All along Hastings Street in 2014, we were so close to citizens being able to interact with lived spaces freely and safely; so close that I felt compelled to photo-document the storefronts in what I believed was the waning days of the Downtown Eastside being a space that evokes feelings of fear and anarchy. I was convinced that in 10 years’ time I would return to Hastings Street and the storefronts would represent a thriving and safe street akin to what it was 75 years ago. I would take a comparative series of storefront photos to place side-by-side with the 2014 set. It would illustrate this transformation into a place where all Canadians could simply walk without fear at mid-day.

There will be no comparative photo collection, for the simple reason that I literally cannot walk down Hastings Street anymore. Where there was once open sidewalk, there are now tents, surrounded by garbage, drug paraphernalia, and sometimes weapons. Instead of a photo-journal of the waning days of the Downtown Eastside as a place of anarchy, these storefront photos invoke the nostalgia of the low tide for lawlessness in a space now so engulfed by misery that the bottom cannot be seen. Let this storefronts album be a testament to an inflection point in the history of Canada’s poorest postal code.