Exploring the Hotel Vancouver, Granville Street and more in the wee early hours
On October 28th, there was a lot to think about after my surgery that morning. I didn’t sleep well, and walking with my camera is very therapeutic for me, so at 04:30 the next morning, I went for a walk and just kept going. By the time I got back to the hotel just after 07:00, I had put on almost 8 km and had shot almost 80 photos.
I initially had posted this material as part of the previous post, then decided in the middle of the night to break it into two posts, so started creating this page a couple of hours ago, at 01:30.
I started the walk by documenting the interior of the hotel. The elevators…
…a few of the various public areas (this is the Burrard Street exit, closed at night)…
…the Notch 8 Restaurant…
…some of the high-end shops (this is the Gucci store)…
…the main hotel history display…
…some of the other historic photos on display in many places…
…and a special photographic exhibition called “85 Years” that has re-imagined some of the iconic moments from the hotel’s history. This powerful behind-the-scenes moment is from the boiler room.
I shot many more photos of the hotel. Some day I may do a story about the hotel, but to do that properly, I need a tour of the property, and I haven’t lucked into one yet (they’re conducted every Saturday).
Now thoroughly “in the zone,” I stepped outside and just started walking, with no goal except to capture a bit of the flavour of the city when it’s very quiet, whatever that might turn out to be.
Start simple – the historic Hotel Georgia.
The former Hudson’s Bay Company building – I wonder what will become of it now that the company itself is history?
Walking south on Granville Street was the obvious choice next. The next few blocks of Granville Street, at various times over the past century or so has been the best of Vancouver, and one of the worst.
The 15-storey Vancouver Block, built between 1910 and 1912 in the Edwardian Commercial style, is topped with an illuminated clock, visible from all four sides.
Across the street, all the street-level windows of the former Nordstrom store are now a single mural created (in 2023) by artists from the Chairman Ting studio.
Commodore Bowling & Billiards is one of the street’s old-timers, having opened in 1930. The main space upstairs in the building also opened that year, as the Commodore Cabaret – it operates now as the Commodore Ballroom. My father used to talk about going there in the ’40s.
I don’t know how many stars there are on the BC Entertainment Walk of Fame, but it’s a lot!
A whole lot of money has been made and lost as Granville Street’s reputation has grown and died over and over, and property values and rent reflected that. A new arrival is Spaces, a co-op providing space for entrepreneurs and artists.
People having a difficult time with life for various reasons became very visible on Granville about 50 years ago, and their numbers vary a lot, partly in response to police enforcement. I’ve seen far more people at times than there were this morning. This might be a good place to come if you start thinking that your life sucks – to add to the misery of this particular scene, it had been raining for much of the night.
The Dime Roadhouse doesn’t look like much from here, but it sure reviews well. It’s just a tiny place, and I haven’t discovered its history.
The Yale Hotel was pretty seedy when I was young and came in from Surrey occasionally, but for the past few decades it’s been a top-rated entertainment venue, particularly for jazz and blues. It opened as the Colonial Hotel in 1889, and became the Yale in 1907.
I kept going out onto the Granville Street Bridge, still with no particular goal in mind. I took the next photo of a bench because I liked the scene, then found out later that it’s quite a cultural icon, with people lining up to get a selfie there 🙂
The bridge offers wonderful views as it crosses False Creek – more so in the daylight.
At the end of the bridge I started walking west on 4th Avenue, then north on Burrard, and soon was in the high rent district of motor vehicles. I started with the Ferrari dealer – this 2001 Ferrari F8 Tributo only has 6,000 km on the clock, appeared to be well optioned, and I could have driven it away for $440,195.
The Bentley dealer had a 2024 Continental GT Azure that was pretty sweet, too. She lists at $450,569 but was on sale for $349,999, with 5,961 km on the odometer.
I stopped by the Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin dealers as well, but none offered good photo ops. At the south end of the Burrard Street Bridge, I passed the Seaforth Armoury, home of The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, a Primary Reserve Infantry unit. The building dates to 1930.
From there I pretty much made a beeline back to the hotel. It had been an excellent outing.
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