Olympics Fever

These days I don’t often walk down towards the East Side to check out the old neighborhood, the Vancouver I first saw when I came here in the early 70’s.

It was mid winter, and fresh off a cross-Canada hitchhike my partner and I got a room at the Terminus Hotel in Gastown a run-down last ditch resort for derelicts and addicts. As a starving artist I fell right and comfortably into their midst.

I pawned a typewriter to pay the first week’s rent and began busking on the sidewalk across the street, in front of the then new Spaghetti Factory.

With the 2010 Olympics coming on I wanted to get a first hand look at the facelift the city is giving itself to meet the world in a week or so.

I kept my promise to myself and walked down to Army & Navy yesterday, to check out the area around Victory Square and the preparations for the Olympics. There are signs of construction everywhere and the new Woodward’s building looks like a snapshot of its turn-of-the-century architecture with the store departments lettered largely under the windows.

The new red “W” is winking and spinning up top like it never left.

There is a new and burgeoning London Drugs now taking up the southwest side of the building along Hastings and across the street where those seedy run down convenience stores used to be, artisans are hard at work constructing what appears to be a new set of store fronts.

On the East side along Abbot Street Nester’s Market has moved in and is calling itself the Woodward’s Food Floor after it’s namesake which was still thriving and bustling when I first arrived here in 1971.

The Vancouver Film School has expanded from its one small building just West of Victory Square to cover nearly the whole block occupying many of the buildings.

There is so much construction going on in the area that it is almost impossible to believe we are on the receding edge of a major recession.

I guess this is part of the face Vancouver will be showing the world when it arrives.

Well what about the homeless problem?

I guess there are major perks floating around the area these days as many of the people I saw on the streets including some who were clearly challenged are now wearing clothing with Olympic slogans and games related gear.

I just pray that this downtown eastside renaissance continues long after the games have come and gone and that the homeless are finally welcomed home.