ONE of the reasons it will be "difficult to make the heritage case" for retaining the buildings in the 101 to 149 block of Lonsdale Avenue, is that too few people cared enough about the area's history to maintain them in good repair.
Indeed, a cynic might ask whether the buildings have been neglected on purpose to make it easier to plead the re-development case to City of North Vancouver council.
The neglect is evident to anyone walking down that part of Lower Lonsdale. Pigeon guano and other bird detritus has accumulated to the point of being a health hazard because no-one has stepped up to keep the area clean.
The city has not disposed of the mess; nor has it required the former property-owners and/or tenants to take on the job.
And what should we make of sharp-eyed bylaw officers who can toll the bell one-minute past the hour on over-parked drivers but who apparently do not report the
filth on the sidewalks and in the parking area at the corner of Lonsdale and Second? Thankfully, though, there are municipal bright spots.
Flowers planted along the median by the city's horticultural crews are much appreciated, as are the raised flower-beds those crews strive to maintain despite smokers who treat the planters as ashtrays and dogs who use them as convenient places to deposit their calling cards.
Farther down the block, trip-hazard sidewalks, initially flagged as such with orange paint, were then merely filed down to make the cracks less obvious to any but the regulars.
No point putting a new sidewalk over heaving tree roots when the whole place is slated for demolition, is there? That section of the sidewalk is outside the Sweet Art and Moodyville cafés, two of the few remaining businesses on that block.
Farther north, Highwater Tackle continues its 28-year history of catering to anglers with "congeniality, honesty
and commitment to service".
Of the other longterm business-owners on the block, Peter Turcotte supports re-development. Proprietor of Big Pete's Collectibles, he explained that even though he's just completed a re-location from the corner of Second and Lonsdale, "the buildings are so dilapidated now, the only option is to replace them," he told me.
Big Pete may be right but I quietly regretted that "collectibles" could not also mesh with preserving the city's history.
But if anything about that walk can truly take us back in time, it has to be the aromas of freshly-baked "honest bread" wafting out of the Artisan Bake Shoppe owned by Markus and Ursula Jaeger since 1999.
Time will tell whether those businesses will be accepted and compatible with the residential, office and retail tenants planned for in the proposed six-storey development.
City resident Joan Peters put my sadness into words so eloquently. "I loved the look and feel of the 'old' Lonsdale - it was friendly, comfortable and welcoming," she wrote.
"When you walked it you might not know everyone you passed but you could be assured of sharing smiles."
I didn't walk the area at a time when Peters said she "knew, and was known in, almost every business" on Lonsdale.
But I echo her wish that 'those in charge' had shown
imagination, pre-planning and strength when they began to revitalize/re-design [her] little city - and her belief that they "could have held onto its special personality and history."
Strangely, as a teenager living in the one square mile that is the City of London I was cavalier about the history that surrounded me - in the city itself and in the country at large.
I rang hand-bells in Dick Whittington's church and explored the Roman-built crypt of All Hallows.
Both were less than 10 minutes walk from my home but I didn't lie in bed at night thinking of those
who had trodden my haunts hundreds of years earlier.
To me, the rituals and astronomical observations at Stonehenge belonged to ancients who had merely been struggling to see into the future I was living.
Learning the history of the British Isles was of no interest to a girl who preferred John Creasey mysteries or Louis Lamour westerns.
Little did I know history has a way of worming its way into one's psyche - to reveal itself, unexpectedly, in other times and places.
And so it is that, in that frame of mind, I stroll down Lonsdale and wonder how
sterile the block will look in two or three years when ubiquitous cantilevers jut out to protect row upon row of soulless concrete and glass from the rain.
How will our endless photocopied architecture be regarded by generations to come? As Peters said, "It took almost 100 years to evolve into a comfortable, friendly city.
"But with the presentlyplanned... population living mostly in taller buildings, or in smaller, stuffed-in spaces, I'm afraid it will take much longer to share those smiles with strangers."
"Periodically, buildings of historical significance come under threat of demolition. These buildings often languish under the public radar screen for years and.. . Once a demolition application is made, it is difficult to make the heritage case for keeping the building."
vancouverheritagefoundation. org
