place

English Bay (neighbourhood)

Neighbourhoods in VancouverVancouver stubs
English Bay, Vancouver, BC
English Bay, Vancouver, BC

English Bay is a neighbourhood in the West End of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Though not formally defined, it is a commonly used local appellation that refers to the shopping and residential areas focused on the intersection of Denman and Davie Streets near at English Bay Beach. Generally, the term refers to the first few blocks of residential areas flanking the beach from Stanley Park to Sunset Beach, and to the commercial areas along Davie Street, and along Denman Street south of Nelson Street.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article English Bay (neighbourhood) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

English Bay (neighbourhood)
Davie Street, Vancouver West End

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: English Bay (neighbourhood)Continue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 49.2864 ° E -123.141 °
placeShow on map

Address

Davie Street 1750
V6G Vancouver, West End
British Columbia, Canada
mapOpen on Google Maps

English Bay, Vancouver, BC
English Bay, Vancouver, BC
Share experience

Nearby Places

Sylvia Hotel
Sylvia Hotel

The Sylvia Hotel is a historic Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada landmark. Located at 1154 Gilford Street on English Bay near Stanley Park. Constructed in 1912, the Sylvia was designed as an apartment building by Mr. W.P. White, a Seattle architect. It was built by Booker, Campbell and Whipple Construction Company for a Mr. Goldstein, who had a daughter named Sylvia. During the Depression the Sylvia Court Apartments fell on hard times, and in 1936 the building was converted into an apartment hotel. With the advent of World War II, many of the suites were converted to rooms, to provide accommodation for crews of the merchant marine. After the war the number of permanent residents in the hotel gradually decreased, until by the sixties the Sylvia had become a completely transient full-service hotel. In 1954 it opened the first cocktail bar in Vancouver. Until 1958 the Sylvia Hotel was the tallest building in the West End – a well-known landmark, its brick and terracotta extension softened by the Boston Ivy that now completely covers the Gilford Street side of the hotel. Until superseded by the West-End building boom of the 1960s, the hotel restaurant's slogan was "Dine in the Sky". In 1975 the Sylvia was designated by the City of Vancouver as a "heritage building", thereby ensuring its survival for many years to come. The famous Sylvia Hotel cat, "Mr. Got To Go", has inspired three popular children's books by Lois Simmie and illustrated by Cynthia Nugent. They are engaging tales of the stray cat who arrived at the Sylvia Hotel one day, took control of the premises and decided to check in permanently. A feline resident – possibly the same cat – is mentioned in a song about the hotel by American folk singer-songwriter Cheryl Wheeler.

Little Sister's Book and Art Emporium
Little Sister's Book and Art Emporium

Little Sister's Book and Art Emporium, also known as Little Sister's Bookstore, but usually called "Little Sister's", is an independent bookstore in the Davie Village/West End neighbourhood of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The bookstore was opened in 1983 by Jim Deva and Bruce Smyth, and its current manager is Don Wilson. The bookstore is famous for being embroiled in a legal battle with the Canada Border Services Agency over the importation of what the agency has labeled "obscene materials". These materials, nearly all dealing with male-male or female-female sexuality, were routinely seized at the border. The same publications, when destined for mainstream booksellers in the country, had often been delivered without delay or question. Glad Day Bookshop, an LGBT bookstore in Toronto, has faced similar difficulties. ... [A]lternative culture and lifestyles, including manuals and handbooks on safe sex (?!) were proclaimed indecent by someone who has no right to judge them in his/her bias/bigotry, which violates the anti-discrimination protection of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guaranteeing equality of all Canadians. Not to mention that five out of ten provinces (plus one of the two territories) explicitly forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation. Little Sister's filed their claim against the federal government in 1990, but the case stalled and was not heard until October 1994. The trial concluded in January 1996 with a judgment for the plaintiffs. The court found that Little Sister's shipments had been wrongly delayed or withheld due to the "systemic targeting of Little Sisters' importations in the Customs Mail Center."In 2000, the case was heard in the Supreme Court of Canada. The court found that the customs has targeted shipments to the bookstore and attempted to prevent them from getting in. Consequently, the government was found to have violated section 2 of the Charter. However, the violation was justified under section 1. The case established that the onus of proving that expressive material is obscene lies with Canadian Customs. The bookstore's travails were fictionalized as a subplot of the film Better Than Chocolate. A feature-length documentary film by Aerlyn Weissman, Little Sister's vs. Big Brother (2002), has also been released about the bookstore. Former manager Janine Fuller was also a coauthor with Stuart Blackley of the book Restricted Entry: Censorship on Trial, a non-fiction account of the Little Sister's battle, and wrote an introduction for Forbidden Passages: Writings Banned in Canada, an anthology of excerpts from some of the impounded works which was edited by Patrick Califia. Both books were published in 1995, and were awarded Lammys at the 8th Lambda Literary Awards ceremony in 1996. Additionally, the book What right?: Graphic interpretations against censorship addressed the court case in the form of a graphic novel, with proceed from sales of the book being donated to the Little Sister's Defense fund to assist with legal challenges with Canada Customs. The book features contributions from a number of comic artists including Alison Bechdel and Marc Bell. The bookstore's co-owner, Jim Deva, died on September 21, 2014, at age 64. On December 23, 2019, Bruce Smyth, co-founder of Little Sister's, died at St. John Hospice at age 66.