A re- illumination
VANCOUVER, Canada — In 1897 Vancouver was a cluster of loggers’ tents, a sawmill and a tavern known as Gastown, named after saloonkeeper Capt. John “Gassy Jack” Deighton.
I was a teen in Vancouver in the 1970s when Gastown was in its bohemian heyday, with hippies and draft dodgers grooving to live music in coffeehouses and bars.
The area declined in the ’ 80s, and it always puzzled me that this exquisite quarter with its cobblestone streets and heritage buildings wasn’t thriving. For decades it languished as a netherworld of old pubs and souvenir stores struggling alongside shuttered shops and sleazy hotels.
Tour buses drove tourists down Water Street for its architecture and a quick photo in front of the rare steam- powered clock, but locals avoided Gastown.
Then a decade ago, a friend suggested we visit the then- new Salt Tasting Room, which we found down dimly illuminated, dumpster- lined Blood Alley near Gaoler’s Mews. Opening the door, we entered a stylish restaurant offer- ing f lights of wine and sherry with tasting plates of international cheeses and charcuterie.
In 2008 shoe designer John Fluevog, whose f lamboyant creations have adorned the feet of celebrity Fluevogers such as Madonna and Alice Cooper, had a homecoming by reopening a store in Gastown, where he’d had his f lagship from 1970 to 1982.
Gastown was clearly finding its footing again.
Today, it is Vancouver’s creative hub. The vast warehouse space has made the area popular among information technology and hightech f irms such as George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic, which moved into a 30,000- square- foot Gastown studio in 2014.
These days, the streets are lined with trendy shops, gastropubs and nightclubs. The aroma of cooking wafts from the Sardine Can, known for its tapas, and L’Abattoir, known for its French cuisine.
On warm summer evenings, buskers provide the soundtrack for sidewalk dining as bicycles and scooters stutter over the cobblestone square in the shadow of the iconic f latiron Hotel Europe.