Granville Street

File:Granville Street Map.jpg

A map indicating the extent of Granville Street.

Granville Street is a major street in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, part of British Columbia Provincial Highway 99.

Location

In order to understand the nature and history of Granville Street, one must first examine the location of the street, which enables it to run through the city while crossing a high amount of neighbourhoods, businesses and commercial areas - all differing in land value, social class and wealth of their residents.

Granville runs northeast-southwest:

• Through Downtown Vancouver from the Waterfront at West Cordova Street (map) to Robson Street (map)
• Through a pedestrian-friendly area known as the Granville Mall (ending at Smithe Street (map), where only busses and taxi cabs are allowed)
• Over the Granville Street Bridge (map)
• Over Granville Island (situated under the bridge)
• Across West Broadway (map)
• Up South Granville (also known as the Granville Rise, extending approximately from 4th Avenue (map) to 16th Avenue (map))

Then, Granville Street runs north-south:

• Through Shaughnessy (approximately from 16th Avenue to 57th Avenue (map))
• Through Marpole (from 57th Avenue to South-West Marine Drive)
• Near the Fraser River, where it merges with Marine Drive (map)

Finally, Granville Street forks southwest-northeast towards Oak Street and northwest-southeast towards the Arthur Laing Bridge that leads to Richmond and Vancouver International Airport.

History and Future Outlook

After "Gastown," Granville was the name of Vancouver, until it was incorporated as "City of Vancouver" in 1886. During the 1950s, Granville Street attracted crowds of tourists to see one of the world's largest displays of neon signs. [1] The north end of Granville street passes through an area of the city called Gastown, which in the late 1960s and into the 1970s was home to the largest counterculture community in Canada. Even today, remnants of that remain, with Cuba libre posters decorating lampposts and head shops still open for business.

The last few remaining pornography and peep show stores on Granville Street

The shutdown Granville Book Company, an independently-owned Granville Street bookstore

The Orpheum Theatre with advertising for the movie Lady Luck (dated about 1946); note the Commodore Ballroom on the left

The Orpheum Theatre, advertising the Vancouver Symphony Orcherstra

Throughout the later parts of the twentieth century, the Downtown portion of Granville Street had become a flourishing centre for entertainment, known for its cinemas (arranged along the "Theatre Row," from the Granville Bridge to where Granville Street intersects Robson Street), restaurants, clubs, the Vogue and Orpheum theatres, and later, arcades, pizza parlours, pawn stores, pornography shops and strip clubs. By the late 1990s, Granville Street suffered gradual deterioration and many movie theatres, "The Plaza, Caprice, Paradise, Granville Centre [...] have all closed for good," writes Dmitrios Otis in his article "The Last Peep Show." In the early 2000s, with the news of the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympic Games, to be hosted in Whistler, a series of gentrification projects, still undergoing as of 2006, had caused the shutdown of many more businesses that had heretofore become landmarks of the street and of the city.

Otis writes that "once dominated by movie theatres, pinball arcades, and sex shops [Downtown Granville is being replaced] by nightclubs and bars, as [...it] transforms into a booze-based 'Entertainment District'." In April of 2005, Capitol 6, a beloved 1920s-era movie theatre complex (built in 1921 and restored and reopened in 1977) closed its doors (Chapman). By August of 2005, Movieland Arcade, located at 906 Granville Street became "the last home of authentic, 8mm 'peep show' film booths in the world" (Otis). On July 7, 2005, the Granville Book Company, a popular and independently-owned bookstore was forced to close (Tupper) due to the rising rents and regulations the city began imposing in the early 2000s in order to "clean-up" the street by the 2010 Olympics and combat the "No Fun City" image created by 1993-2003 Vancouver major Philip Owen and perpetuated by the words and actions of Anne Drennan, spokesperson for the Vancouver Police Department, and Jamie Graham the Chief Constable. (Note the "Fun City" red banners put up by the city on the lamp-posts in the pizza-shop photograph).

The beginning of the end: small businesses on Granville Street

While proponents of Granville gentrification project in general (and the 2010 Olympics in specific) claim that the improvements made to the street can only benefit its residents, workers and the crowds frequenting the clubs and the remaining theatres and cinema, critics maintain that the project is a temporary solution, since the closing down of the less "classy" businesses and the build-up of Yaletown-style condominiums in their place will not eliminate the unwanted "mom and pop" pizzerias, corner-stores and pornography shops (and their patrons), but displace them elsewhere, a battle reminiscent of the "Hastings street problem" haunting the city for about a century. Some compare the remodelling of Granville to other hurried and half-hearted attempts by the city to prepare for the 2010 Olympics, such as the controversial Cambie Street Canada Line, but it remains to be seen whether these changes to Granville Street will affect its nature for the better or for the worse.

Tribute

Empty storefronts and rising Rents: a common sight on Granville Street in 2005

The poet Michael G. Khmelnitsky self-published a book of poetry titled Granville, which discusses the multifaceted nature and life of Granville Street, since it serves as a major transporation and commuting artery, an historical backbone of Vancouver and a curious cross-section of its various neighbourhoods, from the Downtown, to Shaughnessy, Kerrisdale and Marpole. Khmelnitsky examines the day-to-day life, change and growth of the street, parallelling his own growth as a poet. 205KB .PDF file

References and Further Reading

Current Issues

• Chapman, Aaron. "The End." 12 Apr. 2005. The Vancouver Courier.
• "Granville Street Redesign." 9 Aug. 2005. City of Vancouver.
• Stamp, Graeme. "Granville Street Redesign." 18 Nov. 2004. A letter from the Chair and Chief Elected Officer to Mayor Larry Campbell.
• Otis, Dmitrios. "The Last Peep Show." 31 Aug. 2005. The Vancouver Courier.
• Tupper, Peter. "Granville's Closing Chapter." 10 Aug. 2005. The Vancouver Courier.

The Vogue Theatre

Movieland Arcade Street Sign

History

• "1920s Granville Street." 2005. Tom Lee Music Co. Selected photographs of Granville Street from the Vancouver Public Library Archives.
• "Granville Street Redesign History." 18 Jul. 2005. City of Vancouver.
• "Rezoning of 8405-8435 Granville Street." 19 Sep. 1997. City of Vancouver.

Listings and Tour Guides

• "Granville Street." 5 Feb. 2005. Eve Vancouver. A thorough listing of restaurants and businesses on Granville street.
• "Granville Street Clubs – Nightlife - Vancouver Night clubs, Vancouver Bars, Granville Street Shopping." 2004. Weiland Media.
• "Granville Street Walk." 27 Aug. 2001. Walk Vancouver. An (outdated) virtual tour of Granville Street's downtown portion.
• "Vancouver's Granville Street Art Galleries, Restaurants and Shops." 2005. BCPassport. A selected listing of South Granville businesses.

Searchable Resources

• Granville Street on Google Maps normal | satellite | hybrid
• "Google Image Search: Granville Street." The search reveals many historical and current photographs of Granville Streets, its locations and denizens.
• "Scanned Photograph Search." 15 Feb. 2005. City of Vancouver Archives. Enter "Granville" or "Granville street" (without the quotation marks) into the "Keyword(s)" field.