Most North End residents shopped in neighbourhood stores. Many English merchants had opened shops in the North End, on Selkirk Avenue or north Main Street, but they were swiftly displaced by immigrant entrepreneurs who offered familiar foods and services in immigrant languages. This is a view of north Main Street which had a succession of shops catering to various ethnic groups. They offered the comforts of native language, familiar goods and relative economy. There was little specialization in these stores prior to the Great War. The photograph shows Leon Abromovitch's store The Evil Eye, so-named in a humorous attempt to avoid bad luck.
Courtesy: Jewish Historical Society of Western Canada (1325)
