Seven years ago, when Erin Jeffery would come to work in New Westminster, she didn’t like what she saw on the then-rough streets of downtown.
The worn-out neighbourhood wasn’t the one she remembered from her youth, when she’d come from her family home on Vancouver Island to visit her two great-aunts who live in the city.
“I worked right on Columbia Street, and it was not as happy and friendly and family forward necessarily as the New Westminster I had remembered from my youth,” she says. “I just remember visiting New Westminster and loving the river.”
She also recalls the once-vibrant Westminster Quay Public Market, which seven years ago was barely surviving.
The market is what brought Jeffery back to New Westminster. She was part of the team that did the re-design on the River Market.
“I was the account executive on the design team, and so, I was watching that grow, and I was watching it change, and I thought, ‘Well, this looks really exciting,’” Jeffery says. “And I knew that market was really passionate about the community and really passionate about helping the urban landscape, and slowly as we started to look we started to explore New Westminster more and more, we grew to love it and the fact that it’s a big city, but it’s really a small town.”
A year ago, Jeffery, her husband, Martin Lowe, bought a condo at the Quay and settled into their new life on the river. The dramatic changes to downtown over the last few years, the city’s proximity to the rest of the Lower Mainland, the community vibe, and, of course, the River Market are some of the reasons they decided to nest in New West.
Today, Jeffery works as the special events manager at the River Market. She organizes the popular Curious Flea events and the artisan markets. She shares with readers a few more insights as someone who is new to New West:
Q: What do you think is the biggest misconception about New Westminster?
A: Is that it is one of two things – super-wealthy in Queen’s Park or retired. I think there is a misconception that it is not young families living out here. It is not urban professionals living out here, and that is what I see moving out here.
Q: If you could one thing about New West what would it be?
A: I’d like the trains a bit quieter at night – that would make me really, really happy. I think it would be nice (if) some of the old-guard New Westminster residents – I’m not saying the older New West residents, but maybe people that have lived here for a long time – (could see) that there are things changing for the better. And it would be nice if everyone had this global view of a great community that could happen.
Q: What challenges have you faced in New West?
A: School. I want my son to do French immersion, and in a lot of communities it’s a lottery system to get your child into French immersion whereas in New West it’s first-come, first-serve. I moved here when my son was three, and I think the highest number I am on the (wait) list is 76. … So, that’s been a frustration.
Q: What do like the most about living here?
A: I can walk everywhere. Everywhere. We don’t use our car. We walk for groceries. We walk for fun.
Q: Do you see the city changing more than it already has?
A: I do. I think it’s going in a really interesting way. I think it’s becoming really exciting, and I am really excited to be (here). For me, what I find interesting is, I’ve lived over here (the Lower Mainland from the island) since I finished high school and I moved over for university, so that’s a very long time. That’s over 20 years, and up until recently, I still considered home on the island. I never really felt an attachment to the city I was living in. I lived in Vancouver. I lived in Burnaby, and I never felt that this is my community, and this my home. And I do feel that where I am here – that this is a community and a home and a place to be attached to and a place to be proud of.
Are you new to New West? Did you move here in the last year and are willing to tell our readers what brought you here? Please contact Niki Hope at [email protected] to be featured in the New to New West column.
