“Why buy one when you can buy two for twice the price?”

Living in Vancouver, one tends to notice that all the buildings look pretty much the same, be they Vancouver Specials or not-yet-leaky condo towers in Yaletown. However, the 770 Building takes the phenomenon to a whole other level:

In 1940 the Lubavitchers purchased a small collegiate-gothic-style Brooklyn building (once a medical clinic) at 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, for the sixth Rebbe, Yoseph Yitzchak Schneerson, who had recently immigrated to the United States to escape Nazi persecution.

[…]

Because of the Rebbe’s charisma, energy and the devotion of his followers, the building in Brooklyn has become a kind of holy ground for Lubavitchers. It has been replicated worldwide, with varying degrees of precision, mostly as Chabad centers

Really!

Personally, I like how the further you scroll—ahem, right—on the page, the crazier and more out-of-place the 770 copies get. Curiousity beckoned, and though that side made no mention of it, I looked to see if a 770 Building had shown up in Vancouver yet.

As it turns out, while there’s a Lubavitch Centre in Vancouver, good photos are difficult to find. Also, it’s at Oak and 41st and I really don’t want to go all the way down there right now.

Amusingly, the best photo I could find has a commenter who astutely points out that it’s one of the many “steel crown” buildings around Vancouver, which comes back to my original point: Vancouver has maybe five or six different building styles that are copied and pasted around as needed. It’s like living in SimCity.

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