San Francisco Pawnbrokers opened in 1908 and was a family owned and run fixture of West Hastings Street in Vancouver, BC, for 99 years. The family sold the property to developers (Concord Pacific) in 2007. It was a good time to finally sell because the real estate market in the area had heated up in anticipation of the 2010 Winter Olympics and it marked the true beginning of a re-gentrification of this economically depressed area of Downtown Vancouver.
The new owners also bought up most of the other older properties along this south side of the zero block of West Hastings. They tore down the old buildings and have since replaced them with mixed use, retail/office/condo, low-rise structures. No doubt a sign of more to come for this stretch of Hastings.
I painted this scene on a black primed canvas, referencing the scene from a series of photos I took of the area in 1990. I was drawn to the lighting and wet road surface reflections. These buildings where directly across the street from Save on Meats, so you can see the reflections of that shop’s signs in the windows.