Sequoia Later

At the centre of this picture is a brown square. Look closer and you will see that it is a tree stump. Before that, a towering sequoia that, had it not been cut down earlier this year, would have extended beyond the frame of this picture in height and width.

Taped onto the window of the health food store behind the stump is a page of information ("90-year-old Kerrisdale Sequoia tree will be turned into benches for Arbutus Greenway").

I can't say I have a memory of this sequoia when I was growing up. Nor do I remember what was around it, apart from the China Inn, where a request for ID when ordering beer was met with sheepish shrugs on our part -- until Tim Bailey offered his Grade 11 student card and that was enough!

Below is a picture from the Herbert Elwyn Addington's photography collection. The occasion is the May 24, 1980 opening of the new B.C. Telephone Company store at 2307 West 41st. (Prior to that, telephones remained the property of B.C. Tel and were rented to customers for a couple dollars a month.) To the left is the sequoia.