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 Night view of Granville Street, Downtown (2018) | |
| Part of |  Highway 99 |
|---|---|
| Namesake | Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville |
| Type | Street |
| Length | 9.8 km (6.1 mi)[1] |
| Location | Vancouver,British Columbia |
| Nearest metro station |  Granville Vancouver City Centre |
| South end | SW Marine Drive |
| Major junctions | 70th Avenue 41st Avenue Broadway Seymour Street/Howe Street Georgia Street Hastings Street |
| North end | Cordova Street |
| Other | |
| Known for | Shopping districts,Granville Entertainment District,Granville Mall,Granville Island,South Granville |
Granville Street is a major street inVancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and part ofHighway 99. Granville Street is most often associated with theGranville Entertainment District and theGranville Mall. This street also cuts through residential neighbourhoods likeShaughnessy andMarpole via theGranville Street Bridge.
Granville Street runs generally north–south through the centre of Vancouver, passing through several neighbourhoods and commercial areas, differing appreciably in their land value and the wealth of their residents.
Granville runs northeast–southwest:
Then, Granville Street runs north–south:
Finally, Granville Street ends near theFraser River at the approximate location of 72nd Ave., then merges with Southwest Marine Drive and continues southeasterly towards theArthur Laing Bridge that leads toRichmond and theVancouver International Airport.
The community was known as "Gastown" (Gassy's Town) after its first citizen - Jack Deighton, known as "Gassy" Jack. "To gas" is period English slang for "to boast and to exaggerate".[citation needed] In 1870, the community was laid out as the "township of Granville" but everybody called it Gastown. The name Granville honoursGranville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville,[citation needed] who was BritishSecretary of State for the Colonies at the time of local settlement.
In 1886, it was incorporated as the city of Vancouver, named after Captain George Vancouver, who accompanied James Cook on his voyage to the West Coast and subsequently spent two years exploring and charting the West Coast.
Towards the middle of the twentieth century, the downtown portion of Granville Street had become a flourishing centre for entertainment, known for its cinemas (built along the "Theatre Row", from the Granville Bridge to where Granville Street intersectsRobson Street), restaurants, clubs, the Vogue andOrpheum theatres, and, later, arcades, pizza parlours, pawn stores, pornography shops and strip clubs.[2]
By the late 1990s, Granville Street suffered gradual deterioration and many movie theatres, such as "The Plaza, Caprice, Paradise, [and] Granville Centre [...] have all closed for good", writes Dmitrios Otis in his article "The Last Peep Show." In the early 2000s, the news of the upcoming2010 Winter Olympic Games, to be hosted inWhistler, a series ofgentrification projects, still ongoing as of 2006, had caused the shutdown of many more businesses that had heretofore become landmarks of the street and of the city.[2]
Also, 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 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 2005,Movieland Arcade, located at 906 Granville Street became "the last home of authentic, 8 mm '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 Vancouver's "No Fun City" image. (Note the "Fun City" red banners put up by the city on the lamp-posts in the pizza-shop photograph). Landlords have been unable to find replacement tenants for many of these closed locations; for example, the Granville Book Company site was still boarded up and vacant as of July 12, 2006.[citation needed]
While proponents of the Granville gentrification project in general (and the 2010 Olympics in specific) claim that the improvements made to the street will only benefit its residents, the customers frequenting the clubs and the remaining theatres and cinemas, maintain that the project is a temporary solution, since the closing down of the less "classy" businesses, and the build-up ofYaletown-style condominiums in their place, will not eliminate the unwanted pizzerias, corner-stores and pornography shops - and their patrons - but will simply displace them elsewhere (an issue reminiscent of the city's long-standing inability to solve the problems of theDTES).[citation needed]
The entire route is inVancouver.
| km[1] | mi | Destinations | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| −0.5 | −0.31 |  Grant McConachie Way (toArthur Laing Bridge) / SW Marine Drive –Vancouver International Airport | Interchange | ||
| 0.0 | 0.0 | Southwest Marine Drive | Granville Street southern terminus; roadway continues south | ||
| 0.4 | 0.25 |  Highway 99 south (West 70th Avenue) –Tsawwassen ferry terminal,Canada–United States border | South end of Hwy 99 concurrency | ||
| 1.6 | 0.99 | West 57th Avenue | |||
| 2.4 | 1.5 | West 49th Avenue | |||
| 3.2 | 2.0 | Highway 99 south (West 41st Avenue) – Tsawwassen ferry terminal, Canada–United States border | Alternate Hwy 99 connection between Oak Street and Granville Street | ||
| 4.1 | 2.5 | West 33rd Avenue | |||
| 4.9 | 3.0 | King Edward Avenue | |||
| 5.8 | 3.6 | West 16th Avenue | |||
| 6.2 | 3.9 | West 12th Avenue | |||
| 8.1 | 5.0 |  Highway 7 east (West Broadway) –Burnaby,Maple Ridge | Hwy 7 western terminus | ||
| 7.0 | 4.3 | West 4th Avenue, Fir Street | Interchange; West 4th Avenue is southbound exit and northbound entrance; Fir Street is southbound exit only | ||
| 7.0– 7.9 | 4.3– 4.9 | Granville Street Bridge overFalse Creek | |||
| 7.9– 8.1 | 4.9– 5.0 | Highway 99 north (Seymour Street, Howe Street) / Pacific Street –Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal,Whistler | Interchange; northbound Hwy 99 follows Seymour Street, southbound Hwy 99 follows Howe Street | ||
| 8.4 | 5.2 | Davie Street | |||
| 8.7 | 5.4 | Nelson Street | One-way, southeast-bound; provides access to theCambie Bridge | ||
| 8.9 | 5.5 | Smithe Street | One-way, northwest-bound; provides access from the Cambie Bridge | ||
 Granville Mall south end (transit only) | |||||
| 9.1 | 5.7 | Robson Street | |||
| 9.3 | 5.8 | Highway 99 north (Georgia Street) | FormerHighway 1A south /Highway 99A; near Vancouver City Centre station | ||
| 9.4 | 5.8 | Dunsmuir Street | One-way, northwest-bound; near Granville station | ||
| 9.6 | 6.0 | Pender Street | |||
| 9.7 | 6.0 | Granville Mall north end (transit only) | |||
| Hastings Street | FormerHighway 7A | ||||
| 9.8 | 6.1 | Cordova Street | Across from  Waterfront station | ||
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi
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