The housing stock in the Dunbar area of Vancouver has undergone significant change in the past five years. Originally a working class neighbourhood with many quite modest homes surrounded by lovely gardens, it is now a neighbourhood that 99% of the people working in Vancouver cannot afford because the replacement homes are built to the maximum footprint and cost millions. Greenspace has been reduced. Included on this website are photos of many (not all) of the disappeared houses.
View Teardowns in the Dunbar area of Vancouver, BC in a larger map

Demolitions West of the Dunbar Community Centre

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Houses of Former Babysitters

West 33rd Avenue leads to a popular pedestrian entry to Pacific Spirit Park. If you walk there with your dog or if you run there, you may recognize this house which stood at 4056. During the week of October 5-9, it  was demolished:



The house was built in 1934, but people living there in the 1970's added a second storey. When we moved to Vancouver, we had small children and were on the constant lookout for teenage babysitters. One of our babysitters lived here. The photos are from April 2015.
 
We had another babysitter who lived at 3981 West 36th, when this house was only one storey. I think the second storey was added in 2007.  It was put up for sale in June 2013. The lot is large, 66x130.37 feet. Walking by one Sunday, I was surprised to meet a neighbour who said that although the house was beautiful inside,  she was pretty sure that this lovely and secluded house (so secluded that it was very hard to get a good photo) was going to be demolished. Photos from June and December 2013. The house was demolished sometime around July 2015.



Too many houses of our other babysitters and family day-care have been demolished: 3649 West 31st (in 1994), 4070 West 31st (in 2013), 4076 West 31st (in 2014), and 4085 West 31st (in 2014). I suspect that none of those (now grown up) teenagers can afford to live on the west side of Vancouver. We do not have a continuity of generations in this neighbourhood because none of the "starters" are in any way affordable.

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