Talk:Hogan's Alley, Vancouver

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[edit] Vie's Steak's

This was still there during Expo '86; a grey-covered glass-stucco house about six storefronts off of Main, on Prior; steep, narrow steps, small windows, hand-painted sign; apparently inside were tiny tables w. red-checkered tableclothes, just big enough to put the plates on; and the steaks were bigger than the plates. Never did eat there but sure dropped off a lot of customers who'd heard of it; when it closed it was featured in the local paper (either history or restaurant reviewer) as the last remnant of Hogan's Alley; I don't have a picture of it but posting this as a lead to anyone with the time and interest to poke through the Vancouver Sun archives to find a pic and its obituary.Skookum1 20:48, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "open town policy" - only non-white areas?

Prior to 1935, Hogan's Alley was a red light district, owing to Mayor L. D. Taylor's "open town policy," which was that police resources would be concentrated on major crimes, not victimless vice crimes. As a result of this policy, illegal drinking establishments, brothels, and gambling dens operated here, as they did in various other non-white sections of town like Chinatown and Japantown.

Just checking, as knee-jerk conclusions that policies like this targeted non-white areas abound in current NewThink/NewSpeak. I'm not familiar with the Taylor period or this policy - but I daresay that Hogan's Alley/Chinatown and Japantown were not the only red-light or sin'n'booze areas of the city, and that "white areas", so-called, were also involved. I'm thinking Marpole and other areas as well, but primarily the other example would be what's been since dubbed Yaletown; not the warehouse district but the area flankedby Homer and Seymour from Dunsmuir northwards, plus the old residential areas along Howe and Hornby. Madame Cleo's has had precedents in that area, and of course the Penthouse isn't in a non-white area. The language here that implies that Taylor's policy targeted non-whites is POV language unless actual quotes saying "we're doing this to get the coloureds" can be found/cited; and again, the assumption that only Chinatown and Japantown had red light activity is just unfounded; and it's worth noting that these areas were red light districts before the Chinese and the Japanese moved in next to the bordellos. This is particular true of Dupont Street (East Pender) but also of Alexander and Powell Streets. That the prostitution business in Vancouver does have a racial side is not surprising considering the whole city is multi-ethnic; but it's not as if callgirls didn't have apartment-bordellos in the West End or Kitsilano just like they do now In any colour. Then as now.  ; IIRC the Orillia Apartments were a brothel at one point (does that have an article yet? we'll see if that's a bluelink...). IMO despite the fashionability of blaming everything that happened in the old days on race, it wasn't racism that razed Hogan's Alley, it was greed; it was race that rendered those in the freeway's path powerless to stop it (I note the Chinese managed to, while the blacks could not, that says something about ethnic/race power in Vancouver right there....). But the decision to build the freeway wasn't race-oriented, it was "progress", irrespective of the powerless, whatever colour they were. Anyway, I just think it unlikely that Taylor's policy only tolerated illicit "soft crime" in non-white areas; whites were just as likely to get into illicit activity as well...and generally would have more money to invest, and also to keep the limelight off them....Skookum1 (talk) 20:43, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it could be worded better, and the article could be made more accurate in a few places. But.. though Taylor's policy wasn't explicitly targeted at non-whites, the article doesn't say that it was. Nor does it say that commercialized vice only happened in non-white neighbourhoods. And it doesn't imply that white people didn't engage in these activities.