Richard Tylman - Author's comments

“To the People of the Carnegie Kitchen”

Author's comments.

As soon as I resolved to translate this poem into my native language for a forthcoming publication, the need emerged for an explanatory note. Such need can only be reinforced by the fact that the Carnegie Community Centre has earned a reputation as a local phenomenon, even though perhaps other such venues as Carnegie do exist throughout this continent and Europe.

    In 1901, a Vancouver Member of Parliament wrote to well-known philanthropist Andrew Carnegie requesting a donation toward the city library. His request was met with a positive response, and the $50,000 Andrew Carnegie donated erected a sandstone and granite building at the corner of Main and Hastings. The spacious reading rooms were initially heated by real fireplaces. The City Library was situated there for the next fifty years. When the library relocated in 1957 to a new complex at Robson and Burrard, the building became an early home of the Vancouver Museum. Beginning in 1968, and over the next 12 years, it remained empty, while local activists led the fight to transform the building into a community centre. After the necessary renovations, the Carnegie Centre opened its doors for the public in 1980 as a heritage site. Its continuos operation was funded by the City in the amount of two million dollars per annum.

    At present, the Carnegie Centre operates as the successful hub for a number of unrelated services. It remains open 365 days a year, run by a team of City employees and about 350 volunteers. It serves as a model for a number of similar institutions throughout the country.

    The Carnegie Centre is a place designed for adult visitors. Children are welcome, although there are no programs offered exclusively for them. In the basement of the Centre there are billiards and a seniors' lounge serving coffee and tea with a continuous stream of thriller videos played on a mid-size TV. There's a pottery room with a kiln, and a weight room frequented mostly by younger males. On the main floor is a theatre, home of afternoon ballroom dancing, poetry nights, and regular gatherings of First Nations' people with drumming sessions, singing, and crafts. Also featured are weekly cabaret nights with country pop, as well as an occasional classical music performance, and on Sundays, movie videos projected on a roll-down screen for a larger audience, all free of charge.

    To the left of the main reception desk there's an open space with tables for card and chess lovers, and in the other direction, the popular reading-room, a division of the Vancouver Public Library, with newspapers and books in English, Chinese and Spanish. There's an elevator to the second floor, and a circular staircase made of marble, with wrought iron railings, opposite stained glass windows designed over a hundred years ago by N.T. Lyon of Toronto. On the second floor there's a gymnasium and a dining hall, as well as a well-stocked buffet serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Bathrooms for men and women are situated on each floor. Up on the third floor, right above the Carnegie kitchen, there are two classrooms. One is used for adult learning (sponsored by local college), and the other for a number of special interest group meetings, and yoga sessions held twice weekly. There's a computer lab with the internet-ready machines available on hourly basis (since closed), and under a dome-shaped skylight, there's a small gallery for community exhibits, furnished with additional tables and chairs, adjacent to the staff offices.

    The Carnegie Centre is visited daily by around two thousand visitors. Its atmosphere resembles a friendly, busy beehive. An annual membership costs only one dollar, a porcelain cup of coffee, fifty cents, and dinner, complete with home-made dessert (since dropped), over three dollars. In the Carnegie Centre, everything is subsidized, including out-of-town trips (since discontinued) for volunteers and those members of the community who were eligible. The Centre is aptly located in the poorest neighbourhood of Vancouver, which is populated by single men, First Nations' people, young local artists, and the elderly.

Richard Tylman

Acknowledgement
The poem “To the People of the Carnegie Kitchen” was published by autor's permission in The Street
Newspaper, No. 39, Oct. 14th, 2003, Vancouver BC, Canada; pp. 5–6; Mike Boyd, Editor in Chief