The Big Cover-up - Part Two

So in my earlier post we found that covering up old storefronts and building facades became "the thing to do" starting in the 1950's. Finding old photos of downtown Vancouver during this period has proven a bit difficult. But the Vancouver Archives has another great image of the 400 block of West Hastings Street taken back in 1974 (CVA 718-144). This picture has been used on many other blogs as it's a great illustration of how the city used to look decades ago. But for my purposes it's a great example of how old buildings and storefronts were covered up!

The covering for the Sheppard Shoes storefront was probably porcelain enamel panels. This baked on finish offered brighter colours and was highly resistant to fading and weathering. It was first used for gas stations and their related signage which are highly collectable today. The Reitman's Store is great example of slipcovering with corrugated aluminum. In both cases the upper stories of the buildings were covered over and were probably used for storage or inventory. This provided lots of space for signage. One of the largest suppliers of aluminum slipcovering was the Kawneer Company originally from Niles Michigan. Although they were a US company they did have a factory to supply the Canadian market in Toronto Ontario. Here are a few images from an old Kawneer catalogue from the 1950's promoting the use of their siding called Zourite (don't you love that name?) to modernize old buildings and storefronts.

Today the siding that was once covering the Reitman's store has been taken down revealing the old turn of the century building underneath. Back in the 1980's the Sheppard Shoes building was taken over by the Millar and Coe fine china shop next door. Interestingly both storefronts were then covered with aluminum siding which was exactly when slipcovering was starting to go out of style. Today Millar and Coe are long gone and the space is being used by Mott Electric but the metal siding is still there. It would be great if they removed the paneling as I'm sure their are some fine looking old buildings hiding underneath. Interestingly in both cases the buildings are not being used for retail purposes anymore.