week’s delay in the appeal to the Supreme Court while the mayor was unavailable, on a trip to Winnipeg, and a week later when the mayor was again unable to attend as he was on holiday in Calgary. Eventually Justice Murphy held the hearing, and having heard extensively from Sir Charles Tupper (who continued to denounce the board for depriving the hotelier of his $200,000 investment with no direct evidence of any wrongdoing), he nevertheless determined, a week later, that the board could suspend or cancel the licence as they saw fit, without having to follow the normal rules of evidence or procedures of a court. Six days later Walter J Robinson, a baliff, was offering the contents of the hotel to meet a debt of $1,450 against Lyle L

Larry as usual provides the numbers. Detached MOI = 6.9 Attached =  5.6 Condo = 6.1 These MOI are in the ‘balanced’ range. However they are a LOT lower than last August. Is this demand pulled in because of the interest rate and CMHC changes or is the Bull back? Some higher sales have skewed the numbers. Lots of local and HAM big buys in August in the Multimillion range have pulled the numbers up. Is HAM buying drying up? Not yet. There are some signs that emerging markets are under some financial stress with the Fed TALK (only talk so far) of pulling back on ponzi monetary policy. However the Chinese PMI number has come in above expectations and that may bring more hot money to our shores. As I have said recently, we SHOULD have seen the top with everything stacked against RE. However there could be some new dynamic that I have not taken into account which will ignite further buying and if so, then it is time to move on. We will know very soon if this is the case.

A couple of blocks of Seymour Street developed into the ultimate shopping desination (if you were popping out to buy a truck). Federal Motors, and GMC Trucks were on the next block to the south, and International Motor Trucks put their showroom here, on the 1100 block. Built in two phases, International moved here in 1927 when the expanded from their smaller premises at the north end of the same block, on Davie Street. The initial building was the northern (right hand) half, seen in this 1927 Vancouver Public Library image. According to the permit it was developed in 1926 by Mr. J. E. McAllister at a cost of $8,500. Charles James McAllister was born in Wiarton, Bruce County Ontario in 1869. He became a blacksmith, and arrived in Vancouver around 1891, initially working for the CPR. He worked on East Hastings, initially we think for John McAllister, another blacksmith who had The Columbia Carriage Works there. It seems likely they were related, and Charles lodged with John when he first arrived. Charles married Ellen Percival in 1898. She was born in Manitoba but lived in Vancouver from 1887. They had a daughter, Elva, in 1899, and a son, Clarence in 1903. In 1905 they were living on this site at 1145 Seymour in a house that Charles had built a year earlier (just visible on the edge of the 1927 image). In the 1911 census Charles was still a blacksmith. In 1921 E J McAllister got a permit to carry out repairs and raise the house. Charles J McAllister was still shown living here in the street directory, and in 1928 was president of McAllister Spring Co, (based in 1162 Seymour) and still living here, as was his son Clarence, who worked with him. We’re not sure if there really was a J E McAllister who owned the premises, and almost certain there was no E J McAllister (at least, not in any street directories) but Charles J McAllister lived in this location for over 20 years before the garage was built. Whoever developed the garage probably hired Bedford Davidson to design and build it. If not, they copied the other garage designs Mr Davidson was resposible for in the area. The house at 1145 Seymour had rooms to let between 1927 and 1931, which is when we think it must have been replaced by the extended showroom. By 1933 when our main image was taken, the building had been doubled to 100 feet wide. Charles McAllister died in 1956 at the age of 87. His obitiary noted that he owned McAllister Spring Co for 45 years, having set it up when he stopped working for the CPR. International Harvester Co moved into the building at 1135 in 1927, and were listed until 1950. United Upholstery moved into the building in 1951, and were here until 1957. In 1958 a new bowling alley was announced; Norman Loomer was going to spend $15,000 on remodelling the premises and installing the equipment. He already had Seymour Recreations at 1105 Seymour, and when Loomer Lanes opened in August they allowed both 5 and 10 pin bowling in ‘the most modern lanes in Canada’. In 1964 they were the Holly Lanes, but by 1967 Budget Office Furniture had taken the space, and was here to the mid 1970s, but by 1975 Dorwell Office Equipment had taken over, and by the early 1980s it was the Furniture Division of Williams and Mackie. Today it’s part of a twin tower strata project called Brava, designed by Hewitt and Kwasnicky, and developed by Onni and Amacon in the early 2000s, completed in 2005. On this part of the street there are townhouses, but the Vancouver International Film Centre run the theatre to the south that’s part of the complex. Image sources; City of Vancouver Archives CVA 99-4547 and Vancouver Public Library 1420