Wow, spending more than $1.3 million of hard-earned taxpayer money to replace a nice old functional Hyack Square with a new nice neat mass of mostly concrete Hyack Square.

Glaring in the noon-day sun, mostly cold and dull otherwise. Soon, with all the staining/contamination of diesel engine particulate from the nearby endless stream of diesel trucks and too-noisy diesel engine trains, the concrete, like most of the sidewalks of Columbia Street, will be a dark, dingy charcoal colour. Hyack Square is probably the noisiest, most air polluted location in New Westminster, or maybe the entire Lower Mainland.

In his column, the editor of the NewsLeader said: “For years it’s been a gathering place of the wrong sort, a place to score your drugs, consume them, then enjoy the ambiance as you savour your stupor—in an effort to prevent the riffraff, the city even removed any place to sit.”

Unfortunately, the new Hyack Square provides more space for lying around, more places to sell illegal drugs and more places to consume them.

The new Hyack Square is much smaller, with less space for people.

Even though the name was discussed in council, as usual without much citizen participation, “square” does not seem quite appropriate any more, perhaps “place” or “circle” would have been more suitable.

The new Hyack Square will do little, if anything, to improve the “livability” for downtown residents.

New Westminster has a downtown with relatively higher homelessness, vandalism, graffiti, traffic violations, crime, noise, air pollution, declining business, municipal taxes, etc.

It seems city hall forgets they were hired/elected to serve the needs of the citizens.

Too many costly projects are “top down,” “consultant driven,” rubber-stamped citizen participation,” “vote buying,” “photo op,” “ego trips.”

Many projects—the empty Royal City Star, the virtually-empty revised Discovery Centre, the closed Quay Market, the renovation of Columbia Street again, the retrofit of the sinking Samson V again, the loss of several downtown banks, the empty Burr Theatre, the shabby Tin Soldier—are sad examples of city hall’s expensive, questionable decisions, especially for Downtown residents.

We are most disappointed with the weird modernistic style of the new Hyack Square surrounded by the historic old railway station (now The Keg) and B.C. Electric Railway building, and the Discovery Centre and Quay Market with its different architectural styles.

Goodbye old friend. Even those who used you badly and were careless, we will have some good memories of you.

You can take some comfort in knowing that your replacement will probably not live up to your useful, friendly and historic character.

Allan and Iris Solie

New Westminster