It looks like a summer morning in Vancouver Chinatown, at the corner of Pender Street and Gore Avenue. There’s no hint of the rainy season that is soon to come. A curious girl pokes her head out of a window at the exact moment Pacific Rim Magazine’s photographer David Chan captures this scene, which would become the first cover image for PRM in 1989.
In some ways, nothing has changed: the red lampposts, the cobblestone curbs, the storefront awnings, the busy street corners, and the dried goods and produce on display along the sidewalk.
But, of course, since this photograph was taken, clothing fashions have gone out of style, businesses have come and gone, there are new cafés at every corner, and condominiums continue to pop up, further displacing a burgeoning homeless population.
Were these pedestrians who were waiting for the light to change considering what this spot would look like in 2018?
