Corner Stores and Collective Memory

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Don Bourdon, “The Corner Store,” 1975

inkjet print, 18 x 27 cm. (courtesy of the Artist and North Vancouver Museum & Archives)

There is a particular fond nostalgia attached to corner stores that evoke memories of hot summer days and childhood independence. Perhaps a corner store was the place you made your first-ever purchase, and maybe it was the place you met your friends after school. This nostalgia speaks to the often overlooked but critical role corner stores play not just as local businesses but as shared community spaces and sites of collective memory in places like North Vancouver. As the corner store disappears from our contemporary urban landscape, so too do the stories that they carry. Corner Stores and Collective Memory pairs photographs from our archival collection alongside present-day images by MONOVA Archivist Rebecca Pasch of the same sites to trigger memory and the sharing of these stories, as well as to inspire conversations around gentrification and evolving community spaces in North Vancouver.