scenes from the city

Have you ever heard of "beat blogging"?

Me neither. Not until I came to journalism school, anyway.

My first assignment is to write about a neighborhood in the Metro Vancouver area (my "beat") on a designated blog, called the Thunderblogs. I chose the Downtown Eastside, an area of Vancouver that you may or may not have heard about. In brief, it is the poorest urban postal code in Canada. Most of the poverty and drug abuse goes on at East Hastings street.

There are five blog entries due by September 26. So far, I've done one, about an Aboriginal hip-hop/media showcase called Beat Nation.

[As a sidenote, If I had $5 for every link in those last few sentences, I would have enough to pay for my lunch date next week with my mother at this swanky place downtown. If you counted the one I posted just now, I could treat myself to a beverage involving steamed milk and espresso at one of the numerous Corporate Coffee chains in this city, as well. Conclusion: having no money breeds whimsical yet pointless sidenotes in blog entries.]

Last week, I walked around the Eastside to orient myself with the neighbourhood. Keep in mind that all of these photos were taken on my LG phone circa 2008.














The back of an apartment building, from East Hastings street.














A beautiful mural overlooking a community garden.














A run down housing unit.


















In addition to its ironic name, the Regal Place is located right across from the street from the Woodwards Building, a historic landmark that was long abandoned- that is, until Vancouver was announced the host city for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Then came the face lift from real-estate developers. I wish I had taken a photo, but it was too dark outside. Needless to say, it is no longer the decrepit, old-fashioned building I remember. It took me a few minutes to realize while walking past its gleaming glass facade that it was, in fact, the old Woodwards building.

So there you have it- right on West Hastings Street. The spatial and physical embodiment of the stark contrasts you can find all around this city. One one side of the street, the Regal Place. On the other, a newly renovated condominium and commercial complex where squatters used to huddle to shelter themselves from the relentless rain.

Now there's one thing that hasn't changed since I left.