In My Neighbourhood

 

Once upon a time I enjoyed my walks down a nearby lane thanks to the creative painting on this one-car garage.  What a clever way to portray the house number!

The house itself was a bit different from the other 50's houses in this section of Dunbar because it had a corner entry and two bay windows in the front, to say nothing of the bright red paint, unusual for this relatively staid neighbourhood. I was alerted by a neighbour in September 2010 that the house would be torn down, and the demolition of this house was a big impetus for me to start writing this demolition blog.

This should look familiar!  Torn down on December 30, 2010.

My special interest in this demolition was that I could see it from my upstairs window, where I have an occasional precious view of the North Shore mountains.

But how high will the house go, and will I lose part of my view of the mountains?

It's getting taller...

A three-car garage is going up.  I will spare you a photo of it at completion as these garages are ubiquitous and boring.  None of the garage doors will be as fun as the one on the original garage.

In July 2011, the carefully detailed "heritage" features of this large house are evident.

It's now mid May 2012 and nearly time to move in.  The house has taken a long time to build, nearly 1 1/2 years, likely meaning that it was not built by a developer on speculation.  The tree with the pink blossoms survived, but with all the digging, it had energy to flower only on one side.

And what of my view? I'm fortunate to still be able to see a bit of the mountains.  They'll be there forever, but I am getting reconciled to the idea that it is only thanks to the probably temporary quartet of original one storey 1950's bungalows at the end of West 30th and West 31st Avenues that allows me to have this view of snow on Cypress Mountain.  It helps that my house is near the top of a ridge and that I have a 1 1/2 storey house.

As new and taller houses are built, next door neighbours get more shade, and more distant neighbours lose views of the sky.  No one gets compensated for these permanent losses. But it is inevitable in big cities that attract a growing population.