Dear Editor,
Re: “Make Steveston a modern resort,” Letters, July 2.
A recent letter suggested that we would all be better off turning Steveston into a modern resort town stating “the heritage tag is choking businesses” and that an old building of no significance “should be demolished and replaced with a modern building.”
Firstly, Steveston is not a resort town, never has been, it was and still is, in part, a fishing community with important historical and cultural significance to B.C. and Richmond.
To think that any businesses would go out of business because of the age of a building is fuzzy logic, in my opinion.
I do not know, and neither does anyone else, why businesses in Steveston have gone out of business in the past?
Maybe they were ready to retire or received an offer too large to ignore, or maybe they weren’t that great at running their businesses in the first place? I don’t know.
It seems ill conceived to think that a new building, strictly because it is new, is better for business than one that might have been built in 1895 or 1900.
I concede that I do not understand what some people’s definition of character is, but for myself, I can describe it this way: I have taken many a trip across the border into Washington and from Bellis Fair Mall to Burlington to Mt. Vernon and you can not tell the difference between them.
All of their new strip malls look identical and, for the most part, have the exact same tiresome, repetitive brand name stores.
On the other hand, when one travels to Europe and England, they find a healthy respect and celebration for old buildings with businesses and communities built up around these old buildings because they are old and historical.
I have relatives in Texas, San Francisco and Washington and universally they only come to Richmond to visit Steveston.
I don’t think that most people leave Richmond remembering No. 3 Road or Bridgeport.
And most of the other historically significant areas have been built over already.
I would hate to think that people would leave Steveston not being able to remember whether or not they were in Burlington or Steveston.
Jesse Arnold
Richmond
