Home > Neighborhoods > Canada > British Columbia > Vancouver Coast & Mountains > Vancouver > Gastown

Gale Liebert

Royal LePage City Centre

	Email Gale
	Visit My Website
	View My Profile

Phone:	604.408.9311
Cell:	604.341.8824
Fax:	604.408.6648

Gastown

Living With Flavour

Gastown is historically charming, independent in spirit and distinct.

Great Beginnings: Old Streets, New Pride Program

As part of British Columbia’s 150th anniversary, the provincial government has given the City of Vancouver $10 million to transform the 40 block area, anchored by the Woodward’s redevelopment project, into the social centres they historically were.

Imagine artist-designed community gardens in Oppenheimer Park and to envision the empty store fronts up and down East Hastings St displaying cutting-edge pieces from some of the city’s finest visual artists.

These are apparently just a few of the changes that may be coming to our inner city.

The $10 million will cover a three-year restoration period, beginning in 2008, for historic neighbourhoods like Gastown, Downtown Granville, Chinatown, Japantown and Strathcona.

This fund will also cover street-cleaning, repairing windows and awnings, graffiti removal, erecting banners and murals, new street lighting and other general maintenance.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

A progressive group has organized to restore the old Pantages Theatre to it's former glory- a very ambitious project. Here is the link to their website. http://www.vancouverpantages.com

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Seismic upgrading has began on the buildings along Blood Alley and Goalers Mews.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

I remember hitch hiking into Vancouver and going directly to Gastown when I was a teenager. Like all other deteriorating parts of the city, at that time, it was a hub for hippy culture.

Almost a decade ago I made Gastown my home and, shortly after, a friend made "Gastown Gale" my name.

Established in 1867, Gastown was once Canada’s third largest city and one of its most cosmopolitan.

Gastown was born when “Gassy Jack” Deighton stepped onto the south shore of Burrard Inlet with a barrel of whiskey, saying to the millworkers, “Build me a saloon, and I’ll serve you drinks.” The saloon was up and running within a day.

On April 6th, 1886 Gastown was incorporated as the City of Vancouver and on June 13th, the same year, a brush-clearing fire got out of control and turned all but two of Vancouver’s 400 buildings to ashes. The city was rebuilt.

Growing and prospering into the 1920’s, Gastown fell on hard times during the depression and deteriorated into a stereotypical skid road area until the 1960s.

With talk of demolishing the area becoming more widespread, a group of dedicated citizens took it upon themselves to save Gastown’s distinctive architecture and character. The city rallied around them and in 1971 Gastown was declared an historic area, protecting its heritage buildings.

Today Gastown is an up and coming neighborhood but the property values still reflect its being some what edgy.

This is changing. Once empty buildings are being converted into residential suites and Gastown is once again becoming home to more and more permanent residents.

An attractive building is well underway to house the pump station on Alexander St and a Green Belt along Carroll St is progressing steadily and will continue further north, then east up Alexander.

Construction on the Woodward’s building is in full swing, including a satellite university.

Already several high end retailers have moved into buildings along Water St and several exciting new restaurants have opened up.

I love the spicy mix of old and new, earthy and upscale.

Living in Gastown is living with flavor.