This is the Japanese Buddhist church on the south east corner of Powell Street and Jackson Avenue in 1977. It was designed by Hooper and Watkins in 1905 as the Japanese Methodist Mission Church, part of the western religion’s efforts to convert the Japanese population to Christianity, The Japanese Methodist Mission was established in Vancouver in 1896. What became known as the Powell Street Church 
opened in 1906, and is seen on the right in 1908. The Powell Street Church began providing medical services at the end of the First World War, when the Spanish influenza hit. Hospitals in Vancouver were filled with Caucasian flu patients, and those who were ill in the Japanese community were unable to receive treatment.
In 1925 it became the Japanese United Church, and In 1936 the church became independent, but just six years later the Japanese population were rounded up and forced into internment camps, and the church was officially closed and the Board of Home Missions approved a plan to permit First United Church to use the building. They in turn sold it to Welfare Industries, a service society of First United Church, 1953 for $16,000. The Japanese church finally re-established itself in 1978 with the purchase of the former St Luke’s Church in Cedar Cottage, on Victoria Drive. In 2009 the congregation were given an apology for the sale of the property, and in 2018 received a payment to compensate for the building’s sale.
In 1954, the Methodist Church building at 220 Jackson Ave. was purchased by the Buddhist Church, as Japanese returned to the coast after the War Measures Act was lifted in 1949. The renovated building was used until 1978 when a new temple was planned, completed two years later, and still in use today.
Image source; City of Vancouver Archives CVA 780-293
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