The developer converting a Edwardian warehouse downtown into residences intends to re-introduce into the sidewalk outside the building the "areaway" of glass bricks that shed light on the below-grade floors of the warehouse all those years ago.

"It's not a re-creation, but it's as close as we can get to the original and still conform to building code," Rick Ilich of Metroliving says of the areaway-restoration he plans for the Crane Building, on Beatty between Dunsmuir and Pender.

That's the building, above, in a detail from a City of Vancouver archives photo. The areaway is in front. Plumbing supplies are display in the lower windows,

Metroliving is building 57 residences behind the warehouse's Edwardian brick facade.

"One of my earliest memories is being hand in hand with my mother in the 500-block Beatty and walking over the illuminated lavender-coloured glass blocks in the sidewalk," Ilich told publicist Pamela Groberman.

"To me, it was like magic."

TECHNOLOGY ADVICE: $165 GOES A LONG WAY

"We used to spend a lot of time doing big bookcases for big TVs, and then flat screens came along and you just hang them on the wall. Architecture has a longer half-life than technology does . . .

"I think it's better to stay really basic because the technology shifts so quickly -- it's moving away from a kind of fixed place, fixed hardware and more to software solutions and wireless solutions. Now all you need is a $165 wireless hub and you can do anything anywhere you want."

-- architect John Brown, in the Calgary Herald

© The Vancouver Sun 2006