Photo: Telford Lock

New Westminster is the oldest city in British Columbia, but unless you make a point to look it's not that obvious; particularly in downtown most of the standing building stock looks to be at least postwar, and the new condo towers that keep rising and rising are as obviously modern as Art Deco buildings - of which there are few, if any, in New West - aren't. Every once in a while, though, you'll come across something that reinforces the truth that this city has been sitting next to the river for a big chunk of years.

Places like Telford Block, a three-story brick building at 845 Royal Avenue next to the Tenth Street intersection, that has seen better days. The "B" from Block has disappeared entirely - when I first took this picture I thought it had most recently housed some locksmithing business. It's been standing for ninety-nine years, but was severly damaged by two fires a few years ago; since then it's been a shell. There's a report on the City of New Westminster website from 2009 indicating that it's going to be renovated into residential units, but there's no telling whether or not that's still the case. It certainly doesn't look too inviting right now.

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