Low brick and timber commercial buildings line Main Street, with breweries, roller doors and painted murals filling the walls between storefronts.
What Mount Pleasant looks like
Main Street runs downhill from the ridge above Broadway toward the downtown towers, a narrow commercial strip of one to three storey buildings on lots of uneven width. A wood building near 7th Avenue keeps a flat boom-town front from 1892, and a concrete block two blocks south dates from 1905, one of the earliest poured concrete buildings in the city. At Kingsway a triangular building from 1947 has a curved art moderne front, now covered over in grey stucco.
Side streets off Main hold two and three storey wood frame houses with steep gabled fronts, painted in solid colours, moss growing along the tree branches that lean over the roofs. East 11th Avenue has brick apartment blocks from the 1910s, walk ups with plain cornices and repeating window bays.
Back alleys behind Main run past mismatched wooden balconies stacked up the rear of the buildings, with chairs and old furniture left out on them. Overhead wires carry the trolley buses that still run the length of Main Street.
keeps its turquoise awning and stepped brick front from 1972 at Broadway and Kingsway. A red neon marquee reading Fox Cinema still hangs over a nightclub's door two blocks north. Murals fill blank end walls and roller doors on the side streets near the breweries.
Shot in Mount Pleasant
The CW series Arrow used for Diggle and Lyla's wedding, shot inside the hall on a January night in 2015. The scene ends with the couple in black tie leaving through the hall's own doors and getting into a waiting town car on Main Street.
Arrow, 2015
Heritage Hall
Played Starling City, 2015
Heritage Hall was Diggle and Lyla's wedding venue in the Arrow episode "Suicidal Tendencies," filmed on January 28, 2015. The newlyweds, in black tie, then walk out the hall's Main Street entrance and leave in a black town car. Street View
What Mount Pleasant can double for
Georgetown in Seattle, Washington
Georgetown's low brick warehouses and working breweries sit close together the same way Main Street's do, and its industrial walls carry the same scale of painted murals. Both stay one and two storeys for blocks at a stretch, with loading doors and roller doors at street level rather than storefront windows. Georgetown is flatter than Mount Pleasant, without a hill running down toward the water, so a wide shot on the grade gives Vancouver away. The North Shore mountains behind any northward frame give Vancouver away too. Try searching brick warehouses with roller doors now.
Central Eastside in Portland, Oregon
The Central Eastside's brick warehouse blocks carry the same low, working scale as Main Street, with breweries and taprooms now filling buildings that once held light manufacturing. Roll up doors and loading docks sit at sidewalk level the same way they do on Main Street's side streets. Portland's blocks run flatter and wider than Mount Pleasant's, and its warehouses lean toward exposed timber trusses rather than painted brick fronts. A wide shot toward the West Hills gives Portland away rather than Vancouver. Try searching warehouse blocks with loading docks now.
Kensington's rowed brick storefronts and painted end wall murals give it a similar low commercial scale to Main Street, and its side streets carry the same mix of small breweries and independent shops behind older facades. The row housing immediately behind the strip stands closer together than Mount Pleasant's mostly detached wood frame houses. Kensington's brick runs a duller red than the yellow and brown brick around Main Street, and its houses share party walls where Mount Pleasant's stand apart with side yards. A frame that includes both the storefront and a side street quickly shows the difference. Try searching brick storefronts with murals now.
