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Entries from January 2016

A trip around a different world with photographer Wendell Phillips

March 31st, 2009 · 1 Comment

I don’t do a lot of events listings on this blog, but I love Wendell Phillips’ work. He shot a beautiful set of photos in the Downtown Eastside with psychiatrist Bill McEwan and his patients last year, which won a National Magazine Award. He’s back from travels to Nepali prisons, Tibetan refugee camps and elsewhere. […]

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Vancouver’s famous view corridors up for debate this year

March 30th, 2009 · 48 Comments

Vancouver’s famous view corridors have prompted more anguished howls from architects than almost anything else I can think of over the years. Now, the city is looking at re-examining them. (And, as the sharp-eyed people at skyscraper.com have noted, the posting for people to run the public consultation went up on city website Friday. You […]

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Junos and the sun lure us outside

March 29th, 2009 · No Comments

Every time there’s a sunny day in Vancouver, I feel as though the crowds the streets get bigger. I don’t mean just the usual Robson or Granville zombie ramble, but all through the downtown and every little high street in the city. Mobs of people just roaming around, clustering every so often around a hot-dog […]

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A visit with the two brothers building the Olympic village

March 29th, 2009 · 4 Comments

Here’s my latest column in Vancouver magazine, where I got to spend some time with Peter and Shahram Malek of Millennium Developments — the developers at ground zero in the current financial/housing/Olympics twister. Everyone in town has been playing backseat driver to these two and speculation continues to be rampant about the end cost of […]

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When did civic politics get so interesting?

March 27th, 2009 · 18 Comments

It’s Friday and I’m feeling philosophical about life and what I do for a living. Something that has jumped out at me repeatedly in the last while is how drastically the civic scene has changed since I first started writing about the city and city hall back in 1994. It’s hard to remember, but in […]

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A portrait of Fortress, the hedge fund of the 2010 Olympics

March 27th, 2009 · 1 Comment

This month’s Vanity Fair takes a look at the guys who run hedge funds, with those at Fortress featured in this story. As you’ll recall, Fortress is no longer involved in the Olympic village, after having agreed to have their $750-million loan bought out by the city. But the fund still owns the Whistler ski […]

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Running for mayor: Basketball player, sex columnist, enviro guy

March 26th, 2009 · 1 Comment

Looks like our neighbours to the south will have their own interesting civic election. The Seattle media are filled with the news today that a former Sonics basketball player is saying he’s going to run for mayor against Greg Nickels. Here’s just one story on the topic. He’ll be joining Dan Savage, the Savage Love […]

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Pouf! A new general manager for Olympics preparations appears

March 25th, 2009 · 2 Comments

The second-in-command at engineering, Peter Judd, has been tapped, it appears, to replace Dave Rudberg as general manager for Olympics preparation. The news came as a surprise to him. There was no posting or even internal application. He was simply asked by city manager Penny Ballem to do it. Peter, engineering’s very energetic and relatively […]

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The new world of outdoor advertising and its opponents

March 25th, 2009 · 9 Comments

I’ll be on CBC’s The Point this afternoon between 2:30 and 3, talking about a topic that has been of some interest in Vancouver lately: the new technologies for outdoor advertising and how to regulate them. While some people are still just trying to cope with what they feel is the blight of regular billboards, […]

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Does Vancouver have the money for an integrity commissioner?

March 25th, 2009 · No Comments

Vancouver has spent we don’t know how much money to get lawyer Richard Peck to come up with recommendations for how the city can avoid future leaks of embarrassing documents. One of his main recommendations was that Vancouver hire a full- or part-time integrity commissioner. But it didn’t sound to me yesterday as though Vision […]

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