The proposed temporary fire hall at Union and Gore has echoes of an old Strathcona/Chinatown controversy when in mid-1971 two east side sites were found to be under consideration for the new home of Fire Hall No. One. 

The block of Union, Keefer, Dunlevy and Gore, home to about 96 residents not yet displaced by the construction of the western portion of the McLean Park Housing complex was under serious consideration. As was the block between Pender, Keefer, Jackson and Dunlevy.

Both sites were troublesome. SPOTA (Strathcona Property Owners and Tenants Association) objected to the first option because “a firehall in that area would mean increased noise and would contribute to the further decline of a neighbourhood which was trying to upgrade Itself”.

The second site caused a great uproar with residents since the land had been expropriated earlier by the City and sold below cost to a developer on the promise of housing which never materialized. The City liked the site because “there was no active construction on the site”. Though they acknowledged the loss of 60 potential housing units. The neighbourhood and SPOTA fought and won a vigorous fight to prevent the firehall landing there, it would eventually be built at Prior and Heatley. In the 1980s the Mau Dan Co-op was developed on the block finally delivering the long promised housing.

The whole saga of the block is stunning for the incompetence on the City̓s part. From the Vancouver Sun Dec 8, 1971”They expropriated the land for public housing for $750,000, sold it to a private developer for $210,000, let him sell half of it to another developer for $170,-000 and now has to expropriate the same land a second time for a fire hall that so one wants”

Fast forward and once again we have another firehall proposed for the corner of Gore and Union

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If you walk up to the top end of the path along the green space next to Gore between Keefer and Union Street you̓ will find a bronze plaque set in the sidewalk with a compass rose ringed with Justice and Webb Landscape Architects. Standing there and looking south it̓s hard to imagine that this green space was designed by one of the most important landscape firms in the city.

The space was born out of the fight to save Chinatown from the freeway and was part of the community improvements made after the urban renewal and freeway proposals came off the table in the early 1970s. 

Features such as seating and the bandstand at the corner of Gore and Union which hosted the East End Summer Music Camp concerts have been removed and the space has been left neglected with broken and cracked sidewalks and grass that becomes a swamp after just a day or two of rain. With this neglect, the City seems to have forgotten that this former right of way of the proposed freeway system was meant to be a pleasant and welcoming neighbourhood green space.

While the proposed temporary fire hall is needed this is not the place to put it. The residents of Chinatown, McLean Park and Strathcona deserve better.