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The Woodward's Building was a historic building in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The original portion of the building was constructed in 1903 for the Woodward's Department Store when that area of Cordova Street was the heart of Vancouver's retail shopping district. At one time this was the premiere shopping destination in Vancouver. The store was famous for its Christmas window displays and its basement Food Floor, and the "W" sign at the top of the building was a distinctive landmark on the Vancouver skyline. Since the bankruptcy of Woodward's in 1993 the building remained vacant except for a housing occupation in 2002 that initiated the redevelopment process. Redevelopment was seen by many as a key to revitalizing the Downtown Eastside, but the demolition of the structure in 2006 and redevelopment of the site has been met with much local resistance from the existing residents of the neighborhood. The Woodward's redevelopment is now complete with many residents and businesses now in the buildings.〔http://www.woodwardsdistrict.com/〕 ==History== The building was built in 1903 by Charles Woodward as the second location for the Woodward's department store. Woodward's pioneered the concept of one-stop shopping; the store included a food floor which was at the time North America's largest supermarket, household items, men's and women's fashion, and provided cheque cashing, travel booking and other services. The store was well known for carrying a large variety of goods that were not available anywhere else. The store soon became a feature attraction in Vancouver, and it expanded over 12 separate phases to a final size of 12 storeys. It occupied approximately 2/3 of the city block. The popularity of Woodward's attracted many other businesses to the area. In 1944 the landmark "W" was installed on the top of the building on a 25-metre replica of the Eiffel Tower, replacing a pre-war searchlight-beacon which had until then been the building's hallmark. The beacon, which was visible at night from as far away as Abbotsford and Mission, was shut down at the beginning of World War II because of its potential use as a landmark for aerial attacks. Woodward's fortunes declined as customers gravitated to more suburban malls, but the Vancouver location was also greatly impacted by the transfer of the Eaton's department store from its location at West Hastings and Richards (a few blocks away), to the uptown location of Pacific Centre kitty-corner from The Bay, which signalled the demise of West Hastings Street as the central retail district in the city. The deindustrialisation of the old city centre also meant the contracting of its staples industry and the working class nearby. The decline of this group of people and the area meant the loss of an important source of clients. Following deindustrialisation was the expansion of the quaternary sector of the post-industrial economy over at the West End, shifting major economic activities to the new city centre near Burrard and Georgia streets, further reducing Woodward's prominence. In the 1980s, Woodward's sold the food floor – long known for its quality and its line of unusual specialities – to Safeway. The flagship food floor became an IGA store until the building closed as Safeway showed no interest in that location. During the same time, the area around the Woodward's building started to decline socially and economically. In 1993, Woodward's went bankrupt and closed its doors. Many of the store's suburban locations were sold to the Hudson's Bay Company for conversion to Zellers and Bay stores, but there was little interest in the historic downtown building. The closing of the Woodward's store precipitated an even more rapid decline in the area. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Woodward's Building」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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