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John Lawson Park by Heinz H.G. Burger, former West Van Parks Manager The land which John Lawson donated to West Vancouver consisted of the present day John Lawson Park, the present parking lot between the railroad and Bellevue Avenue, and the large area between Bellevue and Marine Drive (Safeway and then Fresh Street Market). In 1961 John Lawson Park consisted of a large lawn area with mature native trees, a small pier and, I remember vaguely, a house on the south east corner which was soon vacated so that we could add this to the park. At the west side of the park was an unheated summer wading pool surrounded by a 4 foot chain link fence with a lockable gate. On the playground in 1959 2150.02.373.DWV south west side were three pieces of old fashioned play equipment. Close to these were two large beautiful holly trees planted by John Lawson; they gave Hollyburn their name. The fallen prickly leaves were not very kind to naked little feet at the playground. For this reason, we gave standing orders to our maintenance staff to give the trees a good shake and rake up all the fallen leaves daily It is too bad that my successor cut these beautiful historic trees down. The amount of money provided for the landscaping of the park was not very plentiful. I had to be frugal. I phoned my old business partner Lloyd Smith of the former BergerSmith Landscaping Company. He operated a large plant nursery in Pitt Meadows. I asked him to please give me a list of trees and other plant material of which he had an overstock. He did. I asked Lloyd if we could come with our winter works man and dig, ball and burlap the trees ourselves. I asked what it would cost per items. He replied "One dollar each." We went to Pitt Meadows with two trucks and got all the plant material for Safeway's landscaping, the Park,and some more for future tree plantings in the Municipality. All the burlap was donated by a longshoreman friend. For the paving and curbing of the parking lot we hired BA Blacktop owned by a neighbour of mine, Harold Fraser. south end of 17th in 1914 - John Lawson real Estate Office and railway - Along Bellevue we planted a tight row of winter flowering cherries and Hawthorn. This was very effective. Too bad my successor cut down all the cherries. I was told that they required too much maintenance. We proceeded with the rest of the landscaping jobs. I cannot remember all the details, we used Japanese cherries, Forsythia, Japanese WitchHazel and many other kinds of plant material. But I remember on the south west corner of the parking lot we used a Horse Chestnut and on the south-east corner later we used a citizen donated California Redwood. After all the landscaping was complete it was time to extend the play facilities in the park. I called a meeting with the neighbourhood children and asked them what they would like to see on their new playground. pier under construction 1909 Page 6