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18
June
BO-52-357 : Metrotown
This is the Metrotown area of Burnaby from 1952. The main street running through the photo is Kingsway. The area where Metrotown stands now is a Ford Auto Plant, a Kelly-Douglas Company warehouse and an old school. You can even see the foundation of an even older school beside this one. Two years after this photo was taken, the Robert Simpson Company acquired the land, tore down the school and nearby houses, and built the first Sears in Burnaby.
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The house my grandfather built at 4662 Hazel Street, in the photo, was just torn down early summer 2022. My grandfather raised my father there, my father raised his family, and I had lived there as an adult. The block on Kingsway between Mckay and the Crystal mall (Willingdon) is still there as seen in the photo. My Grandfather had his butcher store “Nichols Meat” in that block, my father was born in the back of that store and that building is still there. Some buildings in the photo are living on.
I believe that’s the Caravan Motor Court at Kingsway and Nelson. I think the only things left standing today is the West Burnaby United Church (located inside the road triangle) and an old house just north of the triangle. (currently at the intersection of Grange and Sussex) which you can see on google maps. One of my friends lived in that old house when I went to Marlborough Elementary in the early 70s. Wow, have things changed!
I grew up near here in the 50’s+. I remember getting caught shoplifting at the new Simpson-Sears store in the mid 60’s. At that time there was also a Super-Value food store at Kingsway and Nelson.South towards Imperial Street there was Digney Bowl[ing] alley and Bonsor Park.