Our City Our Story

 Byron Murphy

My connection to this place and why I love the area and downtown is that my whole life has been built around here. I moved in from Gander with my folks when I was three years old and basically lived in the East End most of my life.

My childhood downtown was going to school at the bottom of Signal Hill Road. St. Joseph school was there. That's where I went to school. I think it gave us an opportunity to see both sides of the fence living in this area — people who had money, people who didn't have money and people who were down the middle.

I think was a great area and a learning curve as you were growing up that you've got to work hard. There were big families at the time. Five, six, seven people in a household and not a lot of money. Growing up in the East End for me was that. I appreciated what I had because we never had a lot.

I do remember Ayres. I do remember Woolworth's and the famous escalator that everybody wanted to ride. I do remember Bowerings and all the smaller shops. The Arcade. We'd sit on the lunch counter down at The Arcade and ride the escalator at Woolworth's.

I first came to work down here in 1985 and then I opened my own store in 1992. There was absolutely no other place that I was ever going to open up a men's shop but here on this strip. All this whole area — I think it's an incubator for entrepreneurial people and I think that you get some individual businesses down here; and if you're an individual type of store downtown allows you to create something that no one else does. This is the area to do it in because you can establish your business and you can establish your look.

Never at any time did I ever think I would not move into my top floor flat of my building. I walk the hood a lot see the changes, to see people. I know everybody down here. The vibe is cool. You can live. You can eat. You can play. You can do everything down here. You can walk to wherever you want to go. There is no other place to be.

The difference in the downtown now as compared to when I grew up down here is very dramatic. Once the malls really got rolling I think downtown took a kick for a while but then it gave an opportunity for a lot of smaller individuals to say, OK, let's take some space down here and we'll put our mark on it.

Since I opened my shop, I've seen two or three times where there's been a purge and all of a sudden you see seven or eight or nine businesses closing up but as they close within a year and a half to two years all those empty spots are filled up and people are going again. And as far as worrying about the downtown area I think there's always a spot for someone who wants to open up.

I guess what I'd like to see for the future downtown is more of a dense population living in the area. I think you can still raise families in this area.There are still schools around. As more people live in the area, everything flourishes. That's really the biggest thing for me.

by Byron Murphy, president of Byron's Clothing for Men, 188 Water Street, St. John's. Mr. Murphy is a long-time resident of the downtown and Vice Chair of the Downtown St. John's Board of Management.

 Constanze Safatle-Ferrari

My name is Constanze Safatle-Ferrari. I'm from Santiago, Chile. I moved to Canada four years ago.

I have a Bachelor in Humanities and a Bachelor in Commercial Law. Unfortunately, I cannot work here as a lawyer. I needed actually to start again. I was pregnant at that time and I had my third child. I realized maybe I'll make baby stuff.

It is a good niche for a startup business. I started to develop different articles for babies. That is how my business Newbornlander started.

I applied to the Farmer's Market. My goal was to sell 100. And I sold, I don't know, 190. I received a call from Twisted Sisters boutique and they offered me a consignment there. That step was huge for me because they helped me a lot actually. They advised me about what was the correct price for my products.

After one year, I realized I needed help. The business grew a lot. I tried looking for a Canadian partner. I met Carrie Ivany. She told me she loved Newbornlander, the brand and the baby stuff. And she closed her business and we opened Newbornlander in Quidi Vidi Plantation. She is the artist and I am more business. So she was the perfect jelly for my peanut butter.

I think this city is the perfect place for the entrepreneur. I know this city works so much to welcome and be friendly with newcomers. But it's part of our job to go outside, learn English, find a job and grow.

The Plantation is an incubator for crafts. You meet a lot of people and other entrepreneurs. You are free to come and enjoy and develop your business if you want. It is an awesome opportunity. For now, I will focus on my business grow my business just step by step.

 Josh Smee

If you go back to the beginning, It's all music's fault, really. Music connected me to a beautiful young woman that I'd decide to spend the rest of my life with. Music introduced her to St. John's as a young violinist. Music brought me to St. John's for the first time, more than a decade ago now, following her to a festival. Music got us onto a plane back to St. John's a couple years later, everything we owned in a few suitcases, lease signed sight unseen on an old house downtown.

That's what got me here. What keeps me here is more layered. Sometimes it's the smell of the air in the morning, or the energy of a great show downtown, or looking out the window and seeing the ocean, or taking my baby daughter for a swim in a pond in the woods, 10 minutes from my door. There's all that. But there's also the chance I've had to make a difference. This city is so hungry for community-building and for a sense of place. It's full of people who, just like me, go back and forth between being totally in love with this place and being so frustrated with it that you want to throw the whole works into the harbour.

I suppose that's how I found the Farmers' Market, or how the market found me. As for so many people who've lived away, for me a local farmers' market had always just been there. Without the long history of markets that some other cities have, a little scrappy cooperative in St. John's had built something really special here. It quickly became a hub of community and friendship and connection for me – as it is for so many people.

In any case, though I can't grow a vegetable to save my life, running projects and writing proposals is my jam. I ended up on the board just as an incredible possibility started to emerge, the opportunity to create a permanent market, a gathering space this city so desperately needed. Helping make that happen took up a lot of the next six years. Whatever project it is I'm into, I always see my role as helping structure the ideas and energy a community already has. That was exactly what I found myself doing as part of the team that helped take the new community market from a gleam in our eyes to that moment we cut a ribbon and 10,000 people came through the doors.

What made that happen? A good few late nights, but mostly the belief that this was such an obviously good thing for this community that it just had to happen. And it did. Kids emptied their piggy banks, volunteers filled their evenings, city staff wrote and re-wrote, and somehow we got there. I look around and I see the most vibrant, multicultural, lively space in the city and I am just bowled over that I had anything to do with it.

By Josh Smee, community activist and Chief Executive Officer at Food First NL.

The St. John's Community Market, located at 245 Freshwater Road, was built by the City of St. John's to provide community space and is operated under a long-term lease by the St. John's Farmer's Market. The project was financed through government and community funding agencies. The City of St. John's contributed $2 million through its capital budget, close to $1.17 million came from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, and $490,000 from the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador's Department of Tourism, Culture, Industry and Innovation. The St. John's Farmers' Market Cooperative contributed $100,000 through fundraisers and funding agencies including the Aviva Community Fund, the Community Fund of NL, and VOCM Cares.

For information on renting the community market for an event, please contact SJFM.

One of the things I love most about St. John's is the blend between work and play; the great public art and access to nature that we have here through many trail systems, gardens, and public parks. Nowhere is this more evident than here in Bowring Park. It's a place that holds a lot of happy memories. And the Peter Pan statue is a focal point whenever I visit the park.

In 1925, Sir Edgar Bowring unveiled the famous statue of Peter Pan, one of six in the world like it. It was created by British sculptor Sir George Frampton. 3,000 children were there to see it, and the statue is one of my favourites.

That's the reason it appears in the opening of my short film, Waiting Outside... - that idea of preserved innocence, happiness, and the importance of family connection.

Those all tie in to Waiting Outside's story, which focuses on a family of two gay dads and their adopted daughter, Scout. One dad is deployed with the military while the other, Simon, remains home caring for Scout.

In the film Simon receives a terminal diagnosis, and just as we never see Peter Pan grow up, Simon will never get to see Scout grow up. Sad as it is, the film emphasizes the importance of making the most of every moment we have together.

So, the events that unfold in the park are incredibly important. The park's ambiance, charm, and features are almost a character in and of themselves.

Being in Bowring Park feels like being transported to a different time and place. It's so quiet and peaceful and I just love as a space to be somewhere else.

Joshua Jamieson is a Communications professional, filmmaker, author and co-creator of a new scholarship to support youth participation in journalism, politics and public affairs (www.jamiesonfamilyscholarship.ca).

 Paula Kelly

I love to swim. I love the water. I love how it makes me feel overall. There is time for myself for me to think. It's a good meditative, thoughtful time.

The first time I remember swimming in a pool was Wedgewood Park pool which was a very new pool that had opened and I was down with my father. I still have this memory of being in the shallow end and him saying 'OK come on, come on. Try again.'

And I would from that point on just be at home every night: 'Can we go swimming tonight again, Dad.'

It was a gathering place for the community for the kids. I went from that pool, which was a little 20 yard pool, went on to make the 1977 Canada Summer Games team from that pool and from there progressed on to provincial, national level competitions and then international.

The year 1980 was the Olympics that were held in Moscow. I was on the Olympic swim team but didn't go to the Olympics because of the boycott. It was the height of the Cold War.

The Russians they were in Afghanistan. Canada followed suit and other countries followed along with the Americans. Every four years when the Olympics do roll around I keep thinking, 'what could I have done if I went?' went?' And I really feel like something was robbed from us. But you know, life goes on.

The City wanted to acknowledge my contributions to the sport of swimming. They wanted to continue with that connection to Wedgewood Park. My name is on the pool here at the Paul Reynolds Centre. My original thought when I first saw this facility was like, wow we've come a long way. We have this facility that is bright, twenty-five meters. There are lots of other recreational facilities that surround the pool. It's great for recreation. It's great for competition.

Having my name on the new pool definitely does strengthen my connection to the original pool. It brings it full circle.

By Paula Kelly. Ms. Kelly was born and raised in Wedgewood Park where she first learned to swim at Wedgewood Park swimming pool. She went on to become the only Newfoundlander to qualify and be named to Canada's Olympic Swimming Team. The Aquatics Centre at Paul Reynolds Community Centre is named for Ms. Kelly.

Paul Reynolds Community Centre, located at 35 Carrick Drive, is a multi-purpose 74,000 square feet aquatic facility with many amenities including: a full-sized 6,700 square foot gymnasium, 25-metre lane swimming pool, therapeutic warm water leisure pool with zero depth beach entry, two waterslides, hydraulic lift and water wheelchairs, pool viewing area, fully accessible family changerooms, adult size change table, universal changerooms, dedicated youth room, 1,775 square foot dedicated children's area, 900 square foot senior's area, and open concept lobby.