Changes All Around Me

For a long time I called this 1400 Howe Street block the 'Kunst Werk zone'. 
A  storage company owned a large building on that block.
I had been haunting that block because that's where the old Imagination Market building was at 1435 Granville.
I moved into this neighborhood in 2009.  I took photos.

Then a development permit sign went up and the storage business building acquired a new look that went with "Gesampt Kunst Werk" & some spiffy new partial cladding.
I really started taking photos, editing them, & getting swept up in the huge changes about to happen in my neighborhood.

                                             So here goes.  
First, a glimpse of the massive  project. This is a photo of the  model of the tallest building of the new complex. These are from the promo/info centre at 1410 Howe Street last summer. The bridge you see are various arms of the Granville Street Bridge on the north side.

It cracks me up this is being called "Vancouver House". It's in no way "a house".

            Rodney Graham also did this sculpture on a building nearby @ Howe & Pacific.

So...

Where I take you from here, since I was carrying a camera nearly all the time with me, are photos of changing things in my neighborhood.

First the dumpster with broken mirror.

Other congregations...

Shadows to die for...

 

shadows-- that's me on the bridge-- a selfie!

One demolition very near by at Mortifee-Munshaw then Richards on Richards, near my apartment. Suddenly I felt demolition was happening all around me.

 

One of my big surprises was how much metal and wood was separated out for re-processing. Very heartening.

I learned that old bricks sell for 60 cents a piece!

 

                               Some fence, somewhere, padlock leavings...

Un-welding on Richards St. so the awning frame can come down.

Staging grounds for for the Telus building on Georgia

  Telus building downtown, that's where those wire cages went.

Il Giardino also down. So sad. I loved that space. Plates!!! Tiles??? Good God!! They didn't save them? My New England soul quivered!!

                                         gaskets & pipes for new water/sewer mains

Looking down.

 

 Other street views

  

 Burrard Bridge cement-decay & other sadnesses....

Floating barrel at Hornby street dock.

I have so enjoyed this exploration.

Cities have their rawness. Somehow I manage to get caught up in the peculiar beauty, in the idea of impermanence, & in nostalgia.  Many artists get caught up is in this zone.

That's it for now.

Top of Vancouver

Last week George, & my friend Mary Beecher Price from my grade 5-9 days in Boston & now from Ann Arbor, & I

....went to the Top of Vancouver Restaurant. 

We did 2.5 x 360 degree turns. The sun went down.

The themes popped up & I took pictures. These are familiar themes to which I gravitate!

Reflections.

The orange below in these reflections is from these cranes in the harbor.

Then there are the sails in two sun-scapes, lantern-like.

 I love the trains & tracks.

Turquoise!

Who'da guessed I'd see turquoise?

Then other rooftops ....with the look of abandonment... They aren't particularly 'pretty' but they are interesting because they tell stories.

Two famous old buildings were prominent: 

 the old Vancouver Sun tower & The Toronto Dominion Building.

Those two buildings were here in 1967 when I first came to Vancouver.

So much has changed since then!

As I looked around at the old & the new.

I know that some will be taken down soon.

Vancouver has already demolished many fine old grand dame-buildings of by-gone eras before Hertitage Committees start kicking up big fusses.

This was my favorite shadow photo of the building we are atop of!

But then there is this one too which is pretty fetching:

Daphne & George & Mary sipping or taking pictures.

The pillows.

I love this building structure even though it is a total financial over-spend-loss for the city.

I love the progression of shadows.

The View.

We are so lucky!

The Food!!

We ate so well that night & felt grateful for good fortune.

 

Ooo la la!

What a special evening. Good food, good friends, good conversation, good humor.

That's it for now.