Hastings Park Update

As part of the City’s master plan to transform the Park into a greener, more active, year-round destination, HPC and PNE staff met May 15th to pick sites for signs commemorating four buildings remaining from the Internment marshalling period:

Livestock Building

Roller land

Forum

Garden Auditorium

Beth Carter, Director-Curator Nikkei National Museum (NNM), is managing this project. To date, $30,000 has been raised towards the hard costs of fabrication, installation, research, and design (approx. $5,000 more is needed for translation, marketing, and artist honorariums).

Noteworthy mentions are in order to the City of Vancouver for an $8,000 grant towards this project, to the Vancouver Japanese Language School for sponsoring the grant application on our behalf, and to Lorene Oikawa for speaking in support of the grant passed unanimously May 16 at City Council meeting. We also thank the BC Arts Council and the NAJC for their support of this project.

The sites were chosen to facilitate Hasting Park walking tours – the first tours are planned to coincide with and augment the Powell Street Festival weekend.

Livestock Building Renovation Update

Dave Hutch, Project Manager Hastings Park/PNE Planning, reported that a new roof and structural seismic upgrading likely will be completed by July this year and the old windows replaced after the 2013 PNE Fair.

The next phase, as proposed in the PNE Master Plan, includes opening up the east end of the building and merging it with a new Festival Plaza, electrical, and washroom upgrades. This work is unfunded at present but planning is scheduled for 2014 then accounted for in the City 2015 – 2017 Capital Plan.

HPC will stay in touch with the City’s planning process and lobby to convince the City to have a Japanese Canadian Hastings Park Interpretive Section included when the interior layout and the multi-purpose nature of the Livestock Building are being considered.

City of Vancouver Apology Project 

HPC is helping co-ordinate the City Apology event in conjunction with the official opening of our Signage Exhibit, targeted for September.

Detainee Names Project

The target is to create a “wall of names” or something similar in the Interpretive Section. NNM through Linda Kawamoto Reid has begun gathering names for a genealogy database. Please contact Linda Reid at 604.777.7000 Ext. 111 or email lreid@nikkeiplace.org to add any names.

New HPC Member

We welcome Lisa Uyeda to our committee. Lisa previously worked on the impressive Toronto JCCC Sedai project, currently attends UBC, and may intern at NNM. Her experience will enhance our resource base to meet the next challenge – development of our Hastings Park Interpretive Centre.

More volunteers with energy and passion about the Hastings Park Internment period are welcome to join.