West End Community Garden deepens the roots of the neighborhood, but for how long?
by Chelsea Blazer ~ September 25th, 2010. Filed under: Uncategorized.The demolition of a Shell Gas Station at the corner of Burrard and Davie was of no surprise to West End residents, nearly two years ago. If any new word has been added to their vocabulary it is urban renewal.
What was peculiar, however, was that in a period of developing the West End by building a series of high-rise condominiums the gas station was replaced by a community garden.
“It is a initiative by the council. They weren’t ready to build their high-rise so they are temporarily using it as a park so that the corporate taxes are less,” said Chris Barber, one of the local gardeners.
Vitally alive today, the garden homes a wide array of flowers and plants while simultaneously encased by a series of towering high-rise buildings and the daily occurrences of downtown.
Outside the garden, cars rev their engines as they drive through the downtown streets while the sounds of hammering and clinking accompany the construction work being done nearby. Kneeling against the entrance sits a homeless man shuffling his jar of change in one hand and grasping a beer with the other.
“May I have some change,” he said, “I haven’t eaten today.”
Ironically, a mere few feet away from where he sits is the garden where food is plentiful and serene stillness monetarily seems possible on the busy streets of the West End.
“There are not a lot of issues considering where it is,” said Barber, “there is actually minimal damage and theft.”
On a recent weekday, tomatoes, not yet ripe, hang from the plant branches while a gardener bends over watering them. A young woman helps a frail elderly women sit down on a bench inside the garden and then continues to serve her lunch. Meanwhile, a tourist couple walks into the garden and stops to take a picture of the sunflowers.
“It’s nice, it builds a sense of community,” said Barber who then described how the gardeners recently got together for a potluck dinner using the vegetables they had grown.
“But also people often come by to just sit and read,” she added.
Sadly, the question still lingers as to when Chris Barber and her fellow gardeners will have to dig up their plants to move on elsewhere.
“They will give us notice when they are going to build and people will scramble to find other gardens,” she said.
But presently, the garden resides pleasantly in the West End without notice of construction, deepening the roots of the community everyday.
