Open invitation! Spacing Atlantic wants to read your city, neighbourhood, block, street, breakfast corner - niche - in photographic form. Old photos, new photos, ones you didn't even take. Dang, you could even send us a drawing. We want to see the first place, the first intersection, first hole in the sidewalk you think of that captures the who, what and why of where you live. Think of it like this: if you could tell us about the space that you call home in one word, and that ...

[caption id="attachment_992" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Photo courtesy of the Pier 21 Research Centre"][/caption] HALIFAX - In 2007, Pier 21, the gateway to Canada for over a million people between 1928 and 1971, was publicly voted one of the Seven Wonders of Canada on the CBC. It was cited as ‘intrinsically linked to Canada’s multicultural identity’, and a celebrated national icon which draws tens of thousands of visitors each year. Yet for all of the ‘history’ that the site – piers 19 to 23 and the Immigration Annex – embodies, there actually seems to be a great deal of history missing. Construction of the Halifax Ocean Terminals began in 1917, and finished in 1928. However, the sheds were designed as facilities for the reception and transfer of cargo, not people. Debate in the 1920s between government, immigration, and commercial officials as to whether these cold, dark, and primitive structures were really suitable for the welcoming of trans-Atlantic migrants is evidence of divergent attitudes and practices towards immigration and immigrants in Halifax. Certainly, commercial interests dictated policy on the Halifax waterfront. Steven Schwinghamer, Pier 21's research coordinator, remarks, ''railway companies would frequently be making announcements on behalf of Immigration,'' including where – and subsequently how – the immigration office would operate. Immigration was moved from the more spacious and hospitable Pier 2 in the North End to Pier 21, a freight shed, in 1928 apparently due to pressure from shipping and railway companies.