During COVID, my Gastown social life all but shut down. Fortunately, and due to the creative nature of many of the people living in my building here in the Gastown/Railtown area of Vancouver, this potentially negative change instead inspired a new social world. We began meeting in the front courtyard of our building, The Edge, located at Alexander and Gore (inset). We practiced social distancing, brought our own alcohol, and our own thoughts and ideas. We connected in a world that, by definition and dictate, now precluded such interactivity.

Here at one of these impromptu gatherings, I started chatting with John Steil, a local artist. He had recently completed a project that used black and white archival photography to describe a brief history of Alexander Street, the original 8 blocks of Vancouver. Another local artist living in our building mentioned a Vancouver funding opportunity for artists. John and I discussed juxtaposing my love for music, photography, videography, and film with his passion for history and talent for print and mixed-media art by collecting stories about our local neighbourhood. And so, the idea for the Alexander Street documentary was born. A documentary about our street.

I am passionate about this project because this neighbourhood is the first place I feel I can truly call home; a neighbourhood in which I feel comfortable and have a sense of belonging. Where we live, I see so many fancy and unfancy cars in and outside the building (the parking lot is quite fun to walk through) and so many people from every walk of life and every socioeconomic group. We all live here together and, for the most part, we all get along. It is by no means a perfect situation and the area is strife with difficulties, but I prefer to think of them as challenges. This is what we hope to convey with the Alexander Street documentary—to show that through time people have lived here together, learned from each other, and grown from both their similarities and their differences.

All communities can learn from our experience, to value tolerance, strive for connection and to celebrate the stories of the past and those still being written.

David