Kitsilano in the ’70s: a photo essay

I remember the fog horn. It had a defect and it sort of shuddered at the end of the blast. I see a phone booth at the Lifestream Natural Foods. For many years there was a large orange carrot sidewalk sign in front of the store. I think the Dickie Dee ice cream bicycle had bells that jingled as it came down the street. Stewart’s photos really capture a time before sun block lotions.

On the May long weekend of 1979 I hitchhiked to and from Vancouver to secure a place to live. I found that place (shared accommodation, $125/mth) on W.7 Ave between Balsam and Vine. My source was the Lifestream bulletin board.
After a few months I moved into a better shared accommodation situation upstairs in the same house, then into a housekeeping room in the house next door three years later ($200/mth), the modest cost allowed me to afford a studio at Alexander and Main above Jack Harman’s sculpture foundry (started at $55/mth), which I had for 10 years.
In 1990 I moved with my partner into a heritage apartment building at York & Trafalgar where we have been ever since, so 45 years living in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in N. America.
My point is that none of this would be possible today for somebody eking out a living as a freelance photographer (at the wheel of a taxi for 17 years to stay afloat).
When I came to Kits it was at the tail end of the hippy era and the hood was a much more interesting–and far more affordable–place. Sad to say, this wonderful city is having the mojo crushed out of it, and the Broadway and Vancouver plans will be the coup de grace. I’m glad I won’t live long enough to see the worst of it…

Any photos of Wreck Beach in the 1970’s. I’ve got some, hee, hee.

I spent a lot of time in Kitsilano in the late 60s and through much of the 70s. I grew up in North Van and in 1967 came over to hang out every Saturday on 4th Ave at the height of the hippie thing (I was only 15). I was there the July day when the Grateful Dead, who were in town for a three-day gig at Dante’s Inferno (later the Retinal Circus) on Davie, were about to play a free concert near Engine 374 at Cornwall and Yew. A couple of bands played first, then the neighbours complained about the noise, the cops showed up and the Dead, who’d been hanging around for an hour waiting to play (I stood next to Jerry Garcia, watching as, seated on a picnic table, he give guitar tips to a number of aspiring players), took off along with the rest of us, disappointed. I continued trying to grow my hair as long as I could before my dad noticed.

In 1973 my parents sold our house and in July that year I moved to what was then called a “housekeeping room” (hot plate, fridge, shared bathroom) for $65 a month in an old house near 8th & Vine (the house is, miraculously, still there… for now, until the Broadway Plan continues its tsunami of destruction west of Vine). At 21, I revelled in finally being on my own. I shopped at the 4th Ave Safeway and various shops along 4th, including a great Greek bakery that used to be located about where Maria’s Taverna is now. I used to have baklava and bougatsa pig-outs every week. In the fall my two best friends, who were married to each other, asked me to move in with them in a house they’d rented near the Drive and on which they couldn’t aford the rent. Against my better judgement I agreed. I hated the East End, missing the beach and the sweet Kitsilano summer. Then they broke up and we all had to move out by the New Year. I floated through several temporary domiciles in North Van before returning to my old Kits digs, after the landlord (very nice guy, actually) had knocked a hole between my old room and a smaller one. So now I had a larger space, for $95 a month. Then an old friend, who with his wife was managing a 1960s three-storey walkup on York just west of Balsam, told me they had a studio coming up, in January. So again I moved, for the sixth time in a year and half, and I was very glad I did; it was $125 a month (initially) but at last I had my own bathroom (and a balcony!). That summer of ’75 was blissful; the lot next door had an abandoned house and a huge cottonwood tree outside my window– and on summer evenings, late at night, it was often so quiet I could hear the breeze rustling the leaves. Some nights I could even hear the waves washing onto nearby Kits Beach. I used to “borrow”a bike that was kept in the building’s storage room and go for long late-night rides through the empty, quiet Kitsilano streets, out to Jericho and back (I was a very nervous rider, afraid of traffic, and never did get a bike of my own).

I was socially and culturally active, hanging with friends, spending days at Wreck Beach, studying T’ai Chi, and I loved my new home. Until… in mid-1976 a developer bought the lot next door, demolished the old house, cut down the cottonwood and slapped up a “luxury” townhouse/condo development. For months I had a construction site 20 feet from my windows. I took to leaving the blinds closed in daytime.

The end came in the fall of ’77 when I was persuaded to move in with an on again/off again girlfriend, back in North Van. Again I had misgivings and they were justified when in January she abruptly traded me in for a new guy as if I was a secondhand car. She was looking for a White Knight and I wasn’t it. I hurriedly moved to the West End with the intention of springboarding from there back to Kits. Never made it. Instead I got involved in a bunch of West End activities— running on the seawall, Karate, working out at the Aquatic Center— and finally I met the love of my life (who also lived in the West End), with whom I would spent the next 39 years– until she passed away four years ago, leaving me utterly shattered. We moved in together “officially’ in mid-1985, in a newly-opened housing co-op near Granville Island— only three blocks from my dear old Kitsilano, now changed so much from the days when I knew her— and there I was, back shopping on 4th, going to restaurants like Sophie’s, Maria’s, Connie’s and others— and doing pretty well over all, until the darkness descended and I lost my love. I miss the old Kits, I really do— all those wonderful shops, before the chain stores and the money and the glitz arrived– but even the current Kitsilano still seems like a good place to live, and will likely continue to be, until it’s destroyed by the coming juggernaut that is the Broadway Plan. Sic Transit Gloria.