The building above sits on the east side of Commercial Drive between 7th Avenue and what remains of the North Grandview Highway. It has been around for as long as I can remember, and contains two visible tenants: a provincial social services ministry and, on the Grandview side, a Mediterranean themed restaurant.
The picture was taken looking southeast, with an emphasis on the grand staircase that once linked the building's roof top parking lot with the sidewalk. A nice way to enter Commercial Drive, no? Particularly for Italians and Portuguese who had done well enough to afford homes on the westside, and who come to the Drive once a week for real coffee, real bread, real meats and real cheese, to connect with their community, to show off a little?
Funny how a little chainlink fencing, razor wire and a locked gate can turn what once looked so inviting into a Belfast constabulary or Cold War-era Berlin. That this modified building stands at what is in effect the southern gateway to the fifteen blocks that make up "Commercial Drive" (8th Ave to Venables) gives it its fort-like presence, as if this building was filled with soldiers who could be deployed at any time, for any reason.
The musician-scholar George Lewis once told me a story about growing up on the South Side of Chicago in the 1960s. In his neighbourhood there was a ground-level, white cube building on one of its corners that had no windows or doors, and had been around for as long as anyone could remember. One day, during a particularly intense week of public protests, vandalism and looting, George was riding his bike by this building when suddenly its front wall lifts up -- and out comes a Sherman tank!
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