Downtown & the West End

Start: The Fairmont Hotel Vancouver.

Finish: Cathedral Place.

Time: 2 to 3 hours, not including museum, shopping, and eating stops.

Best Time: Daytime, particularly during the week when the Law Courts building is open.

Worst Time: Too late in the evening when the shops and offices have closed.

Vancouver's West End is often called the densest residential district east of Manhattan. How true that is is anyone's guess (after seeing Shanghai, I have my doubts), but what is unique about Vancouver's small forest of high-rises is its green-ness: Every high-rise is surrounded by trees and shrubs and flowers. That relationship with nature carries on in Vancouver's commercial downtown, where the placement and orientation of buildings has been carefully controlled to preserve view corridors to the surrounding mountains. Remember to look up as you wander downtown -- often as not, you'll be rewarded with a peekaboo view of a North Shore peak.

An appropriate place to begin this tour is:

1. The Fairmont Hotel Vancouver

At 900 W. Georgia St. (tel. 604/684-3131), this hotel is owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), just as the city itself was for many, many years. In return for agreeing in 1885 to make Vancouver its western terminus, the CPR was given 2,400 hectares (6,000 acres) of prime downtown real estate -- nearly the whole of downtown. The Hotel Vancouver is built in the CPR's signature château style, complete with a verdigris-green copper roof. It's worth stepping inside for a moment to experience the Gatsbyesque ambience of the lobby.

Leaving by the Burrard Street exit, turn left. When you reach the corner, turn right, cross Burrard Street, and you're on:

2. Robson Street

The shops on this corner get more foot traffic than any other in Canada. Things were different back in the '50s, when so many German delis and restaurants opened up that for a time the street was nicknamed "Robsonstrasse." Beginning in the 1980s, these older stores were replaced with high-end clothiers and new restaurants and gift shops with signs in Japanese. Whether you're into shopping or not, Robson Street is still a great place to walk and people-watch, listening to the babble of Cantonese, Croatian, Japanese, and other tongues that surround you.

Two blocks farther down Robson at Bute Street, turn left and walk 1 block south through a minipark to Barclay Street and you're in:

3. The West End

Beginning in about 1959, this down-at-its-heels neighborhood of once-grand Edwardian houses was transformed by the advent of the concrete high-rise. By 1970, most of the Edwardians had been replaced by towers, and the West End had become one of the densest -- and simultaneously one of the most livable -- inner cities on the continent. The minipark at Bute and Barclay is one of the things that makes the neighborhood so successful: Traffic is kept to a minimum on West End streets, so that residents -- though they live in the city center -- can enjoy a neighborhood almost as quiet as that of a small town.

Turn right and walk west down Barclay Street and you'll see some of the other elements that make the West End such a sought-after enclave: the gardens and street trees and the range and variety of buildings -- including even a few surviving Edwardians, like the Arts and Crafts house at 1351 Barclay, or the set of two houses at the corner of Barclay and Nicola streets, otherwise known as:

4. Barclay Square

This beautifully preserved bit of 19th-century Vancouver consists of Barclay Manor, built in the Queen Anne style in 1890, and Roedde House, a rare domestic design by British Columbia's leading 19th-century institutional architect Francis Rattenbury. Roedde House (1415 Barclay St.; tel. 604/684-7040) is now a museum, open for guided tours Tuesday through Friday at 2pm; C$4 (US$3) admission. Every third Sunday, tea is served in the parlor from 2 to 4pm for C$5 (US$3.75) per person (every Sun in July and Aug).

Turn left and walk south down Nicola Street for 1 block -- past Fire Station No. 6, then turn right and go west on Nelson 1 block, then left again onto Cardero Street, passing by the tiny Cardero Grocery at 1078 Cardero St. All the grocery needs of the West End were once supplied by little corner stores like this one. Turn right and walk 2 blocks west on Comox Street to reach Denman Street, the perfect place to:

Take a Break--If Robson Street is the place Vancouverites go for hyperactive shopping sprees, Denman is where they go to sit back, sip a latte, and watch their fellow citizens stroll past. The Bread Garden, 1040 Denman St. (tel. 604/685-2996), is a fine spot for coffee and baked goods, particularly if you can nab a table on their outdoor terrace. One block down on the west side of the street, Delany's on Denman, 1105 Denman St. (tel. 604/662-3344), is a favorite man-watching spot for members of the West End's sizable gay community. Straights are more than welcome too, of course, and the pies and cakes at this little cafe are to die for.

When you're ready to continue the walking tour, go two blocks farther downhill and you're at:

5. English Bay Beach

This is the place to be when the sun is setting, or on one of those crystal-clear days when the mountains of Vancouver Island can be seen looming in the distance -- or any day at all, really, so long as the sun is shining. Every January 1, shivering Vancouverites in fancy costumes surround the bathhouse here at the very foot of Denman Street (entrance at beach level) to take part in the annual Polar Bear Swim.

Walk southeastward a little bit on Beach Avenue and you come to a tiny green space with a band shell known as:

6. Alexandra Park

Back around the turn of the 20th century, a big Bahamian immigrant named Joe Fortes used to make his home in a cottage near this spot, that is, when he wasn't down on the beach teaching local kids to swim. In recognition of his many years of free service, the city finally appointed Fortes its first lifeguard. Later, a marble water fountain was erected in his memory by the Beach Avenue entrance to the park.

When you're finished looking around the park, head up Bidwell Street 2 blocks to Davie Street, cross the street, turn right, walk 2 blocks farther on Davie Street, and on your left at no. 1531 you'll see:

7. The Gabriola

This was the finest mansion in the West End when it was built in 1900 for sugar magnate B. T. Rogers. Its name comes from the rough sandstone cladding, quarried on Gabriola Island in the Strait of Georgia. Unfortunately for Rogers, the Shaughnessy neighborhood soon opened up across False Creek, and the West End just wasn't a place a millionaire could afford to be seen anymore. By 1925, the mansion had been sold off and subdivided into apartments. Since 1975, it's been a restaurant of one sort or another -- currently the Macaroni Grill. The wrought-iron tables in the garden are particularly fine spots to sit out on summer days.

Cut through the garden, then turn left on Nicola Street and walk up through the Nicola Street minipark, then turn right on:

8. Pendrell Street

A few interesting bits of architecture reside on this street. At the corner of Broughton Street is the Thomas Fee house (1119 Broughton St.), where one of the city's leading turn-of-the-20th-century developer-architects made his home. Note how the modern addition has been blended with the old Edwardian structure. Farther along, at the southeast corner of Pendrell and Jervis streets, is St. Paul's Episcopal Church, a 1905 Gothic Revival church built entirely of wood, an act of faith that has so far been rewarded. One block farther along at 1254 Pendrell is the Pendrellis -- a piece of architecture so unbelievably awful, one gets a perverse delight just looking at it. Built as a seniors home at the height of the '70s craze for concrete, the multistory tower is one great concrete block, with nary a window in sight.

At Bute Street, turn left and walk 1 block north to Comox Street, and you're at:

9. Mole Hill

These 11 preserved Edwardian homes provide a rare view of what the West End would have looked like in, say, 1925. That they exist at all is more or less a fluke. The city bought the buildings in the 1970s but continued renting them out, thinking one day to tear them down for a park. By the 1990s, however, heritage had become important. The residents of the houses waged a sophisticated political campaign, renaming the area Mole Hill and bringing in nationally known architectural experts to plead the case for preservation. The city soon gave in.

Cut across the park to Nelson Street and continue down Nelson Street past Thurlow Street to 970 Burrard St., where stands:

10. The B.C. Hydro Building

Built in 1958 by architect Ned Pratt, it was one of the first modernist structures erected in Canada, and has since become a beloved Vancouver landmark, thanks in no small part to its elegant shape and the attention to detail at every scale. Note how the windows, the doors, even the tiles in the lobby and forecourt echo the six-sided lozenge shape of the original structure. In the mid-90s, the building was converted to condominiums and rechristened The Electra.

From here, continue on Nelson Street, crossing Burrard Street and Hornby Street to:

11. The Provincial Law Courts

Internationally recognized architect Arthur Erickson has had an undeniable impact on his native city of Vancouver. His 1973 Law Courts complex covers three full city blocks, including the Erickson-renovated Vancouver Art Gallery at its north end. Linking the two is Robson Square, which Erickson -- and everyone else -- envisioned as the city's main civic plaza. As with so many Erickson designs, this one has elements of brilliance -- the boldness of the vision itself, the cathedral-like space of the courthouse atrium -- but, alas, was marred by Erickson's fetish for raw concrete and by his unconscious disdain for the mere human beings forced to make use of his creations.

As an example of the latter, note the unmarked concrete stairway -- the one that looks like a parking garage exit -- at the corner of Nelson and Hornby streets. Unpromising as it seems, this is actually the entranceway to a very pleasant elevated pedestrian concourse, and one of three possible pathways we can take. The second and best route -- available only during business hours -- is to enter the courthouse and walk through the glorious glass-covered atrium. This is a truly inspired space, so it's worth timing your visit to when the doors are open. The fallback route, should the courthouse be locked and the stairway impossible to find, is to turn left and proceed down Hornby Street between the double row of street trees, cross over Smithe Street, and carry on to about halfway down the block, then cut right into the courtyard by the Motor Vehicle office (look for the giant orange paperclip sculpture).

Whichever way you go, 2 blocks north of this point you'll end up at:

12. Robson Square

Though it's best if you come down the zigzagging steps from the Law Courts concourse (hidden behind the waterfalls are the offices of the Crown Attorney -- the Canadian equivalent of a district attorney), Robson Square is still somewhat underwhelming. Its basic problem is that it has been sunk 6m (20 ft.) below street grade -- a problem for folks with an aversion to basements and cellars. So although there's a pleasant cafe in the square and an outdoor ice rink in the wintertime, Robson square lacks the throngs of people that should attend a real civic plaza. On the other hand, the steps of the old courthouse on the far side of Robson are a great gathering place, the perfect spot to see jugglers and buskers, pick up a game of outdoor speed chess, or listen to an activist haranguing the world at large about the topic du jour.

To the left of the steps (and directly across from Robson Sq.) at 750 Hornby St. is the:

13. Vancouver Art Gallery

Designed as a courthouse by Francis Rattenbury, and renovated into an art gallery by Arthur Erickson, the Vancouver Art Gallery is home to a tremendous collection of works by West Coast painter Emily Carr, as well as rotating exhibits ranging from Native masks to the video installations of Stan Douglas. Film buffs may remember the entrance steps and inside lobby from the movie The Accused.

To continue, go round the gallery by the left-hand side and proceed down Hornby Street. Note the fountain on the Art Gallery's front lawn. It was installed by a very unpopular provincial government as a way -- according to some -- of forever blocking protesters from gathering on the gallery lawn. Cross Georgia Street and have a glance inside the Hong Kong Bank building (885 W. Georgia St.) at the massive pendulum designed by artist Alan Storey: The lobby doubles as an art gallery and frequently features interesting exhibits.

Cross to the west side of Hornby, and carry on about halfway down the block, then turn to your left and walk up the short flight of stairs to a small outdoor courtyard. On the north side at 639 Hornby St. is the:

14. Cathedral Place

Often overlooked by Vancouverites -- and just a few steps away from busy Georgia Street -- sits the peaceful and quiet Cathedral Place. Take a quick look at the building across the courtyard (at 639 Hornby St.). It housed the Canadian Craft Museum until budget cuts forced its doors shut in 2002. This is the quintessential postmodern structure, with small Art Deco parts melded onto a basically Gothic edifice. Some of the panels on its front were salvaged from the Georgia Medical-Dental building, a much-loved skyscraper that used to stand on this site. As for the Cathedral place courtyard itself, it has the formality and calm of a formal French garden, the perfect spot to sit for a bit and enjoy a bit of peace.