Steppin' Out In Vancouver, Mid-October Style

[entheosfog]

I took a walk on a gorgeous Saturday last weekend in Vancouver and just couldn't stop! I started out in East Van, close to my house, then made my way downtown, passing through Chinatown and the fringes of the Downtown Eastside.
Enjoy!

Astoria Hotel, with a recently restored neon sign that deserves a picture at night. One day I'll snap it up:


The Heatley Block pictured here is under the threat of demolition in favour of a library but there's a campaign underway to save it:


A row of old houses in the neighbourhood of Strathcona:


Also in Strathcona, I think this is a church of some kind, or used to be:








This large old house and the other three beside it have all been recently repainted and somewhat restored:


Looking down that same street:






Oppenheimer Park, which is usually a hangout for many homeless people during the day:


Across from Oppenheimer. I love the detailing of this building:


Also across from Oppenheimer, these buildings deserve much better:




Make-shift sign:


Sunrise Market, which I always seem to photograph:


Chinatown Street:


Typical Chinatown store:


That guy on the left with the hat had a scale on the ground and was selling his own veggies!


Fish mongrel:


More Chinatown:


At the corner of Main & Hastings:


The bottom level on this building has been vacant and boarded up for some time now but it looks like a new tenant is moving in as new windows have been going up:






Some typical Vancouver Chinatown architecture:




New beside the restored:




Entrance into Chinatown from the west:








The building on the left is almost done restoration with the addition of the corner cone that has been replicated to match the long lost original. These units are to become social housing, I believe:




Another view of the Pennsylvania Hotel:








Most of the remainder of my photos were taken on Granville Street downtown and at dusk to show off some neon signs:






The pawnshops and porno shops are slowly disappearing. Many buildings on the west side of the street here are vacant at the retail level:




















This is the busy intersection of Burrard and Robson on a Saturday evening:


Shangri-La looming over the old:


Thanks for stopping by!

[LouisianaRush]

Nice

[giallo]

Great tour of the eastside!

[Kingofthehill]

worship the grit.

[OhioGuy]

Sweet! Any time we can get photos from the Vancouver area, I'm happy.

[10101000]

Love it!

[LAsam]

Nice! I'm especially fond of the neon.

[peanut gallery]

Fascinating stuff. I love walking tours like this. You get a real sense of the street scene.

[osirisboy]

wow sure makes me wish they hurry up and get rid of all the bums in the DTES that would be such a nice area of the city

[ambiguoustraveller]

Your photos are fantastic. It's nice to see pictures that go beyond the glass towers. This photo set makes me homesick for Vancouver and the Pacific Northwest in general.

[Evergrey]

i love sidewalk fruit

[Botev1912]

Vancouver is my favorite Canadian city

[ScottFromCalgary]

Thanks for the tour. Nice to see parts of Vancouver away from the main downtown area (i.e. Shaw Tower & Shangri-La). That's one of the cool things about Vancouver, even though there is such a modern downtown full of glass condos, the heritage buildings are much better preserved than in most cities of its age.

[raggedy13]

Great shots as usual entheosfog. I love that you so often focus on the older buildings/areas of Vancouver. They don't seem to get the coverage they deserve.

[ShadowMaster]

Amazing, fantastic tour! Vancouver contains more brick structures of varied proportions than I realized. I've always been interested with Vancouver.

[entheosfog]

Thanks for all the comments everyone!
I always love exploring the 'grittier' side of Vancouver, or any city for that matter, as they are usually more interesting to photograph. Of course, I don't mind making a b-line up to Robson Street or South Granville or Kits for some pics, too. But I guess I am usually drawn to the older buildings whenever I take pictures because most people think of Van as a city of glass and condos. But there's is an amazing amount of historical buildings here for a city that was only incorporated in 1886. There's a lot of new stuff, of course, but the city learned from past mistakes and demolition to create a bit more awareness of the importance of retaining not only historic structures but historic streetscapes and making them work with all the new construction. Of course some do manage to slip through the cracks but Vancouver is doing pretty good in that regard, in my opinion.

[SpongeG]

nice

glad i can call it home

i think this one used to be a power substation or something - i remember seeing a show about it way back in the 90's on knowledge network on the transformation - great show it was

[Coldrsx]

way to make me miss granville nights out.

[entheosfog]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

way to make me miss granville nights out.

Yes, good ol' Granville. I love it and hate it at the same time

[raggedy13]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

nice

glad i can call it home

i think this one used to be a power substation or something - i remember seeing a show about it way back in the 90's on knowledge network on the transformation - great show it was

Really? I took an architectural tour of the area and the guide said it used to be a Jewish synagogue... possibly Vancouver's first (or at least one of the first). Strange stuff. Those are two very different former uses, unless it went from a Jewish synagogue to a power substation to apartments?