Vancouver, the largest city in British Columbia and the third largest city in Canada, is a sea port in British Columbia’s southwest corner sitting at the foot of the Coast Mountain range. Much of Vancouver is built on a peninsula surrounded by water.
Downtown Vancouver sprawls out from Granville and Georgia Streets. North America’s second largest Chinatown stretches along Main Street and three blocks of Pender between Gore and Carrall Streets.
The central peninsula is the commercial heart of the city where office towers, shopping centers, condos and hotels view for views. At its northern reach, the stylized sails on the roof of Canada Place just into the harbor. West Georgia is the main artery through city center. Howe Street north of Georgia is the city’s financial heart, home to the Vancouver Stock Exchange. South of Georgia, between Hornby and Howe, the Vancouver Art Gallery fronts Robson Square and Arthur Erickson’s glass-enclosed Law Courts. Granville around Robson is a pedestrian mall with fashionable stores, movie theaters, clubs and concert halls. The eastern end of Georgia Street, near the coliseum-shaped Vancouver Public Library, is the theater and stadium district.
Gastown is the historic core of Vancouver, and is the city’s earliest, most historic area of commercial buildings and warehouses. The Gastown historic district retains a consistent and distinctive building form that is a manifestation of successive economic waves that followed the devastation of the Great Fire in 1886, the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1887, the Klondike Gold Rush and the western Canadian boom that occurred prior to the First World War. The Byrnes Block embodies the sudden influx in investment capital that flowed into Gastown based on the certainty of growth promised by the arrival of the transcontinental railway. This building, and the Ferguson Block located across the street, are among the oldest extant buildings in Vancouver that are still standing at their original location; only the relocated Hastings Mill Museum building is known to predate them.
The Byrnes Block is the site of the Alhambra Hotel, located on the upper floor, a representation of the area’s seasonal population in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hotels provided both short and long-term lodging, serving primarily those who worked in the seasonal resource trades such as fishing and logging. Many of these hotels had combined functions of commercial services on the ground floor and lodging rooms on the upper floors, which contributed to the lively street life in Gastown. The Alhambra Hotel was opulent in its time, contrasted with the numerous cheap wooden hotels built in the area before and after the 1886 fire. As the city grew and building materials became more readily available after the arrival of the railway, it was quickly expanded in a series of additions until it reached its present form.
1690 Matthews Avenue – This stately mansion was built in 1910 for William Lamont Tait, a Scottish-born businessman involved in lumber and real estate after his arrival in BC. This Queen Anne mansion with its grand entrance, round turrets, stained-glass windows, and large brackets uses various materials. The building was converted in 1994 to Canuck Place, BC’s pediatric palliative care provider for children with life-threatening illnesses and the families who love them. The goal of this specialized care is to enhance the comfort and quality of life for both the child and their family. It is achieved through the combination of active and compassionate therapies. Palliative care strives to support children and families by assisting them in fulfilling their physical, psychological, social and spiritual goals while remaining sensitive to personal, cultural and religious values, beliefs and practices.3637 Hudson Street – Tudor style3470 Osler Street – dormers3688 Osler Street – dormers, recessed entrance way3733 Osler Street – Tudor style, round room3690 Selkirk Street – two-story pillars with balcony above, bay window3689 Selkirk Street – A.E. Tulk House Rosemary – This 1915 Tudor Revival English Manor was built for lawyer and whiskey baron Edward Tulk who named it after his only daughter Rosemary. From 1947 to 1994, the house was owned by The Order of the Convent of Our Lady of the Cenacle who operated it as a retreat.36 West Cordova Street – Lonsdale Building – built 1889207 West Hastings Street at Cambie Street – Dominion Building – When it opened in 1910 it was the tallest building in the British Empire; it was Vancouver’s first steel-framed high-rise at 53 meters (175 feet). It was built to house the Dominion Trust which later became the Dominion Bank.The famous Gastown clock on Water Street, designed and built by R. L. Saunders, is the world’s first steam power clock. This clock is located at the western boundary of the old Granville townsite, known as Gastown. In 1870, the shore of Burrard Inlet was only a few yards north of this point. Through the early 1900s, Gastown was the commercial center of Vancouver. By the 1960s, it had become the center of Vancouver’s “Skid Road.†In the early 1970s, it was rehabilitated to its former stature. The success of its rehabilitation was the result of cooperation between many parties working together to beautify the streets.2 Water Street – 1887 – Peckinpah Restaurant – The Byrnes Block is a two-story, Victorian Italianate commercial brick building, with a later addition to the south located across a narrow passageway. It is situated on Maple Tree Square at the irregular intersection of Alexander, Powell, Water and Carrall Streets in the historic district of Gastown. The Byrnes Block is one of the oldest buildings in Vancouver located on its original site. Features include: trapezoidal floor plan, flat roof, two-story height, elaborate pedimented window hoods and surrounds on the second floor, projecting cornice with alternating large and small eave brackets, and an elaborate arched corner pediment, masonry construction, including painted brick cladding with flush-struck mortar joints on two main facades and common red brick cladding on rear facades, large rectangular storefront windows on the ground floor enabled by the use of cast iron columns; elongated double-hung 1-over-1 wood-sash windows on the second floor of the two main facades.1 Water Street – “Gassy Jack†– 1830-1875 – John Deighton was born in Hull, England. He was an adventurer, river boat pilot and captain, but best know for his “Gassy†monologues as a saloon keeper. His Deighton House Hotel, erected here on the first subdivided lot, burned in the great fire of June 13, 1886. Here stood the old maple tree under whose branches the pioneers met in 1885, and chose the name Vancouver for this city.401 Main Street – Carnegie Public Library with two-story Ionic columns, dome and cupola
