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Nicholson Road is part of an ongoing photo project aimed at sharing and celebrating the different communities in Metro Vancouver. Each week Vancouver Is Awesome will be featuring one of the latest, most engaging photos from the project in order to draw your attention a little bit outside of the hyper-focus that we usually have on the city of Vancouver. |
So I discovered something new today while searching for extra info on the Lansdowne area. You know Lansdowne Centre, right? The big mall right on No.3 Road and Alderbridge Way? The one right next to (the appropriately named) Lansdowne Station on the Canada Line? If so, you might also know the mall was previously named Lansdowne Park Shopping Centre, which was anchored, and owned by none other than Woodward's.
But did you also know Lansdowne Park was a throwback to the previous use of the site - a racetrack? (How many horse-racing tracks did one region need back then?!). Before the mall popped up in the mid-70's, Lansdowne Park had been providing entertainment for decades. A search through the Richmond Archives produced photos going back to 1926, but I suspect it was probably built a number of years before that.
To make it even sweeter, and to tie it into today's photo, I also came across a photo of the old Steveston Interurban tram stopping behind the park, on its way down to the terminus at Steveston. Somewhere, the transit gods were smiling when the first Canada Line train rolled through in August, 2009 - the first rail-based public transit to service the site since the last interurban train passed through in February, 1958.
Of course, I can't finish this post without mentioning the absolutely wonderful artwork by Javier Marin of Mexico entitled, "Cabeza Vainilla" (Cabeza Córdoba and Cabeza Chiapas not pictured) as part of the Vancouver Art Biennale. I've long had a fondness for baroque sculpture, so his gigantic spanish baroque-inspired installations, the close proximity to transit, and all of the open sidewalk space along with the little rain garden under the tracks, had me swooning to no end. Find more info on the artwork here, and more info on Lansdowne Park or the interurban, at the City of Richmond Archives!
More from Nicholson Road can be found HERE.
