“You’d never know from my voice I used to be a staff announcer at CBC,” he says, referring to the fluid in his lungs.

The crowd turns sombre, but Davis won’t have it. He assures the audience they just heard a very funny joke, and as laughter ripples through the crowd, everyone seems to realize he’s right.

Davis, 74, is that rare individual whose lifespan seems far too meager to accommodate his vitality. Speaking at the Public Salon, an event that brought together a collection of brilliant and notable people from the community, Davis speaks last. He reveals his untreatable cancer, something he found out only two days prior, and says he almost certainly won’t have the time to finish what will likely be the most comprehensive history of Vancouver ever written, what Davis calls, “The capstone of my writing career.”

The as yet unfinished book is called The History of Metropolitan Vancouver, which he says focuses mainly on the central city but also includes the suburbs.

This funding will support the 3^rd annual BC Rivers Day Festival taking place September 25 and 26, 2010, in New Westminster. This diverse community event will include live music, children’s entertainment, interactive arts and crafts stations, and presentations by historians. Free events and performances will be presented along the Fraser River waterfront at Westminster Quay Boardwalk, the Quay Plaza, and the Fraser River Discovery Centre.

“This festival will provide residents with access to a variety of cultural and artistic experiences, while strengthening community ties,” said Minister Moore. “Our Government is proud to support an organization that engages Canadians through the performing arts and in the expression and celebration of local heritage.”

“You can’t put siding on a house in Queen’s Park without conforming to heritage standards,” said Chad Matchette, producer of the Royal City Musical Theatre.

“Why don’t we celebrate what we have? Why are we so anxious to rip this thing down for our new, shiny toy?”

Matchette’s comments came in the wake of a presentation last night (Sept. 7) on the high school project, which focused specifically on how the Massey Theatre figures into the replacement of the New Westminster Secondary School (NWSS).

And Matchette was not alone in his concerns. The majority of the 50 or so attendees at the meeting were vocal in their resistance to the city and school district’s plan to tear down what one person called “their sacred space.”

She, like the other five people in that early photo of Vancouver’s Chinatown, has her own story to tell.

Ray Goon, an 80-year-old third-generation Chinese-Canadian, is living proof of that.

The teenage girl in the 19th century photo happens to be Goon’s grandmother, now immortalized in a freshly-painted mural commemorating historic Chinatown — and the people who persevered to build it.

The mural on Columbia, just off Pender Street, is a reproduction of the photograph, one of the earliest snapshots of Chinatown and believed to date to 1884 — before Vancouver was even incorporated as a city.

Vince Dumoulin, one of 15 artists who painted the previous Beatty Street graffiti mural on a concrete wall that stretches between Dunsmuir and Georgia streets, said his concept will reflect Vancouver’s past, present and future.

“This is a social studies textbook on a wall all about Vancouver,” he said.

The past was emerging Tuesday afternoon with depictions of Captain George Vancouver, Gassy Jack and Squamish Chief Joe Capilano, among others, painted overtop the blue that had been applied over the original graffiti mural a few days before Christmas. He and Milan Basic, the artist who headed the creation of the original mural painted during a block party for the Steve Nash Foundation for kids in 2007, will also paint representations of the present and future.

Originally founded as a community orchestra, the OSO began as a fledgling group of 24 musicians who paid for the privilege of performing under the auspices of a night school class at Penticton High School in the autumn of 1959. With no live symphonic music available at that time between Vancouver and Calgary, a small group of amateur musicians would come together from the surrounding region with the resolute support of locals Hugh and Eva Cleland of Penticton and Wilbur and Mabel Hill of Westbank. Conductor William Bertsch would drive from Vancouver is his 1949 Austin camping along the way with his young wife for the weekend practices, with locals pitching in to help feed and house them all. The Orchestra’s first concert performance included Gershwin’s popular Rhapsody in Blue, along with selections from Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Bach, which were performed in March 1960 in Kelowna, Penticton, Revelstoke and Vernon with a budget that year of only $1625.

I read this article by John Mackie with dismay and disappointment. How could we allow a historical treasure with such a rich history to be forgotten and dismissed?

The Pantages Theatre Society worked diligently with Marc Williams, of Worthington Properties, to restore the theatre, without success, and now we read that it may be beyond repair. Why has this happened? Where is the will of the community leaders who earlier had the vision to save the York Theatre and the Orpheum?

The economic activity that could be stimulated by a renovated Pantages would go a long way toward creating a renaissance in a neighbourhood that was the heart of Vancouver for many years. Just as South Granville, Granville Island and Commercial Drive have benefited from investment by all three levels of government in the Stanley and Arts Club theatres and the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, so too could Chinatown, Gastown, Strathcona and Main and Hastings benefit from an initiative like this.

The joint project by the Duncan Business Improvement Association and the Cowichan Valley Museum will hang some two–dozen pictures of downtown’s Chinatown.

It leveled in the late ‘60s to make way for the round building, the courthouse and what is now a seniors’ centre.

The enlarged shots will be printed on aluminum then laminated against the weather, said museum curator Kathryn Gagnon.

Those images will replace some 20 paintings by Cowichan high school students.

Their artwork — now being returned — has graced the alleyway for about 15 years.

“Offering financial assistance to municipal governments tasked with protecting nationally-recognized gems like Rogers’ Chocolates will ensure ongoing stewardship of heritage resources at the community level,” wrote B.C. Minister of Tourism, Culture and Arts, Kevin Krueger, in a letter to Jim Prentice, Minister of Environment Canada.

Rogers’, at 913 Government St., is a National Historic Site. Unlike a municipal heritage designation, the federal designation doesn’t trigger any protection for the building.

In an attempt to reduce the 2010 budget, the Township of Langley is considering closing the Langley Centennial Museum (LCM) for Sundays and Mondays during the fall, winter and spring. The Langley Heritage Society has sent a letter to the mayor and councillors suggesting that they may not have all the facts required to make this devastating decision, and suggesting that the councillors do not realize the contribution the museum makes to this community.

Last year, the LCM presented school programs to just under 17,000 school children and was the recipient of an extra grant of $35,000 from the BC Arts Council because of the wide range of services it offers in the community and the increase in the numbers of people served.

With the Fort Langley National Historic Site (FLNHS) open seven days a week, and located only two blocks from the museum, the heritage society feels that visitors should have the opportunity to visit the FLNHS and the LCM every day, year round.

At a time when a special agency — Tourism Langley — has been created to promote tourism, it appears counter-productive to reduce the funding and hours of the museum.

“There was a fire set on the roof of the building in May 2009. The complete stage area has now collapsed into the basement, the balconies are no longer safe to walk on, and the structural members supporting the front of the theatre are now splitting,” Fairchild wrote. “It is no longer possible to enter the building safely to retrieve any of the remaining heritage elements.”

“I’m angry as hell,” says Charles Barber, executive director of PTAS, which on Friday sent an open letter to Heritage Vancouver members officially informing them of the decision.

“The city had a chance to change Hastings and Main from a cemetery to a marquee. They blew it.”

Tourism Minister Bill Bennett announced the funds Thursday at St. Ann’s Academy, the Roman Catholic school in Victoria that has been a heritage site since 1973. He said the sites will have a three-year budget to work with, instead of applying for annual grants to keep the historic tourist attractions open.