Bruce Stewart sent me an email a couple of weeks ago, saying that he had come across some photos of store windows that he’d taken in the 1970s, was I interested in seeing them. Of course I was, and I think you’ll love them as well.
Where most of us will see a jumbled store window in the photo below, Bruce sees “unconscious art.” “This is central to my collection of window displays as it showcases the abjectly surreal nature of arrangements,” says Bruce. “I have many like this one, but I feel it takes one on the tour.”
Back in the ‘70s, Bruce worked with the legendary Fred Herzog at the Department of Biomedical Communications at UBC. The two became close friends through their mutual love of photography and spent many a weekend exploring the back alleys and store fronts of Vancouver.
“Fred was always looking at antiques and the way people place things in store windows. He had a whole series on store windows and the whimsy and the innocent art that was created through the juxtaposition of odds and sods in a display window,” says Bruce. “And that’s where we both tried to outdo each other, trying to get the whackiest combination of things.”
The top photo was taken at Park Royal Shopping Centre. Says Bruce: “The upside-down legs in hose reminded me of choreographed water ballet dancers, disappearing in unison beneath the surface of the ‘waves’ suggested by the pattern envelopes they seem to be disappearing into.” The bottom photo was a store he found on Hastings Street. Fred Herzog’s legs can be seen on the right. “The image takes on an entirely different meaning when turned upside down,” he says.
Bruce discovered this elegant window display of dolls and turn-of-the-century clothing at Carrall Street and West Cordova, across from Blood Alley in Gastown. The building in the background is the Boulder Hotel. Miraculously, it’s still there.
Not far from the Antique doll shop, Bruce found, what was back in those days, one of the ubiquitous corner stores at 225 Carrall Street. The store was inside a 1900 building, originally named the Bodega Hotel. It’s now Bodega Studios.
Bruce found Miss Sunbeam at a convenience store on Commercial Drive. “Every boy in grade four was in love with her!” he says. “The piercing, knowing deep blue eyes and the strawberry blond wavy hair and that ‘oh, my!’ hand to the chest. All superbly art-directed to sell white bread. A must-have in mom’s grocery cart.”
Bruce took this photo of his friend Ard in front of the Murchies Tea+ Coffee store. Murchies occupied the building at 1008 Robson Street from 1947 until 1984. The site was redeveloped in 1995. Mintage, vintage clothing now occupies the space.
Bruce was wandering along took South Granville in the 1970s when he came across this “creepy” hat shop across from the Stanley Theatre. “I say ‘creepy good’ as, unlike the rest of the store display windows, I truly felt like I was experiencing a time warp,” says Bruce. “It looked like a place from the late 1940s.
Bruce took the photo below of a Pontiac Acadian crashing through the showroom plate glass window in Nanaimo in the late 1970s. “I had noticed other such ‘crash the glass’ ad gimmicks in the Lower Mainland during this same time period,” says Bruce. “The accompanying signage tells a story of high financing costs and lower prices, typical of the times.”
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I enjoyed this a lot! I can’t imagine walking slowly down streets and staring at window displays. It seems like a lot of fun! I do recall the Woodward’s Christmas windows in 1979, when I worked downtown, and I took a few photos of them as they were “old-timey” style. I’m glad someone thought to save their displays and set them up again each year near the cruise ship terminals downtown. Thanks for this post.
I really enjoyed this
For decades – esoecially during tough economic times- window shopping was a must for people and was something that people thoroughly enjoyed. I miss the big Dept Store window displays we used to have. And if course loved the Woodward’s Christmas windows each yeat!!
My auld man was born in cache creek in ‘18, his family moved to Vancouver in the late ‘20, he went to auld Dawson school of which I have a class picture of him in front of the school, I also have a picture of him and my uncle in the mid ‘30s at Oppenheimer park, this pic is at the southeast corner of east Cordova and Jackson and you see three houses that are still there today, your mention of blood alley reminded me of a place on Powell between Jackson and heatley that was monikered with a name like bloody den or blood house from it’s reputation as a booze den and a place where fights and blood letting were commonplace, even though we lived in Burnaby from ‘50 to ‘08 I would go into this area by bus by myself in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s which was a lot of fun with pool halls, eateries and tattoo shops that a young teen could “window shop” and enjoy.
Thank you for the post. Loved the pictures. The picture with the title on the out side of the shop, I remember buildings like that. The hat shop on, yes they had those also and the area where the Stanley was had a lot of higher end women’s clothing shops. It was fun to walk and window shop on that section. The areas in downtown, remember many of the store fronts. You’d walk on Hastings Street from Eatons to Woodwards and you’d pass Sweet 16. Across the street from Sweet 16 was a cafeteria style coffee shop. Don’t remember the name of it but it was there for a long time. I can remember going with the parental units grocery shopping at Woodwards food floor and yes those Christmas windows were amazing. I loved them and still do. We’d be in the area every two weeks on Friday after work, from about 1956 until Oakridge was built. As a teenager I remember going on the bus to the Army & Navy to buy clothes. They had such good deals. Camping equipment was also a good buy there and their fishing rods. Some of the old buildings in the area were great.