Downtown Vancouver is mostly new, mostly upscale, and sometimes disappointingly bland. But there are notable exceptions, and nowhere more than east side downtown - Gastown and neighboring Chinatown. Here the architecture and urban scale reflects a much older city. It can be very rough because this is also skid row (not to mention the center of Vancouver's notoriously libertine drug culture). But the economic pressures are tremendous and gentrification appears to be gaining the upper hand. I hate to see any city become a monoculture of Starbucks and Banana Republics, but a city has to maintain itself, too. Reinvestment is key since buildings don't simply maintain themselves. If Vancouver is becoming too rich for its own good, it's also good to know these buildings will survive even if the occupants are no longer colorful bohemians.
Hastings St is a vivid reminder of Vancouver's old core. Downtown migrated westward a century ago leaving some delightful old artifacts in its wake. If it looks woebegone today, I would wager a renaissance is not that far off.
Chinatown interfaces skid row at Main and Hastings St. Here the old Carnegie Library stands guard. It's a community service center now and the rougher elements are very much in view. But it feels safe because so much of the foot traffic is Chinatown's.
This is one of North America's largest Chinatowns, amazingly tight and coherent. There's an improbable number of markets here, selling all sorts of products in bulk. Since Vancouver is heavily Chinese in ethnicity (close to half its population) this enclave is something of a relic. Yet it's crowded, functional and vibrant.
The eastern boundary of old Chinatown is Gore St, and across it you see the sad reminder of 60s urban renewal. There are "modern" churches and midrise residential with lots of green space. But it feels marooned from the rest of the city, as if some disease simply ate away the living tissue of the city and left some inert objects. No doubt it serves its purpose well. It just looks so dead.
Back to historic Chinatown:
This lonely looking corner indicates so much of Vancouver's chameleon nature. In the empty lot between the two buildings a nine-story condo building will go. The property in this city is too valuable to let anything go.
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