6 May 2024 – I’m as far W on Davie Street as you can be, sharing a joke with the A-Maze-ing Laughter sculptures in Morton Park. English Bay can be glimpsed between the statues, and the glory of Stanley Park lies beyond.

I turn my back on all that.

I am heading E, not farther W — east the full length of Davie Street, right from “You are here” in this handy signpost map…

to False Creek, where the street is once again stopped by water.

Just as those waters transform as they go — from the breadth of Strait of Georgia, into English Bay and then into False Creek — so too does Davie Street reflect city transformations.

This 4-km-or-so route is a crosstown slice of Vancouver’s past & evolving future. It leads us from still-vintage West End, through Davie Village (once simply “Gay” & now a more complex family of inclusions), into Downtown with its Entertainment District, and on to Yaletown, western terminus of the railway and the repurposed former hub of railway equipment construction and repair.

Barely underway, I detour onto Bidwell long enough to admire the volunteer garden at the corner of Pantages Lane, with a vintage building opposite.

Well…

I later learn that the vintage building is just a vintage façade. It is, a realtor’s website informs me, “a beautifully restored heritage entrance” to a spiffy new residential tower, “that returns the street frontage to its original character.”

Back out to Davie, where I head eastward on up the street. I do mean “up” — both climbing away from the English Bay basin, and also tilting my head at the towers that increasingly line the street.

A past-&-future moment, here at Davie & Cardero: the district’s future already visible there on the left, and a big blue “rezoning application” notice on the fence of the modest old apartment building on the right.

I see a lot more of these notices as I go, including ones on an apartment building also marked with a “sale by court order” sign.

But there is still lots to enjoy, lots of human activity and human-scale engagement.

Also canine.

He has appropriated this bench outside a barber shop / tattoo parlour, and his confidence is likely well-placed. A bearded man has just walked through that still-open door, his leashed French bulldog by his side. Inside, they are greeted by the statue of a bulldog.

At Broughton, a wonderfully ornate vintage apartment building, its paintwork perhaps a bit scruffy but no sign of any redevelopment activity.

The shops & services around here are not glossy and latest-thing. I like them very much.

Just before Bute, I see this slivered opening between buildings, complete with mural…

and I follow it to the laneway beyond.

Where I turn left, and then left again back to Davie Street, through the Event Zone of Jim Deva Plaza.

The plaza honours the man’s lifelong courage and advocacy. Deva, one of the co-founders of Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium, challenged Canada’s censorship laws in the Supreme Court, and also — with greater success — worked with Civic authorities to promote safety and quality in Vancouver’s parks and public spaces.

I don’t know all this about him at the time. While in the plaza itself, I notice more trivial things. Such as…

Corner of Davie & Bute, and we’re well into Davie Village by now. Here, for example, with a mural tribute to jazz greats behind the intersection rainbows.

I cross, check the mural, and decide I’m personally more taken with the four-legged acrobat and the skate-boarding raccoons on the utility box.

But to each their own!

I pass a nude unimpressed by Happy Hour offerings…

and a greengrocer laying out yet more spring plants on his sidewalk shelving…

and then stop at the hot-pink bus shelter at Davie & Burrard.

The colour echoes the Village, as does the long-established Davie Village Community Garden visible through the mesh.

By now I’m used to rezoning/redevelopment notices, but I am sad to see them posted on this mesh fence as well. I’d love this Garden to continue, but…

what I see right across the street may be its future as well.

At Granville Street, I’m into the city’s Entertainment District (per its tourism maps), where I once again nod happy recognition at the neon signage for Two Parrots Bar & Grill.

Scotiabank Dance Centre is a restoration/new-build complex on the far corner, and other towers abound. So far, the Two Parrots still perch on their accustomed corner, no redevelopment notice anywhere in sight.

The lane immediately behind the building pays tribute to their longevity.

Well, sort of! (Upper left.)

More visual tribute at Seymour Street, where Jill Anholt’s 2005 sculpture, Moving Pictures, honours Vancity Theatre (home of VIFF), which stretches on down the block.

Downhill toward False Creek.

I cross Seymour, pause to again enjoy the long slice of water tumbling through Emery Barnes Park…

and here I am at Hamilton Street, in Yaletown. Once home to railway equipment construction and repair workshops, the district is now repurposed into food, drink, entertainment, & residential delights.

I sidetrack myself along Hamilton for a bit, enjoy reminders of a mid-pandemic “I ❤️ Yaletown” mural festival…

then return to Davie and cross Pacific Blvd.

Roundhouse Community Centre is right here, an architectural link to the past — and nowhere more powerfully than in its CPR Engine 374 Pavilion.

Where, after long service, that steam-era pioneer is on display.

Engine 371 beat her from eastern Canada to Port Moody but, on May 23, 1887, Engine 374 pulled the first transcontinental train into the City of Vancouver. She continued to do just that, until 1945. Restored and gleaming, she now rests and accepts our homage. (Squealing kiddies all around me, especially the ones taking turns in the driver’s seat.) A volunteer urges me to return for the May 19 Anniversary Celebration, when she’ll make her yearly trip outside and be the centre of attention on the Roundhouse Turntable.

Now for the last few steps on Davie, on to the bit of track and sculpture in the traffic circle, with Yaletown Dock to mark water’s edge and my arrival at False Creek

I loop along the waterfront for a bit, then turn left into and through Steamboat Mews…

back to Pacific Blvd., where I hop a bus for home.