There is good news for the thousands of Lost Valley residents who are scattered throughout Canada, or overseas. Many have longed to see a photo of the street (maybe the actual house) they grew up on. Very recently I learned what became of the many thousands of Official Photographs which were taken of the the old Valley neighborhoods just before they were bulldozed. Yes the photographs do exist and 900 of them have just been printed and bound in a coffee table book which has been released for Christmas sale in Saint John.
At $50 plus mailing costs, the new photo album is rather costly and many senior citizens will find it a prohibitively expensive purchase. Not to worry. I have a friend in S.J. who offered to help buy a reference copy for the Lost Valley blog and I should have it from him in less than two weeks. When the photo compilation arrives I will take "look up" requests - find your old street and house - and post the photo here for you to enjoy.
You can start sending requests to me now. If you can't remember the old address, it's a great opportunity to make a phone call to a family member who might recall it.
Urban Renewal in Saint John involved the expropriation of property and forced eviction of tenants on an unprededented scale. Many families were relocated but an uncounted number of residents left Saint John permanently. THE LOST VALLEY blog is an attempt to reach those families through the Internet, four decades after the Valley neighborhoods were bulldozed. (The photo shows two visiting foreign sailors walking past demolition rubble on Mill Street. The photograph was composed by Ian MacEachern, a former Saint John resident now living in Ontario.)
2 comments:
Some of the pages are available on the authour's website www.ursj.ca
Good morning "Mole". You've got an interesting name... Charles Frees-Melvin, one time youth candidate for the Saint John mayoralty, currently active Tory. Congrats on making modest gains on Oct. 14th.
I WAS aware of "URSJ.CA".
It is what is termed a "blind" site. No $$ price is posted for the book, the shipping $$, or even author mailing address. The site owner requires the curious to email her and identify themselves first. It is a rather "Stealthy" way of doing business. I prefer to have a friend buy my copy for me in Saint John.
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