2055 CLARK STREET, AND HOW IT DOES NOT EXIST

You have likely never noticed the strange Stonehenge-like structure at the corner of Clark and 4th Ave, because it does not exist. It is not a monument, nor a sculpture, nor a park. There are only two ways to describe it: 1. A non-place. 2. A thing. This “thing” is lovingly hemmed-in by two major traffic arteries and a SkyTrain station. Recent inspection of the site revealed a circle of concrete pillars, a podium with a plaque reading “October 11th, 1986,” a half-eaten tube of salami, a small pile of surgical gloves and a bag of garbage, cleverly hidden behind a shrub. It is well camouflaged from all but the sharpest pedestrians, yet people seem to know, somehow, that it’s there. “Oh yeah… that thing. What is that?” My first experience with 2055 Clark Street involved an open head wound: A friend and I stumbled upon the concrete oddity and climbed the podium to see if it held any secrets. It was hollow, and held no secrets. My hand slipped and my friend fell to the ground, smacking her head on concrete. We left quickly. Theoretically, a non-place is a site totally disconnected from its cultural environment, a site which could potentially exist anywhere. For example, an airport. Or a SkyTrain station. Perhaps a highway. Or a piece of concrete sandwiched between a SkyTrain station and a highway, with a blank podium in the centre. More importantly, I believe that our thing is a non-place because it actively resists any sort of “place” status. Let me explain. The city’s archivist has no record of the thing existing. However, he was quite sure of one thing: “It has an address. 2055 Clark Street.” He sounded proud, and tired. I pictured him thumbing through dusty Latin texts, decoding hidden messages, finally coming up with “2055 Clark Street.” A search for “2055 Clark” revealed that the address is claimed by a “C. Martino Auto Centre.” But this thing is not an auto centre. According to the False Creek Urban Heritage Trail Guidebook, “this monument is one of the city’s small secrets and certainly the most difficult Vancouver public space to gain safe access to in the midst of heavy truck traffic.” Inaccessible, and without address. I began to think of the thing as distinctively grumpy. Wikipedia had answers the city librarian did not, explaining that the podium had once held a statue of Christopher Columbus, placed there in honour of Angelo Branca, a prominent Italian-Canadian judge and middleweight boxing champion. It disappeared in 2000, resurfacing four months later in Hastings Park after an apparent “guerilla rescue” from his previous terrible location. At Hastings Park, a friendly city gardener directed me to Columbus. I asked him about the statue’s relocation. “Stolen? Oh no, he was moved. Look at the shape he’s in.” Sure enough, the statue looked perfectly at home, a boyish young Columbus dreaming into the distance. I decided that he had not been stolen, or moved by the city. He had arrived in the new world, found it to be a wasteland of concrete and exhaust, and moved out to the suburbs on his own steam. But this story is not about the statue. It is about the thing. The city’s Public Art department knew very little. “It’s supposed to be kind of like a plaza. But it doesn’t really seem like a plaza,” explained Marcia Belluce, a planner for Cultural Services. “It seems more like an empty space.” I gave up on defining the thing as a place, or any sort of worldly physical being. I returned, badly shaken from my last visit and sat quietly on the concrete steps, waiting for something to happen. Nothing happened. Nobody entered or exited the monument. The five brave pedestrians struggling up Clark that morning all paused to ogle me inside the “plaza,” no doubt wondering why anybody would sit there. I compiled a list of the thing’s primary functions, which include: . scaring pedestrians . not fitting in . providing cover for activities involving surgical gloves, . attracting local druids Anthropologist Marc Auge has described how non-places create individualized experiences of solitude. I thought about this while sitting on the steps in the rain, drawing in my damp notebook. I decided to make it a place. I took my bicycle, and placed it in front of the podium, therefore making the thing a monument to my bicycle. I felt good about this. I took a picture. I recommend trying this, perhaps with a person, a favorite pet, or a tea kettle. Send us a picture, and we will reclaim the thing. Extra points if you get your object on top. Watch out, it’s hollow.

inexplicable@toothanddagger.com