At The Gastown Riot

In 2002, activists erected a tent city on the sidewalk, staking a claim as the hippies had done decades before, and protesting Vancouver’s lack of affordable housing. The protest held together for three months, attracting 280 squatters at its height. Almost two years later, the government chose Henriquez Partners Architects and Westbank Projects/Peterson Investment Group to redevelop the property with a forty-storey condo tower, 200 affordable units, retail space, offices, and a home for Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts. “THIS IS YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD,” the development’s website announces.

Developers often forget that a neighbourhood is a palimpsest, but Abbott & Cordova will preserve the site’s narrative, advancing Douglas’s perception of history as a past that overlaps the present. There was a protest here. And every morning, condo dwellers will pass it on their way to work, their reflections gliding over the image like present-day ghosts.