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[Chef Boi RD]

Only 35 years ago.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQPhanPk ... Y2NzI1YWN1

UnFUCKINGbelievable.

My mother worked right down there on Abbott between Hastings and Cordoba (Central City Mission) during the 80s til mid 90s. I used to take the Hastings bus down after school on Capitol Hill to check out the Woodwards toy dept a few times a week. I would've been when I was 10- early teens.

What I see down there now...it's like looking at another planet

It’s pretty gross. I spent a lot of time walking the DTES between 10 and 14 years of age, most the time with our drunk SRO babysitter - Ray and his jailhouse tattoos. Ray had the skankiest magazine collection, weird sex shit. I’m surprised my Dad let him watch over us, Ray probably knew better not to do weird shit to us, but he was harmless, like family, lived there for years. He’d take me and my bro out to stretch our legs. One good story is one of my sisters friends saw Ray walking my brother in the DTES and she called our home in a panic saying some homeless man has my brother in the DTES. Once saw a drunk native lady attack my mom while watching the old man play baseball at Oppenheimer. We’d walk from the old man’s establishment to Openheiner (2 long blocks), it was great back then, like Mayberry from Andy Griffiths with a few loitering Otis types (Blob). Have you seen that stretch now? It’s a scene from 28 Days Later.

[donlever]

I was down there with one of the Execs from back East looking at something and first thing I said to him before we got out of the car was "full time heads up down here!! N S E & W, all times, don't lose focus"....

It's like a war zone.

Brutal.

Doesn't seem that long ago the old man was taking me for lunch at The Only.

Now this...

Visiting Chinatown on a weekend is a non-starter....

[Chef Boi RD]

Last summer the wife, daughter and I hopped the seabus to go hang in Gastown, get some lunch there. We lasted 15 minutes, deciding to go to another part of town. The spillover is happening there quite noticeably, the fentanyl fold and low level drug dealers. There was a time when that kind of edge didn’t bother me but getting to old now for it.

[Chef Boi RD]

It’s super frustrating as there are four highly regarded 5 star level restaurants in the heart of zombietown DTES I’ve been wanting to check out - Ask For Luigi, Kiss Tanto, St. Lawrence and The Mackenzie Room. Keep shutting’ er down when tossing out the idea of checking them out

[Cousin Strawberry]

.

Doesn't seem that long ago the old man was taking me for lunch at The Only.

Shit forgot about that place! Apparently it was some sort of world renowned seafood joint back in the hippy days. My old man also used to take me down there like mid to late 70s ish.

I like the new town bakery a block south of Hastings. When I apprenticed under this Chinese sparky years ago we used to get all the "china tongue" work due to the oriental connection type of thing. Worked on their major reno maybe 91-93 kind of era as a young stoner type of dude. Took the daughter there a few years back at busy lunch time and goddamn if the owner remembered my face like it was yesterday.

[donlever]

.
Doesn't seem that long ago the old man was taking me for lunch at The Only.

Shit forgot about that place! Apparently it was some sort of world renowned seafood joint back in the hippy days. My old man also used to take me down there like mid to late 70s ish.

We may have been there at the same time.

I recall that owner always remembering us as well.

Used to sit at the counter with some of what could be best described as questionable dudes but the old man always got a along swimmingly with them and I had a way as a kid that adults took to me.

Old Man used to take me to Hons for Chinese food as well.

Little hole in the wall on Main, great food.

The Newtown Bakery had awesome steamed pork buns!!!

You and I may just have seen a 12 year old Dude banging strippers in the alley on our way to lunch!!!

[2Fingers]

So what’s the answer to get it cleaned up?

Tough love?

Free drugs?

Go full Matrix?

[Carl Yagro]

I try to explain to people that didn't grow up here that the DTES was once a vibrant neighbourhood and business community up until the even the early 90s.

Hell, we used to to walk up and down Hastings St from Strathcona to Army & Navy, Woodward's, etc. by ourselves. I wasn't even 10yo back then. My friend's dad owned an aquarium fish store on Hastings & Abbott and the worse thing were the pigeons. I hung out there a lot.

Between a very busy Chinatown and Gastown, it was literally the coolest part of the village of Vancouver... until Expo came along. Rockstars and strippers put the city on the map in the 80s.

It's so sad what's happened.

A few months ago, I dared headed down to Powell/Water and Carrell where one of my neighbours run the Hot Pie Pizza takeout joint... fuck, I did not enjoy having to enter or exit that war zone just for a couple of slices. And this was in the afternoon.

[donlever]

So what’s the answer to get it cleaned up?

Tough love?

Free drugs?

Go full Matrix?

Better bi-partisan leadership with community as opposed to personal goals in mind.

So yeah, we're fucked.

[donlever]

A few months ago, I dared headed down to Powell/Water and Carrell where one of my neighbours run the Hot Pie Pizza takeout joint... fuck, I did not enjoy having to enter or exit that war zone just for a couple of slices. And this was in the afternoon.

I walked from Hawksworths restaurant to where I parked my car last Wednesday night.

Alberni and Bute or thereabouts.

930 PM ish.

Had my head up and ears tuned in the whole time.

I won't let the little woman go downtown alone day or night.

Hence.

SSI.

[Chef Boi RD]

Hell, we used to to walk up and down Hastings St from Strathcona to Army & Navy, Woodward's, etc. by ourselves.

Shoulders, you grew up in Strathcona?

[Carl Yagro]

Is this a serious question, Dude?

How many times have I mentioned being in this area as a kid in these here forums?

Yes, I grew up there. Then we bought a bigger place and moved to upper Mount Pleasant... all before my teen years, before I had a chance to bang strippers in behind the back alleys

[Blob Mckenzie]

So what’s the answer to get it cleaned up?

Tough love?

Free drugs?

Go full Matrix?

Better bi-partisan leadership with community as opposed to personal goals in mind.

So yeah, we're fucked.

Lots of property up past Hope or Boston Bar. Fuck move em to Lytton. Pre Fab buildings, electric heat and hot water. Make some facilities for these people. Have various stages of recovery with a lot of the wannabe immigrant doctors and nurses from around the world coming to work here. Three hots and a cot. Courses and training for these folks. These folks didn't ask to be down on the DTES. Addiction is a disease. So is Depression/Mental Ilness.

A cooking and cleaning staff. Counselors, their own RCMP Detachment as well as security. Keep the dealers and predators out. You can't hage them wandering around like zombies onvthe DTES forever. They are taking forever to put new facilities up on Giggle Mountain.

[Meds]

So what’s the answer to get it cleaned up?

Tough love?

Free drugs?

Go full Matrix?

Better bi-partisan leadership with community as opposed to personal goals in mind.

So yeah, we're fucked.

Lots of property up past Hope or Boston Bar. Fuck move em to Lytton. Pre Fab buildings, electric heat and hot water. Make some facilities for these people. Have various stages of recovery with a lot of the wannabe immigrant doctors and nurses from around the world coming to work here. Three hots and a cot. Courses and training for these folks. These folks didn't ask to be down on the DTES. Addiction is a disease. So is Depression/Mental Ilness.

A cooking and cleaning staff. Counselors, their own RCMP Detachment as well as security. Keep the dealers and predators out. You can't hage them wandering around like zombies onvthe DTES forever. They are taking forever to put new facilities up on Giggle Mountain.

Cracking down hard on the supply chain is the first step. By hard I mean pass laws that make it legal for Citizen Joe to kill drug dealers on sight with no fear of charges. Treat these scum like the enemy soldiers that they are. It sounds extreme, but the economic impact of this is slowly debilitating our nation.

[BCExpat]

I thought DTES was a shit hole when I first saw it way back in 1971.