Walking Around Vancouver: East Hastings Street

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Last week we took Amtrak up north to Vancouver, Canada to celebrate our wedding anniversary, as well as to escape all of the loud Fourth of July explosions and fireworks in this country. The train is a superb way to travel; it was relaxing, scenic, affordable, comfortable, and it let us off very near where we were staying in downtown Vancouver.

After we arrived at the central train station we walked a few blocks to our hotel, the Patricia, (which is a great place to stay and a super value, if you are okay with occasionally walking through a gauntlet of junkies and homeless people). The atmosphere in the city was most lively; it was a hot sultry summer night, and it seemed like everyone was out in the streets.

Walking Around Vancouver

During our visit I found Vancouver’s mass transit system to be brilliant and reliable, and their bicycle/pedestrian infrastructure was fairly impressive as well. Vancouver is consistently voted one of the world’s most livable cities, replete with scores of public parks, community gardens, art, good local food, murals, marijuana dispensaries, beautiful trees and cooperatively owned businesses; which explains why it has become the sixth most expensive place on the planet to buy a house. Even in this bleak economy, the average home price in the region is still near $800,000.

While we were in Canada we spent a lot of time just wandering around on foot; while exploring Stanley Park we even encountered a massive beaver. Being a pedestrian is definitely one of my favorite ways to get to know a place; since we had taken the train, it was also great to not have a car to worry about dealing with while we were in the city. Here are a few images that I took while we were walking up and down East Hastings Street, one of Vancouver’s main thoroughfares:

This mural was on Hastings, across the street from our hotel.

This locally owned business just re-opened a week before we arrived; we bought a delicious piece of Gruyere from one of the nice lady butchers.

Sadly they were out of rhubarb, but the home made apple pie was pretty tasty.

We also came across Vancouver's Girls Rock Camp while walking around town.

The People’s Phone Booth

This free public phone was in front of Spartacus Books, just a few blocks from where we were staying in Vancouver. Something about the egalitarian concept of providing free internet based calls for random strangers in need seemed very Canadian to me. I stumbled across this explanation of the origins of the public phone in a local free zine, the Carnegie Newsletter:

The public pay phone has become an endangered species, especially on the Downtown Eastside where 82% of people live alone and many are homeless. The phones that do exist are “few and far between and are turned off at 9 p.m. so no further calls can be made,” notes Caitlin Williams, who works at Spartacus Books. Other area phones will only accept 911.

Now a group of people has banded together to create a “People’s Phone Booth,” located outside Spartacus Books at 684 East Hastings. The phone uses VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) which is free, so there will be no charge for local calls day or night. The phone is wired to a wooden stand and covered by a tarp.

“A group of us saw the need for a phone in this neighbourhood because people are constantly asking to use our phone, and we’ve never overheard anything really sketchy going down,” said Williams, 21, who says she is with a loosely-organized group called the People’s Phone Booth Collective.

“The phone company thinks people use a pay phone only to make drug deals or for prostitution. There are lots of sex trade workers in this area but they don’t ask to use the phone for work, it’s to connect with friends or family.

“One guy comes in every day to call his boss to see if he can get work, another lovely social woman is just trying to reach out to her friends.”

Williams notes that it’s a stereotype to think that the only emergency call anyone might make from the Downtown Eastside (DTES) would be to 911:

“So many women went missing from this area and it was probably getting harder and harder for them to find a phone to keep in touch with family.”

In fact, the vast majority of women who became victims of serial killer Robert Pickton, who preyed on drug-addicted women in the DTES, were revealed at trial to have kept in touch regularly with at least one family member.

Williams notes that the few area pay phones that do exist are mainly behind locked doors, in the Single-Room-Occupancy (SRO) hotels or public buildings. Gentrification sweeping through the eastside has meant more businesses and upscale condos, but most of those new residents are cellphone users.

“Businesses will not let someone use the phone who looks marginalized,” said Williams. “And people here can’t afford cell phones let alone land lines. The DTES should have equal access to the tools of communication that other neighbourhoods enjoy. We think the People’s Phone Booth will be a great asset to the community.”