A new human phenomenon called swingers.
A place where towers seem to rise with the speed of rockets where cottages used to stand just a year ago.
The most densely populated neighbourhood in North America.
Welcome to West End 66.
The CBC documentary takes you on a jazz-infused drive through the West End just as it gave birth to what we now think of as modern Vancouver. Although residents responded to the quick growth by imposing strict limits just a few years later, the documentary shows how an extraordinary transition took place between 1958, when the Sylvia Hotel was the tallest building on the landscape, to 1969 when zoning changes seem to put the neighbourhood into a deep freeze as far as new construction was concerned.
West End 66 will be screened on February 26 as part of the 麻豆传媒映画Heritage Foundations Gritty City: 麻豆传媒映画in the 60s. The three-part film series began January 29 with Glowing in the Dark, a documentary on neon in Vancouver, Las Vegas and LA. In continues February 12 with Coast Modern about the West Coasts pioneering modern architects, and concludes with the double bill of West End 66 and A Citys Story, both part of the CBC Archival Film Program.
WE 麻豆传媒映画recently descended into the bowels of CBC 麻豆传媒映画to watch , which was first shown as part of the CBCs regional television show, Camera West. Written by Hilda Mortimer with music by Don Thompson, the half-hour black-and-white film is almost poetic in its pace. It starts slowly, with long shots of nature and then picks up the pace both in the images on screen and music.
The neighbourhood was first home to the champagne world of the citys most successful businessmen but within a generation, Mortimer writes, the lush-living mansions were turned into boarding houses. By 1966, 100,000 people lived here and at 380 people per hectare, it boasted the highest concentration of residents in Canada. A vertical forest of apartment buildings the highest buildings in 麻豆传媒映画at the time grew on streets carved out of old logging roads. Roots planted here are planted above ground and reach for the top, the narrator says as shot after shot of apartment towers loam overhead.
And the people! Its funny to hear the narrator talk of swingers while the camera pans along the beaches and streets of English Bay. Instead of Lululemon, think short shorts. Instead of joggers, think muscle cars and convertibles. Young men and women gather on beaches while elderly residents watch from nearby benches. Sailors arriving for a few days respite roam the streets, knowing that theyll be welcomed by prostitutes. For the young, the narrator says, the West End is where the action is.
An open discussion follows each screening at the historic Hollywood Theatre (3123 W. Broadway). Shows start at 7:30pm and tickets are available only at the theatre that night. For more info go to .
