31.01.18

Corner Store #10: McGill Groceries @ 2961 McGill St. Curt Lang took this photograph of the original building in 1972. Decidedly different from the present structure yet consuming the same volume. Perhaps the fire hydrant has been retained. (photo: VPL)

The building is stripped of all artifice as the sign self-strips in the temperate rain. It is pleasing to see how the boulevard tree has grown to full height.

30.01.18

Corner Store #9: Little Cottage Confectionery @ St Catherines and 11th Ave. This prime example of the vernacular small shop has been well appointed since its sale into pure residential. The store section is adjoined to the house from behind and converted to a study or den of sorts. The picket fence has been long replaced by modern gardens, the signage sadly removed and likely discarded. I often include this spot to pass by and ponder on my northward walks. Take note the fir flourishing grandly in repose.

29.01.18

Corner Store #8: Templeton Market @ 127 N Templeton Drive. Just down the street from the Dundas Market.

With detail of stucco cladding and historic signage on lane side. Stucco is a preferred method of treating these old groceries and corner markets. Cheap, cheerful, stark and utilitarian.

28.01.18

Corner Store #7: Scott's Grocery @ 709 Victoria Drive. Travel in a southward direction along an asphalted cobble tramway. The photo above records the condition of Scott's pre-2014, the year it was sold with an uncertain future. (photo credit: Jason Statler)

The shop is now used by the small business "The Found and the Freed"; pejoratively referred to as "The Found and the Fleeced" by some.

27.01.18

Corner Store #6: Dundas Market @ 2177 Dundas Street. On the Number 20 Line (also the title of Rolf Knight's excellent book) Dundas flows into Powell, along the old industrial waterfront, with a gentle glide. The market offers potted greenhouse variegated blooms, lottery options, mouse traps, tinned carbohydrates, some pressed meat.

26.01.18

Corner Store #5: Anonymous Market @ 985 East 35th. A little haunted. There was a Lotto sign hanging from the awning at one time. The shelves are partially stocked as if abandoned to no end. Favourable skies while cycling away from the cemetery in an eastward manner.

25.01.18

Corner Store #4: Wong's Market @ 44th and Main Street. Presently closed. The historic significance of this building is clad over in stucco, obscuring wood clapboard siding, hand-painted advertising signage, and a patina stained from the exhaust of pre-war traffic. Built in 1910 it opened as Reeve and Harding General Store and later purchased by the Fukuharas, a Japanese-Canadian family in the late 1930's. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor the property was seized and they were re-located to the BC Interior.

Noted Vancouver historian and artist, Michael Kluckner, writes about the fate of the Fukuhara family here: https://www.michaelkluckner.com/bciw1wongs.html. (A link marked "The story continues here." continues with their story in the Shuswap region) There is no mention of when the store was turned over to the Wong family.

24.01.18

Corner Store #3: The Federal Store @ 2601 Quebec Street. An earnest young couple runs this joint where they bake goods and pull some of the better espresso in Mount Pleasant. The bike rack is hipster vintage angular rusty meaning it is barely designed to support modern bicycles. Overall a worthy stop along the 10th Ave bike route. 

23.01.18

Corner Store #2: Charles Grocery @ 580 East 12th. It has been confirmed that gatherings have taken place here within the past year.
 

Wind-Up Birds have perched inside on occasion in-florescence. Updating underway.

22.01.18

Corner Store #1: Corner Store @ Main and 10th Ave at present and below in 1958 (CVA). Not of the dry goods variety but a corner store nonetheless. Neighborhoods throughout the city pivot on these anchors although many have fallen into disuse or suffered demolition, but even as storefront shadows these simple alcoves offer places to dwell and break up the rhythm of the street scape.

21.01.18

In-site the hand-crafted Dansk inspired pieces sit arrayed and archived. Assemblage is implicit: mount plate "a" onto base using four screws (not included); take leg tab "b" and slide into mounting plate slot "a"; repeat as required. (walk two blocks west)

20.01.18

Off-site bricolage of a gulagian construct. We acknowledge the effort required to hunt and gather. An overall breakdpwom uf firlm andgm comptnosiitom. 

19.01.18

Sad art day in Moodyville sensing that this is appropriated somehow this urban pipe viscous of fluid in second growth forest that evokes some narrow field nature verse urban disturbance yet only pipe flowing something maybe sewage or water maybe shit through ravine with hedera helix and blackberry abounded it is about intrusion and sameness but clear and concise as predicate follows subject towards indirect object.

18.01.18

Ken's Grocer at 1400 West 70th Ave.  This corner building, and the house and garage next door are a few of the only redeemable heritage structures remaining in Marpole. (CVA)

The present business, the Gigi Blin Cafe is worthy of regular stops. The floors squeak. The coffee is honest.

17.01.18
Portland derive with side-long views of Belmont then Hawthorne storefronts. A city largely in tact, intact.

16.01.18

The coddiwomple, a selcouth wayfarer known to seek out the numinous marvels of wood and dale. (image c/o The Kenspeckle Letterpress).

15.01.18

A day blanketed and then not, the eerie silence of Broadway with pockets of bearded diners waiting for an orange vinyl booth and chicken waffles, yellow tape marking off in a crudely childish manner a perimeter without clear rhythm, sky opening up like a March hare chased down and devoured by a wolf sun,  a banner lying flat in an empty parking lot questioning "why does a single gun shot shut down Broadway but the cries of women fall on deaf ears?", a point has been made perhaps but not for the fifteen year old suburban kid coming into town with his family on a Saturday night looking out at his version of wonder this the big city when a stray bullet somehow pierces his body after entering the car body, a real shooting gallery unlike the gaming kind that his folks might have said no way to, too violent and aggressive, not how to live and just plain offensive, all down the road from the old Lee Building on the corner of Main and Broadway, in Mount Pleasant after a hauntingly beautiful day by the sea.

14.01.18

Across the Inlet fog has settled in. Tourists scramble to capture an image of Moodyville in concealment. The bridge half-spans the crossing from two perspectives.

13.01.18

The shimmering edifice rises out of the beachfront much like a limestone cliff, a gargantuan wonder, an enormous Moodyville storehouse that lifts, sifts, filters and ships cereal and grain to hades and beyond.

12.01.18

A recent tread in the elysian forests near martello tower provided this fine view of a glazed pond that invited cracking with a large metal spoon. Encased the leaves fanned outwards among blades of eel grass casting shadows over embedded toads, dormant nymphs.

For the cobblers the long wet season offers little motivation to dig in and build out, but plenty to consider while adding to the piles.

11.01.18

Pacific Great Eastern- front view, or back? Mounded and removed far from rails or ties; creosote old growth soaked in concrete casings.

10.01.18

A narrow panoramic view from just east of the quay. Formerly an industrial hub in the manner of merchant shipping and timber there remains much in the way of trans-national movement.  Coal, grain, sulphur and now art are piled high into specific zones but more about that in later postings. Hedera Helix is also in abundance as cultural layering.

09.01.18

Oblique city views gently force the horizon into the waterfront edging of the distant shore from Moodyville southward.