Extra Old Stock, 1984

Beer drinkers of Western Canada will remember “the great big taste” of O’Keefe’s Extra Old Stock Malt Liquor (swallowed in the interim by Molson/Coors), as well as the uniquely Canadian “stubby” bottle, about to be supplanted by the American-style longneck at the time this photograph was made.

The garage, and its canine security guard, was situated at 17th Avenue and Tupper Street, just 4-blocks from my house. On the day I made the image (with my Nikon FM 35mm camera), I was buying parts to rebuild the engine in my Chevrolet G20 van, readying it for a trip down to California. The building still exists and operates as an automotive repair business today.

My Eighties Vancouver project, much of it launched from this South Cambie neighbourhood, preserves many Vancouver vistas that have been modified or obliterated by the frenzy of development and speculation that is now driving longtime Vancouverites out of the city.

Unfortunately, during those heady days, I missed the erection of the Great O’Keefe’s Tower, documented in the following video.