CanadianCities

Music makes the people come together. #music #madonnamusic #madonnaremix

Just some photos I took around my hood in late 2021 and early 2022.

This is Part 2 in my series of Rare COLOUR photographs of Vancouver in the 1950s. Part 1 is available from the following link: https://rumble.com/vts8t0-vancouver-in-the-1950s.html All photos are from the City of Vancouver Archives: https://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/ Musical Credit: Artist: Kevin MacLeod Song: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge Licence: The song is permitted for commercial use under license "Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)" http://www.orangefreesounds.com

Just a few photos I took in Toronto in 2010. Several photos were taken on the Toronto Islands and at the Beaches near Queen Street East, which is why there are so many birds in the photos. #Toronto #UrbanPhotography #UrbanWildlife

Colour photographs of Vancouver in the 1960s from the City of Vancouver Archives. #Vancouver #HistoricPhotos #Archives

These are some pictures I took of Toronto and the surrounding area from the top of the CN Tower in June 2010. With my zoom camera, I was able to get shots of several Toronto landmarks, including the Royal York Hotel, Toronto Islands, CBC Studios, Much Music and Queen Street West. #Toronto #CNTower #UrbanPhotography

Colour photographs of Vancouver in the 1970s from the City of Vancouver Archives. #Vancouver #HistoricPhotos #Archives

Colour photographs of Vancouver in the 1950s from the City of Vancouver Archives. #Vancouver #HistoricPhotos #Archives

Colour photographs of Vancouver in the 1970s from the City of Vancouver Archives. #Vancouver #HistoricPhotos #Archives

This is a collection of photos I took around the Metrotown area in Burnaby, BC. #BurnabyBC #BurnabySouth #urbanphotography

Photos of downtown Vancouver at night in 2005 taken by an unknown photographer. #urbanphotography #Vancouver #Cities

"The city of New Westminster was founded in 1858 by Col. Moody, of the Royal Engineers, who chose the site as the most advantageous for the capital of British Columbia." New Westminster remained the capital of British Columbia until the colony was merged with colony of Vancouver Island in 1866, at which time Victoria became the capital of the newly amalgamated colony. Today, many people regard New Westminster as a suburb of Vancouver. The truth is Vancouver is the suburb because the City of New Westminster is almost three decades older than the City of Vancouver. This is a collection of historic photographs and maps of New Westminster, BC from the 1860s to 1890s. The narration is a transcription of the text that appeared in an 1889 pamphlet (with map) about the City of New Westminster and its District. Sources: Map and Information concerning the City and District of New Westminster and Province of British Columbia, 1889. Pamphlet. CVA AM1594-: MAP 1158-: LEG1153.122

Marpole is the South Vancouver neighbourhood in which I grew up in the 1980s. This is a selection of archival photos of the area from the 1970s and 1980s. Most of the photos are from the City of Vancouver Archives.

A collection of photographs of New Westminster, BC aka the 'Royal City' from the 1980s. These photos are from the City of Vancouver Archives.

Surrey, British Columbia is a suburb of Vancouver and the second largest city in BC by population. This is a collection of gritty photos I took when I lived there in 2012, showing varied landscapes from suburban to agricultural to industrial. Urban blight is evident in many of the pictures, however, given that Surrey is more appropriately described as suburban, or even exurban, rather than urban, perhaps it should be called suburban blight. Surrey is a city of rapid population growth and development, including brownfield and greenfield (re)development. Most of these landscapes would look very different today, although it is less than 10 years later.

The American Express Geography Competition was an annual national contest for high school students across Canada. In 1994, my ninth grade group project won second prize. We were treated to a trip to Toronto and $2000 cash. It was my first time on an airplane and my first time anywhere in Canada outside of BC.

I visited Edmonton for the first time in 2007 and I loved it.

To celebrate Vancouver's centennial birthday, the city hosted the 1986 World Exposition on Transportation & Communication aka Expo 86. It was a major party all along the city's False Creek waterfront everyday from May to October in 1986. Dignitaries and tourists from around the world flocked to Vancouver in 1986. Given the theme of the exposition was transportation, it is appropriate that Vancouver's very first SkyTrain line opened just the year before so it would be operational in time for Expo 86. Incidentally, this is why the line is known as the 'Expo Line' today, whereas back then, it was just the SkyTrain because it was the one and only line. In addition to the SkyTrain, fair attendees could get around the expo grounds by way of a temporary monorail and a gondola that traversed the site. Besides SkyTrain, the most important legacy of Expo 86 is that it put Vancouver on the map. Before 1986, Vancouver was a sleepy seaside town on Canada's Pacific coast. Expo 86 put Vancouver on the world stage and set the West Coast port on its trajectory to become the global city it is today.

The Calgary Stampede celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 2011 and I was there.

The Little Mountain Housing Project in Vancouver was transformed into the Little Mountain HORROR Project in 2007 by the BC Liberal Government, who displaced the tenants and almost totally demolished the entire 15 acre site in the heart of the city, known for its progressive approach to urban planning. Far from being progressive, the redevelopment approach pursued at Little Mountain was a throwback to the widely discredited Urban Renewal era of the mid-20th century. As was not uncommon with Urban Renewal, a massive fire broke out at the partially cleared site (which still had people living there at the time, although not in the building that caught fire). Little Mountain has been widely regarded as one of the most successful and best examples of public housing. It was horrifying to watch what the provincial government did to the place and the community. The redevelopment project truly was a horror project. This was all done under the watch of now-disgraced former BC Minister of Housing Rich Coleman. More than 10 years later, as I write this, most of the site remains empty and unbuilt to this day, in 2021. Little Mountain is an epic tragedy that is ongoing today.

This is a collection of colour photographs of Vancouver in the 1960s set to a groovy song called "Man with long hair".

This is a collection of photographs from the City of Vancouver Archives.

Photographs of Victoria, BC taken by Tommy Thomson

Photos from the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, BC, Canada