Tragedy on the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge | June 17, 1958

June 22, 2018VancouverRaymond Tomlin

Ironworkers Memorial Bridge | June 17, 1958 | The Collapse of the Second Narrows Bridge

This past Sunday, June 17th, marked the 60th anniversary of one of the most tragic construction accidents in British Columbia history, the collapse of the Second Narrows bridge spanning Burrard Inlet. The tragedy claimed the lives of 18 workers that day, who plunged 200 feet into the swirling, twisted steel-engorged waters below, a 19th man, a diver, dying later while searching for the souls who perished that devastating Tuesday afternoon.

Sixty years on, pretty much all that remains of Vancouver’s worst industrial accident are old faded photographs, and a sign declaring the structure as the renamed, “The Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows” bridge.
For me, my memory of that day will reside in me always.
Just after 3pm, I had left Mrs. Goloff’s Grade 2 class, situated in a portable along Charles Street, outside Lord Nelson Elementary School proper, to return to my home at 2165 East 2nd Avenue. Of course, as per usual, there was no one home, so I decided to stay outside and play, at what I don’t recall — but as it turned out, it didn’t matter.
Because at 3:30pm on that sunny Tuesday afternoon, rumbling thunder could be heard reverberating throughout the city, a calamitous — and, to me, frightening — earthquake shaking the ground beneath me. I recall that day as clearly as I recall my first day of school, or the passing of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, as one of the signal events of my young life.

Respected documentarian George Orr’s new must-see documentary on the tragedy, The Bridge, features never-before-seen, virtually pristine full colour footage of the bridge during its construction phase up until June 17th, and the immediate aftermath of the collapse, chronicled through the 16mm film coverage shot by engineer and novice filmmaker Peter Hall, a draftsman who had been hired by the Dominion Bridge Company to document the construction of the Second Narrows bridge. Up until a year ago, the footage shot by Mr. Hall lay dormant, untouched and preserved on the shelves in the study of Mr. Hall’s Vancouver Island home.
Until, that is, the day documentarian George Orr came calling on Mr. Hall.

As Ken Eisner wrote in his review of The Bridge in The Georgia Straight …

In any case, Hall’s footage — burnished by time but still lively with rich, rose-hued colours — is unfailingly gorgeous. It does credit to the men who lived and died on the project, subsequently renamed the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing (not in common parlance, regardless of what CBC great Rick Cluff insists here). But the movie best comes to life at the very end, when the talking stops and snippets of his material are married to a Stompin’ Tom Connors song recalling the event.

Following two sold-out June 17th screenings of The Bridge at the Vancouver International Film Festival’s Vancity Theatre, programmer Tom Charity — responding to public demand — scheduled six additional screenings of Mr. Orr’s efficacious, illuminating and at all times moving documentary …

Sunday, June 24, 2018 at 12:30pm;
Saturday, July 7, at 1.30pm & 2:50pm;
Sunday, July 8, at 3.30pm & 5pm, and
Tuesday, July 10, at 8.40pm.

Tickets for the upcoming screenings of The Bridge are available here.

Honestly, you must see George Orr’s The Bridge. You owe it to yourself.

June 17th, 1958, 18 workers died when, at 3:30pm, the under construction Second Narrows bridge collapsed into the waters of Burrard Inlet below. You owe it to the memory of the workers who perished that day, and to yourself, to take in one of the remaining Vancity Theatre screenings of George Orr’s moving documentary, The Bridge.

Baseball | A Respite from the Madness

June 21, 2018Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

Vancouver Canadians baseball at Nat Bailey Stadium

We are in the midst of grave times of momentous import, and mad times.

In our daily lives, from the time we rise at the beginning of our day, we all step up to the metaphoric ‘home-plate’. We go to our jobs, enjoy our families, and go about our daily lives. We hang in there. We press forward.From our metaphoric use of baseball as our game, to the quintessentially Canadian food we eat at the stadium, baseball resonates deep within us. Pop culture extends and illuminates it in every far corner of our society. I grew up watching baseball, and playing it — baseball is deeply rooted within me, and on some days, good days, game days, baseball serves to act as respite from all the madness and hurt and pain that surrounds me.

Baseball: it’s not just metaphoric idioms, nor is it the crowds at Nat Bailey Stadium — although they are fine and full of good cheer, the families and the young couples filled with love that brims over with hope — nor is it the popcorn, the warm peanuts in the shell & hotdogs, the crack of the bat, the wave, the hot summer days with cold beer and upside down ice-cream helmet cups. It runs deeper. Baseball symbolizes a way of life and, for many of us, has come to act as metaphor for the human condition.

Sometimes, when I walk down the street, people drift by me in a trance-like, almost catatonic, state plugged into the broader digital collective, and oblivious to most things going on around them. There is a near-constant stream of communication fed into our brains via our smartphones and tablets, and the opiate epidemic of our time: information overload. You just can’t escape it, none of us can escape it. Because now, it’s a way of life.

And then you set about to attend a Vancouver Canadians baseball game at Nat Bailey, and upon arrival at the stadium and having taken your seat, you hear someone near you marveling over a ball that was just hit deep into the outfield, and how it bounced off the wall, and ricocheted away from the left fielder. And for just a moment you are transported, life is transcended.

‘Filmed’ with an iPhone, the camera work a bit shaky. Vancouver Canadians baseball.

And sitting back on the uncomfortable benches, you take a moment to gaze upon the perfectly manicured, cross-hatched, green grass on the field reflecting the sunlight. And the shadows from the stadium’s upper façade slowly overtaking the rest of the diamond from earlier innings. You see the Canadians pitcher’s pre-pitch routine unfolding, as he nervously spins the ball in his hand, adjusts the brim of his cap so it sits just off to the left of his head. And for one very special moment, there is a hush in the crowd.

Then the gangly young batter comes up to the plate, some 19-year-old kid from Texas with dreams of “the show”, setting about to rap the bat against his cleats to shake loose the dirt stuck in the heel. Stepping up to the plate, he looks directly at the pitcher as if to say, “Give me your best. I can take it, and knock the ball clear out of the stadium, into tomorrow and beyond.

For many of us, baseball offers us refuge from the madness of our times, because it’s antithetical to the way much of life is today, antithetical to the never-ending flood of rage that we have come to accept as the new normal.

During a baseball game there’s no Trump, no surtax protesting rich folks, no developers, no rank unfairness, no despair, no railing against social injustice, hurt, wont, regretful child poverty and need — not that these issues recede into the background, for they are always there and of present concern — but amidst the madness of our days, there is at times just baseball & you, running to first base, stealing second, watching home runs sail over the far green fence, double plays, curveballs, sinkers & sliders.

Baseball. It’s nice and slow, and easy and safe. And some days, game day, that works just fine for me, and I’m willing to wager, it will for you, too.

Field of Dreams, 1988

Vancouver Votes 2018 | Battle for 58 West Hastings

June 20, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

2018 COPE Vancouver City Council must-elect candidate Jean Swanson (middle), at City Hall

At 58 West Hastings, across the street from the Army & Navy, there exists in relation to that property, a tale of treachery and political malfeasance, the likes of which our town has rarely witnessed in its 132-year history.
An unconscionable transgressive act of deceit, civic malpractice and faithlessness, as demonstrated by our current Vision Vancouver civic administration, upon vulnerable persons resident in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) neighbourhood, an unconscionable failure to act in good faith, continues to deny some of our city’s most vulnerable and needful residents of what they most desire, and which most every person reading VanRamblings today takes for granted, as a human right: a home.
Yesterday morning, activists, journalists and persons of conscience Nathan Crompton, Steffanie Ling and Caitlin Shane published an expansive chronicle on the sorry history of 58 West Hastings, in a story titled Battle for 58 West Hastings: Broken Promises and Co-optation, 2016-2018.
Today, I have linked above to The Mainlander story, a chronicle that is a must-and-a-compelling read, constituting VanRamblings’ post for the day.
Battle for 58 West Hastings: Broken Promises and Co-optation, 2016-2018 commences with the following paragraph (with excerpted paragraphs from further down in the article, immediately following) …

For years, an empty lot at 58 West Hastings has been at the centre of a fight for social housing in the Downtown Eastside (DTES). Since 2007, it has been the site of numerous actions including the 2010 Olympic Tent Village, when women- and Indigenous-led tent city forced Concord Pacific to abandon its condo plans for the site, followed by a four-month tent city in the summer of 2016.

By early 2017, the 250 units promised by the mayor were reduced to a meagre 77 units — 33% of the overall project. Amidst a sea of condos, less than one hundred welfare- and pension-rate rental units are now planned for 58 West Hastings according to the City’s latest documents. These units will not be built until 2021 at the earliest.

The City’s lies and inaction on 58 W. Hastings will claim the lives of hundreds unless Mayor Robertson’s promise is followed through. We, the poor and the homeless of the Downtown Eastside will not sit idly as our elected officials deprive us of the housing we need. We are not a statistic; numbers to be counted and shuffled around in the attempt to remake the city for the rich. We will fight for our lives and our right to live with dignity. There will be no business as usual at City Hall unless our demands are met.

We in Vancouver do not live in a consequence free universe, and neither do the political figures who have controlled civic government in Vancouver these past many years.
Arising from the despair many of those who call the DTES home have felt over many, many years of frustratingly heartless government at all three levels of civic, provincial and national governance, a palpable movement for change, and change now, has arisen, an activist movement the likes of which many of us who have called Vancouver home for the past sixty and more years have not seen since the pre-and-unrealized-revolutionary days of the New Left, and the work of activists in the 1960s and 1970s.
The central tenets of the 2018 Vancouver civic election is the realization extant of the movement of change, in a call for The City We Need.

Coalition of Progressive Electors 2018 Vancouver City Council candidates Jean Swanson, Anne Roberts and Derrick O’Keefe, the Green Party of Vancouver’s Adriane Carr and Pete Fry, and OneCity Vancouver City Council candidates Brandon Yan and Christine Boyle are committed to building The City We Need, an inclusive city, a fair and socially just city, a city for all of us and not the resort city our previous provincial government — and, perhaps even, a Vision Vancouver civic administration holding power at Vancouver City Hall this past 10 years — seemed intent on building, barring many of our citizens from realizing their most cherished hope of a living in a home in the city where they have resided all their lives.
Make no mistake: change is on the way this civic election season!

As I say above, Battle for 58 West Hastings: Broken Promises and Co-optation, 2016-2018 is a compelling, must-read for all Vancouver citizens.

Vancouver Votes 2018 | Ian Campbell on CBC’s Early Edition

June 19, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

Vision Vancouver Mayoral candidate, Ian Campbell, is asking for your vote in 2018

On June 7th, Vision Vancouver — the ruling party at Vancouver City Hall for the past 10 years — announced that Squamish Nation hereditary Chief Ian Campbell, had been selected as the party’s 2018 Mayoral nominee.

The following morning, Mr. Campbell visited the downtown Vancouver studios of CBC Radio One, where he was interviewed by respected broadcast journalist Stephen Quinn, the host of Vancouver’s top-rated morning news and information radio show, The Early Edition. The entirety of the often contentious interview is available in the video directly below.

CBC Radio One Early Edition interview with Vision Vancouver Mayoral candidate, Ian Campbell

At the 7 minute,15 second mark of the interview, Mr. Quinn queries Ian Campbell on his thoughts on the implementation of a so-called Mansion Tax, a plank in the platform of Coalition of Progressive Electors’ City Council candidate, Jean Swanson, while also querying Mr. Campbell on the efficacy of the provincial New Democratic party government’s new School Surtax.
As you’ll hear upon listening to the interview, despite Stephen Quinn asking the question of Mr. Campbell several times as to whether he supported both the Mansion Tax and the School Surtax, Vision Vancouver Mayoral candidate Ian Campbell obfuscated on the question, refusing to give Mr. Quinn anything close to what might be considered an adequate reply to a 2018 Vancouver civic election issue of some contention, and an issue that all of Vancouver’s progressive, left-of-centre parties — OneCity Vancouver, the Green Party of Vancouver, and the Coalition of Progressive Electors, save perhaps Mr. Campbell’s own party, Vision Vancouver — will run on.
Perhaps, the individual who was most exorcised by Ian Campbell’s refusal to answer Stephen Quinn’s direct question on the Mansion Tax and the School Surtax was CBC reporter Justin McElroy …

CBC Radio One Vancouver's The Early Edition | Interview with Ian Campbell, Vision Vancouver's 2018 Mayoral candidate

At this point, we’ll say that Vision Vancouver Mayoral aspirant Ian Campbell will have to do a much better job of answering questions put to him by reporters during the course of the next four months — VanRamblings notes, in passing, that it is four months to the day today when Vancouver voters will go to the polls to elect our city’s next Mayor and City Council.
During this next four month period, Ian Campbell will have to make it abundantly clear as to which side he is on, whether he supports the initiatives being placed before voters by his coalition One City / Green / COPE partners, and whether he’s ready to build the city that we all need.

The City We Need? A Vancouver that is defined by social justice, most certainly, but a city as well that is committed to building thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of homes — as independent Mayoral candidate, UBC professor of urban affairs, Patrick Condon is advocating for: housing co-ops, land trusts, owned homes on city land leases, and all forms of non-market housing, towards the creation of an affordable housing city for all, where 50% of homes in Vancouver will be designated as social housing, as Mr. Condon has explicated, and is often referred to as the Vienna Model.

Vancouver is situated on unceded / stolen Coast Salish territory

Squamish Nation traditional territory includes the settler community of Vancouver.

Each time we write about Ian Campbell on VanRamblings, the same issue is raised by our readers — and some friends and associates — to wit: “Ian Campbell lives in North Vancouver. He’s not even a Vancouver resident.”
The answer to the erroneous charge: take a look at the graphic above, Vancouver is situated on the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish peoples, and in the case of Vancouver, in Squamish Nations territory. Let’s be clear: we in Vancouver are settlers. More than 200 years ago, we stole the lands on which we live from our indigenous peoples, no treaty was ever signed with the Squamish Nation, nor any other First Nations peoples in British Columbia, the Squamish Nation did not relinquish their sovereignty over their land — which, as I point out above, Vancouver is situated on.
To say that Ian Campbell is not a “resident” of Vancouver must be seen as a failure to acknowledge Squamish Nation sovereignty over the lands we call home, and that we are interlopers living on stolen land, resident in Vancouver only by the good graces of the Squamish Nation peoples.
Let us hope, once and for all, that the issue of Ian Campbell’s “residency” is finally put to rest, that we acknowledge Squamish Nation hereditary Chief Ian Campbell is offering his Vision Vancouver candidacy as Mayor of our city on lands that are his ancestral lands, and that he has every right to bring his name forward, and ask for the support of the Vancouver electorate in the crucial 2018 civic election on election day, Saturday, October 20th.
Final note: Should Ian Campbell garner the support of the Vancouver & District Labour Council as the VDLC’s choice for the next Mayor of our city, VanRamblings will enthusiastically support Mr. Campbell’s candidacy, and will do all in our power to see that he becomes our next Mayor. In the interim — all of the first part of today’s column aside, which is not meant as an attack on Ian Campbell’s good name, nor on his unrivaled contribution to the livability of our city, but rather is issued as a plea for clarity from Mr. Campbell as to the tenets of his campaign for the office of Mayor …
VanRamblings continues to believe that Ian Campbell would make a fine Mayor for our city, that not only is Ian Campbell a man of much erudition and accomplishment, but that he is as well possessed of a humane and caring manner, and way of bringing himself to the world, and that he is a humble man of character, integrity, much wit & good humour, with a ready, warm, genuine, engaging and reassuring smile — and dare we say grace — and a man worthy and deserving of your consideration in the coming days and weeks ahead in this civic election season as, perhaps, Vancouver’s next Mayor, and the man to lead our beloved city by the sea into the future.