Our Living City: Mount Pleasant Through the Eyes of Christine Hagemoen (Part 2)
We asked Christine Hagemoen, a Mount Pleasant-based writer and historical researcher, a few questions about her neighbourhood. The images below represent her views on Mount Pleasant and the changes that it has undergone.
Disclaimer: The views expressed below belong to Christine Hagemoen and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Heritage Vancouver.
All images were taken by Christine Hagemoen. For more, please find Christine’s work at her: blog | photofolio | Twitter
4) What makes Mount Pleasant different to other neighbourhoods?
It’s a neighbourhood that encompasses both east and west sides of the city, intersected by commercial high streets Broadway and Main. Because Mount Pleasant is endlessly adaptable and re-invents itself, it is an interesting mélange of light-industry, housing, heritage, gathering spaces, residents, and businesses.
5) What do you dislike most about Mount Pleasant?
It is losing what made it so “pleasant” in the first place – it’s affordability, diversity, human-scale streetscapes – and is heading towards becoming unaffordable, homogenized and “art-washed”.
6) What [word] expresses best a meaningful relationship you have with Mount Pleasant?
Familial. Not only in regards to my own maternal family history living in Mount Pleasant, but also in the sense of the relationship I have with Mount Pleasant…just like any familial relationship you may always love them, but sometimes you don’t like them very much.