The Old Downtown East

THE OLD DOWNTOWN EAST
By JEAN SWANSON

Back in 1974 I was slinging beer at the Patricia Hotel when I saw Bruce Eriksen at the Ovaltine Café.  I asked him for a job working at DERA (the Downtown Eastside Residents’ Association).  He asked me what I could do and I said that I had been editor of my high school newspaper.  So I got hired at DERA to work on DERA’s paper which was called The Downtown East.  In those days we didn’t have computers and we actually typed each story twice on a typewriter so we could make both the right and left sides of the column even. What a lot of work compared to now!!

Letter from the editors & About the DNC

Letter from the Editors

Welcome to the first edition of the 2012 version of the Downtown East!  This paper is published by the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council (DNC). The DNC wants to put the voices of low-income DTES residents at the centre of action for social justice.  We want to put 5000 copies of this paper in hotels and other places throughout the DTES. We hope the paper will help more people learn what’s happening in their community and get involved in making it better for the low-income people who live here now.   We want the paper to help us with three parts of the DNC constitution:

The Nightmare is Back — Sequel 138

The Nightmare is Back — Sequel 138
By DAVE DIEWERT

Do you remember the old Pantages Theatre, or the Blue Eagle Café? Today the place where they stood between the Regent and Brandiz Hotels on Hastings Street is a pile of bricks, toxic dust and rats.

For the record

FOR THE RECORD

By ROBERT BONNER

When the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP) was doing research on the privately-owned SROs in the DTES, they went to each building in person as potential tenants and asked about available rooms and the cost for monthly rent.

Two house poles carved and erected at the eastern entrance to Oppenheimer

By TAMI STARLIGHT – Peguis Ojibway (Manitoba) & DTES resident
and PHOENIX WINTER

Unceded Coast Salish Territory – Squamish (Skwxwu7mesh) / Burrard (Tsleil-Waututh) / Musqueam – Vancouver, Oppenheimer Pk.

On February 16, two house posts were raised at Oppenheimer Park and honoured with a special ceremony for all who could make it.