It's a matter of common practice when former Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»mayors die, the sitting mayor, doubtless aware of his own mortality, issues a sanitized statement of condolence. Such was the case last week when Mayor Gregor Robertson commented on the recent passing of Tom Campbell, who was mayor from 1967 to 1972. He lauded the former real estate developer for his brick and mortar accomplishments: Two Bentall Centre and Pacific Centre and the acquisition by the city of property on the south shore of False Creek.
But Robertson carefully avoided the absolute madness, the social upheaval and undeniable merriment of those times when Tom "Terrific" held centre stage at city hall. It was truly a turning point in the city's history.
In 1968, when hippies populated the cheap housing available in Kitsilano (myself included for a time while I was a student) and tripped across the Burrard Bridge into the downtown core, Campbell took aim at what he called a "scum community" who were nothing more than "parasites" and "lazy louts."
The Georgia Straight, the new counter-culture newspaper started by political activists, university students and poets, regularly flailed the cops and Campbell. His Worship responded by banning the paper, citing a business-licence bylaw prohibiting "gross misconduct." The Straight and its editor Dan McLeod sued.
Then, as the current Straight editor Charlie Smith noted: "While the controversy was before the courts, the Straight published a special edition on Campbell's real-estate holdings on West Fourth Avenue, where most of the hippies congregated. The Straight maintained that his crusade against hippies was linked to the mayor's property values. The licence was returned not long after. Eventually, the court ruled that the law was applied improperly."
The vituperation by Campbell-aided by a fulminating talk-show host Jack Webster-over the hippies, hit its peak Aug. 7, 1971 when hundreds of young people gathered in Gastown for a "Grasstown Smoke-in," which turned into the Gastown Riot after cops on horseback and armed with billy clubs went on the attack. A later judicial inquiry headed by Justice Thomas Dohm characterized the event as a "police riot."
But the battle that engaged most citizens and had its most profound impact on the city was the one to block a proposed freeway that would cut through Chinatown and the city's East Side. The project was championed by then all-powerful senior city public servant Gerald Sutton-Brown and supported by Campbell and his NPA majority on council. For a time, Campbell refused to even allow public hearings on the issue. And when he did, more than 500 people jammed into city hall.
Finally, the death blow was dealt to the project when the federal government withdrew its financial support, but not before portions of the East Side including Hogan's Alley, the small historic black neighbourhood, were bulldozed to make way for the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts and access to the freeway.
That fight and the issues it raised about the future of the city led to the rise of a new city party made up of academics and social activists called TEAM.
Two of their members were elected to council in 1970. But in 1972, when Campbell finally stepped down, TEAM led by Art Phillips running for the mayor's spot, took the majority ending more than three decades of NPA rule, its first break in power since its founding. Phillips' first official act was to fire Sutton-Brown.
As for Tom "Terrific," he vanished from the public scene to remain unheard of until his passing. And while no statue will likely be erected in his memory, I direct you to a work by noted photographer Stan Douglas. In the atrium of the Woodwards building, you will find Douglas's life size piece called "Abbott & Cordova: 7 August, 1971" inkjet on glass, a stunning re-creation of the Gastown Riot.
