There’s more happening in Vancouver as the Olympics approach than I can keep track of. Fortunately I have PT readers with cameras – like Michael Alexander, who sends in this shot of the newly installed barrier to isolate the east basin of False Creek:
There’s a little tug on the right to open and close the barrier.
On the other hand, I’m surprised at how little decoration there is, given we’re only about two weeks from opening. Along Robson last night I noticed only a handful of store windows that had any Olympic-themed displays at all. I think Wayne Hartrick may have had it right when he wrote in the Sun, after returning from out of town: “Little bling. Few rings. Low buzz.” (Maybe, as he suggests, the fear of treading on the Olympic brand has been too intimidating.)
But then there’s this:
It’s the parkade at Cordova and Granville, immediately across from the entrance to The Station – the front door of Vancouver, through which hundreds of thousands of visitors will pass in the next few weeks. The parkade is a dump: rusting, paint peeling, a gray blot.
I remember Philip Owen, when he was mayor, calling up the owners to chastize them for the graffiti and posters which covered their walls. It was repainted shortly thereafter. Time for another call, Philip.
The scary part is that they have been doing alot of maintaince work on that parkade recently. Truly a shame as it implies it will be around for a while yet. Perhaps listing the owner will shame him into doing something about it. On a positive the Sears buildings is getting a powerwash just in time for the games.
I personally hope that in the near future all the above ground parkades in the city are either redeveloped or placed underground as it is one of the very few pieces of motordom that they city has that is surely a blight on our wonderful city. Removing them and the viaducts and I think the city will be great. They could have made some sort of fabric wrap to cover that building which would have been nice.
Telling them to give it a paint job is one thing, but some sort of building wrap just for the games? Why? So the world cameras won’t see any ugly buildings in the city over a two week period, even if we put up with them every other day while living here?
It seems really weird to me that the city would cover up all its pimples like a 15 year old going on a date just because the cameras will be on us. There’s a lot of cool stuff you can do without covering up every single parking garage. I think it will show Vancouver as a truly mature city if we just present the city as it is, pimples and all, but proud of our hometown nontheless.
I think the lack of decoration also has to do with the recession and the cost of building wraps.
I’m disappointed that Bentall V isnt wrapped – it hoists a huge Bell logo – an official sponsor of the Games, but isn’t wrapped. I guess the massive amount that Bell paid for the rights (way way more than Telus bid) is hitting them hard.
It would have been nie to see towers wraoped with “the look of the games” (wavey blue and green) – but the budget cuts probably did away with those. (i.e. in Salt Lake City, they had massive wraps from the organizing committee that only bore small corporate logos)
The wrap thing was more a sarcastic thing then me really wanting that considering we are spending way to much tax dollars on this thing already! Oh and I thought I would say that all the city councils that are not buying tickets to the events with tax funds are really great role models I wish all our politicians had the same sense of mind.
That parkade used to be all one storey little shops until the 1960s (including the venerable long-time Vancouver institution Pappas Furs)
Some great pics in the archives.
Given its location opposite Waterfront Station, hopefully the owner will hold out redeveloping until the City will allow really tall buildings so the site can be consolidated with the former PWC Building ext door and a really large building directly connected to the Waterfront Transit Hub can be built – rather than saddling the site with another mediocre building for the next 50 years.
I once read somewhere that the plethora of old parking garages along the Seymour/Richards corridor up to about Smithe was the result of vindictive urban renewal against the participants of riots/sit ins of the 1930s depression (Victory Square, the Granville/Hastings post office sit in) I guess only Gerry McGeer knows for sure.
In the event of “the big one”, that garage on Granville (and this one on Hornby) are the last places you’d want to be. http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=vancouver+bc&sll=50.686751,-121.937581&sspn=0.122679,0.308647&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Vancouver,+Greater+Vancouver+Regional+District,+British+Columbia&ll=49.285408,-123.117599&spn=0.003947,0.009645&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=49.285323,-123.117725&panoid=baKylAOtJB9RqQhTfq4Cgw&cbp=12,102.2,,0,-21.13
I can’t imagine those garages being any older than the 1950s.
Maybe flophouses that used to exist on the sites were demolished a one point (i.e. the EasyPark site @ Georgia would be owned by the City) and the garages were later constructed on the cleared sites. The Willian Farrell Building (Telus) (oldest part probably predates 1930s) has no underground parking and they is an overhead passage to the parking garage at Richards & Robson.