A new street in a Queensborough subdivision is being named in recognition of the Roma Hall’s role in the community.
Council has endorsed the name Roma as the name of a new street being constructed near a Salter Street development. Roma is one of the names listed in a Potential Place Names report that was compiled in 2010.
Coun. Patrick Johnstone said he recently learned a bit about the Roma Hall’s history.
“It played a really important role in the immigrant experience in New Westminster, for people who were sort of fleeing economic problems and depression, geopolitical strife and came across the sea and came together to form a community to support their heritage and help each other,” he said. “I think it’s an interesting representation of Canada’s cultural mosaic, of immigrants who come here from different communities at different times and found ways to contribute to the community while honouring their heritage.”
While he thinks Roma is a great name for the new street in Queensborough, Johnstone believes it’s time for the city to review and update its street and public space naming policy.
“Going through the evaluation that took place to get us to this name, which I support, I saw a lot of issues in that process that got us there,” he said. “We really haven’t dealt with colonization, with representing more diverse cultures in our community, the under representation of women in our place and street names, with a lot of new diversity ideas.”
