Today there will be a celebration of Mayor Art Phillips life at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver. To understand why, here’s a fine retrospective by Rod Mickleburgh in The Globe. And on a more personal note, here is a memory of the mayor by author and heritage advocate Michael Kluckner:
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I went late in ’72 or early ’73 to City Hall for an interview on behalf of Terminal City Express, a brief competitor of the Georgia Straight, with the newly elected mayor – a very cordial, friendly man. 
The two comments I recall were that “you wouldn’t have gotten this interview with my predecessor” (Tom Campbell, whom I finally managed to interview in 2001) and “the future will look something like Kerrisdale.”
The two comments I recall were that “you wouldn’t have gotten this interview with my predecessor” (Tom Campbell, whom I finally managed to interview in 2001) and “the future will look something like Kerrisdale.”.
We were talking about development and the controversies surrounding projects like the “All Seasons Park” proposal at the edge of Stanley Park (15 towers, I recall, by William Zeckendorf and partners). It had only just been killed by the federal government that year (1972). There was also the Ben Wosk highrise on Cornwall (VV25 p. 204) that was still on people’s minds. (More background here.)
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Phillips said he thought Kerrisdale had developed into an ideal community: a mix of houses, low-rise and mid- (12 storey-ish) rise apartments around a street of shops. They were almost all apartments, with a few market co-ops, as strata was only beginning to come in then.
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I don’t recall who took photos of the mayor but the caption or subhead for the article had a phrase (I think by Ken Lester, the editor) that noted Phillips’s good looks were akin to those of a Sears underwear model, which got picked up and used in the Sun, to our great glee. We were all pretty juvenile.
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What also stuck in my mind was Phillips’s assistant, a bright-faced young man in a white shirt and tie and short hair. I was very long-haired and shabby
and might have been wearing my lumberjack shirt, and I asked myself, how can this guy who’s not much older than me be so straight? Of course, it was Gordon Campbell, and what did he do with his life? Not much, eh?
and might have been wearing my lumberjack shirt, and I asked myself, how can this guy who’s not much older than me be so straight? Of course, it was Gordon Campbell, and what did he do with his life? Not much, eh?.
I met Art Phillips and Carole a number of times subsequently, did a painting for them, thought they were a magical couple of people. When we lived in Kerrisdale in the ’80s, I often took the Knight Street bus downtown if I was going to put in a day researching at the library, and on several occasions watched Art Phillips, in his suit with his briefcase, get on at 31st – he would have walked over from their Barry Downs-designed house on the escarpment edge.
So he didn’t just ride the bus when he was a politician – his values went deeper than that.
So he didn’t just ride the bus when he was a politician – his values went deeper than that.
