Art Phillips would have been 84 this month.
"Would have been" still feels like a strange phrase, even more than a year after his passing. He was here, astride Vancouver as a former mayor and member of Parliament and a founder of the investment firm Phillips, Hager & North. And now he's not.
Such is life, and he wasn't exempt from its cruel cycles, no more than anyone else. But it still seems unfair, somehow, for such a man.
I didn't know him by any of those official titles, of course. I only knew him as a stepfather. And today, I remember.
People walking the streets of Vancouver today may not realize how much a single figure from the past may have altered their experience of the city. Time moves heartbreakingly fast, after all -- much faster than you realize, and before you have time to catch your breath, most of it is behind you.
New residents may not even grasp how different Vancouver is, compared to what it once was. Awash now in money, and speed, and homes no one can afford. Not so long ago we were rainy and sleepy and forgotten, little more than an afterthought for the powers-that-be in Toronto and Montreal and Ottawa.
Well, it's still rainy.
Then times change, and balances shift. But the fact that huge highways don't carve up the downtown core, as they do in so many other cities? That was thanks to Art Phillips. False Creek, affordable co-op housing in the heart of the city? That was him, too. I know because that's where I grew up, riding my first little bike outside 801 Ferry Row.
And that's because he didn't just draw up an abstract housing plan, as that old industrial land was transformed into something actually livable. He became one of the very first residents to move in. That's the kind of guy he was.
Saving the Orpheum Theatre? Preserving the entrance to Stanley Park? Developing Granville Island? You guessed it.
Rather than bore you with civic history though, here's a better idea: Go to Art Phillips Park, in the heart of downtown and in the shadows of all those towering buildings. With its greenspace, and its mass transit, and its park benches beneath gorgeous blossoms, it kind of represents what he was all about. It's where he walked his dog, and where his spirit still lingers, if I had to guess.
Sit there for a minute today, and give thanks to a guy who helped make it happen.
Chris Taylor with his kids and his stepfather Art Phillips.
It's a cliche to say that they don't make them like him anymore, but it's also absolutely true.
Today's politics are all about attack, and self-interest, and mean-spiritedness. That's more apparent than ever, with municipal elections coming up in November and teachers at war with the provincial government. Things seem to be falling apart, with so many people at each others' throats, and it's hard to fathom how to start fixing it all.
That's why I like to leave the present sometimes, just for a moment, and reflect about when Art was in office. Can you think of any modern political figure with that kind of moral compass and civic-mindedness? Go ahead ... I'll wait.
I don't remember much first-hand about the 1970s, frankly. I was too young, playing in the mud outside False Creek Elementary, the school that came to be because of him.
I don't remember the politics, but I do remember the man. After all, I wasn't his biological child. He didn't have to truly accept me as his own, when he married my mother when I was around age six. But he did.
That, I remember. And will remember, until I too pass from this earth.
Art Phillips, happy birthday.
Art Phillips and Carole Taylor with their grandchild.