Stores on Denman Street

This black and white photograph from 1928 shows a house on Denman Street with stores in front of it. A truck and a horse-drawn delivery wagon are parked on the street. A quick search reveals that the house in the photograph was 26 years old at the time, having been built in 1902. The storefronts were added later.

The house still stands in January 2025 at 1096 Denman Street. I took the second photograph below on a cold Sunday. The differences—and similarities—between the two photographs are fascinating, and they make me realize again that some things were truly better in the past.

I was feeling a bit lonely and sad the day I walked down Denman Street to find this building. I was missing a friend who had gone into Nat's New York Pizzeria just a few weeks earlier to get pizza for us while I waited in the car, parked right in front. This place will always remind me of how happy I felt that evening. The thought that there was once the Lending Library in the pizza store's place 97 years ago, and wondering what memories others might have had of that now-lost space, fills me with both curiosity and impatience—impatience to live fully, to enjoy every moment before it slips away.

Which version of Denman Street would you like to see tomorrow on your morning walk?

1928
City of Vancouver Archives
Reference Code: AM54-S4-: Str N267.1

January 19, 2025
© Ozgun Ulusoy