City to seek name for "that place next to the PNE roller coaster"

In its first regular meeting since July 20, the Vancouver park board will vote Monday (September 14) on a motion to convene a park-naming committee for the Empire Fields/Plateau Sports Park.

That's the park otherwise usually referred to as "the place next to the PNE roller coaster". (The Empire/Plateau moniker is not a formal designation).

The motion, moved by Comm. Sarah Kirby-Yung, states that the naming committee's recommendations be brought to the board for approval but does not say whether or not public input will be sought.

The site, home to the landmark Empire Stadium for almost four decades (1954-1993), was home to the B.C. Lions and the Vancouver Whitecaps sports teams and hosted many concerts over the years, including appearances by the Beatles and Elvis Presley.

While the Lions and Whitecaps' new home, B.C. Place Stadium, underwent renovations a few years ago, the teams played in a temporary facility built on the site near the busy intersection of East Hastings Street and the Cassiar Connector. After the interim stadium's dismantling, the city converted the property to sports playing fields and a playground and parkour course.

Considering that the city moved the famous "Miracle Mile" statue to that park site on July 10 this year (from its previous home at the PNE's main entrance at Hastings and Renfrew streets), maybe that can figure into the naming-committee's deliberations. (The statue sat originally in front of Empire Stadium from 1967 until demolition.)

After all, that bronze sculpture commemorating the first time—in 1954 at the Vancouver-hosted British Empire Games—that two humans, Roger Bannister and John Landy, ran a mile in less than four minutes got uprooted from a spot where tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of Vancouverites saw it annually.  Now it has been plunked down where almost no one will ever see it again.

How about "Miracle Mile Park" to keep the memory of that world-famous event alive in the minds of today's citizens?

Do you have any suggestions of your own for the new park's name? "Protein Spill Park"? Diesel-Particulate Park"? Feel free to post in the comments below. 

The regular park-board meeting takes place September 14 at 7 p.m. at the park board's boardroom at 2099 Beach Avenue.