Statue of John Deighton

The Gastown riot, known also in the plural as Gastown riots, also known as "The Battle of Maple Tree Square", occurred in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on August 7, 1971. Following weeks of arrests by undercover drug squad members in Vancouver as part of a special police operation directed by City hall, police broke up a protest smoke-in in the Gastown neighbourhood. The smoke-in was organized by the Youth International Party (Vancouver Yippies) against the use of undercover agents and in favour of the legalization of marijuana. Of around two thousand protesters, 79 were arrested and 38 were charged.Police were accused of heavy-handed tactics including indiscriminate beatings with their newly-issued riot batons. They also used horseback charges on crowds of onlookers and tourists.A commission of inquiry into the incident was headed by Supreme Court Justice Thomas Dohm. The Inquiry cited the Yippies as instigators of the Smoke-In, calling them "intelligent and dangerous individuals," but was highly critical of the police's conduct and described the incident as a police riot.The Gastown riots are commemorated in a two-story-high 2009 photo mural called Abbott & Cordova, August 7, 1971 by local artist Stan Douglas, installed in the atrium of the redeveloped Woodward's Complex.

Hotel Europe is a six-story heritage building located at 43 Powell Street (at Alexander) in the Gastown area of Vancouver, British Columbia. The building was commissioned by hotelier Angelo Calori and built in 1908-1909 by Parr and Fee Architects. Situated on a triangular lot, the building is designed in the flatiron style. It was the first reinforced concrete structure to be built in Canada and the earliest fireproof hotel in Western Canada. Contractors had to be brought in from Cincinnati, Ohio for the necessary expertise; the Ferro-Concrete Construction Company began this project six years after constructing the first tall concrete building in the world. With funding from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the building was renovated in 1983 as affordable housing with A. Ingre and Associates as the project designers. The residential units are now managed by the Affordable Housing Society. A beer parlour formerly existed below the ground floor, which included areaways extending underneath the above sidewalks. To prevent a cave-in from the weight of pedestrians and above ground traffic, the City of Vancouver filled the areaway in with pea gravel at a cost of $215,000, which presumably can be easily removed in the event of future restoration.The Hotel Europe was one of the filming locations for the suspense movie The Changeling. In it, the building houses the Seattle Historical Society, but the hotel sign can be seen on the right side facade of the building in some takes. Some scenes are set on its roof terrace. Hotel Europe was also a filming location in the 1994 epic drama film Legends of the Fall. It is also one of the locations for the music video Likey from the Korean female group twice. It also appeared in the 1984 film The NeverEnding Story, as well as its 1990 sequel The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter. The exterior is also briefly shown in the 2007 family comedy film Are We Done Yet?, as Ice Cube carries out a cardboard standee of Magic Johnson.

The North Star hotel is a former hotel at the southern edge of Gastown in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Located at 5 West Hastings Street, it is a four-story red brick Victorian Italianate construction completed at an unidentified date, between the 1890s and 1904.

Centre A (Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art) is a non-profit public art gallery in Vancouver committed to the research, production, presentation and interpretation of contemporary Asian art. It is the only public gallery in Canada dedicated to contemporary Asian and Asian Diasporic visual art practices. Founded in 1999 by Hank Bull (Founding Director), Zheng Shengtian and Stephanie Holmquist, the centre has been led by a board of directors with respected members of the community consisting Milton Wong, Joanne Louie Mah, Joe Wai and Anndraya Luui. Over the years, a number of curators and directors contributed to the success of the gallery, such as Sadira Rodrigues, Alice Ming Wai Jim, Makiko Hara, and Haema Sivanesan. Centre A is a registered charity. Centre A was originally located at 849 Homer Street, near the Vancouver Public Library's central branch. It then moved to 2 West Hastings Street, in the Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. During this time Makiko Hara was Curator. In 2013, under the direction of Haema Sivanesan, Centre A relocated to Chinatown at 229 East Georgia Street. Over the years, the centre has exhibited a number of notable Canadian and international contemporary artists, such as Yoko Ono, Lida Abdul, Abbas Akhavan, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Hajira Waheed, Ali Kazimi, Lani Maestro, Kyohei Sakaguchi, Jim Wong-Chu, and Samson Young. Recently (2017-2018), Centre A moved to its current 3,300 square foot location at the Sun Wah Centre at 268 Keefer Street for the next foreseeable future with Henry Heng Lu as its new Curator. In 2021, Centre A started a new chapter of renewal and growth. The centre announced its new permanent core team with Henry Heng Lu as the new Executive Director/Curator and Ellie Chung as the new Gallery Manager.

The Warehouse Studio is a multi-media recording facility and photography studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, owned by Bryan Adams.

CFRO-FM, licensed and owned by Vancouver Co-operative Radio, is a non-commercial community radio station in Vancouver, British Columbia. It is a legally registered co-operative and is branded as Co-op Radio. The station broadcasts on 100.5 MHz FM and have studios and offices on Columbia Street off Hastings Street. in Vancouver's Downtown East Side, while its transmitter is located atop Mount Seymour. CFRO is a member of the National Campus and Community Radio Association.

The Whitecaps Waterfront Stadium was a proposed open-air soccer facility in Vancouver, British Columbia that would have been privately funded and developed by the Vancouver Whitecaps FC. The proposed location was north of Gastown on the central waterfront on what was then a parking lot and the site of a helicopter landing pad. The proposed stadium would have housed the Vancouver Whitecaps FC men and women's clubs.

The Sam Kee Building, located at 8 West Pender Street in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, is the "narrowest commercial building in the world" according to the Guinness Book of Records. The Sam Kee Company - originally owned by one of the wealthiest businessmen in Vancouver Chinatown, Mr. Chang Toy (also known as Sam Kee) - purchased the standard-sized lot in 1903. In 1912, however, Vancouver widened Pender Street and expropriated 24 feet (7.3 m) of the above-ground portion of the property—effectively (or so it was first believed) making conventional commercial use of the remaining frontage impractical, if not impossible. After Chang Toy refused the neighbour's offer to buy the remaining land, someone bet him that he couldn’t use the land for anything. In 1913, the architects Brown and Gillam designed this narrow, steel-framed building. Its ground-floor depth (from storefront to rear of building) measures 4'11" (1.50 m), with a second-floor depth (from overhanging bay window to rear) of 6' (1.83 m). The basement extends beneath the sidewalk and originally housed public baths, while the ground floor was used for offices and shops and the top story for living quarters.Historical renovation of the building was designed by Soren Rasmussen and was completed in 1986. It is a tourist attraction and an insurance office. The building is considered the narrowest commercial building in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records and was formerly also viewed as such by Ripley's Believe it or Not!, but in recent years this status has been challenged by the "Skinny Building" in Pittsburgh. The dispute centres around the fact that while the Sam Kee Building's width varies from floor to floor, and is 6 feet wide in places, Pittsburgh's "Skinny Building" is 5'2" (1.57 m) wide on all floors.

The Woodward's Building is a historic building in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The original portion of the building was constructed in 1903 for the Woodward's Department Store when that area of Cordova Street was the heart of Vancouver's retail shopping district. At one time, this was the premier shopping destination in Vancouver. The store was famous for its Christmas window displays and its basement Food Floor, and the "W" sign at the top of the building was a distinctive landmark on the Vancouver skyline. Since the bankruptcy of Woodward's in 1993, the building remained vacant except for a housing occupation in 2002 that initiated the redevelopment process. The redevelopment was seen by many as a key to revitalizing the Downtown Eastside. Still, the demolition of the structure in 2006 and redevelopment of the site has been met with much local resistance from the neighbourhood's existing residents. Woodward's redevelopment is complete, with many residents and businesses in the buildings.

Woodward's 43, also known as W43 or the W Building, is a 122.3 m (401 ft) tall mixed-use skyscraper located in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Insite is the first legal supervised drug injection site in North America, located at 139 East Hastings Street, in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) neighbourhood of Vancouver, British Columbia. The DTES had 4700 chronic drug users in 2000 and has been considered to be the centre of an "injection drug epidemic". The site provides a supervised and health-focused location for injection drug use, primarily heroin. The clinic does not supply any drugs. Medical staff are present to provide addiction treatment, mental health assistance, and first aid in the event of an overdose or wound. In 2017, the site recorded 175,464 visits (an average of 480 injection room visits per day) by 7,301 unique users; 2,151 overdoses occurred with no fatalities, due to intervention by medical staff. The site also offers a free checking service so clients can check their substances for fentanyl and carfentanil. Health Canada has provided $500,000 per year to operate the site, and the BC Ministry of Health contributed $1,200,000 to renovate the site and cover operating costs. Insite also serves as a resource for those seeking to use a harm reduction approach for people who inject drugs around the world. In recent months and years, delegations from a number of countries are on record touring the facility, including various U.S. states, Colombia and Brazil. 95% of drug users who use Insite also inject on the street according to a British Columbia health official.

The Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden (simplified Chinese: 中山公园; traditional Chinese: 中山公園; pinyin: Zhōngshān Gōngyuán; Jyutping: Zung1saan1 Gung1jyun4) is the first Chinese or "scholars" garden built outside of China, and is located in Chinatown in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is located at 578 Carrall Street and consists of a freely accessible public park and a garden with an admission fee. The mandate of the garden is to "maintain and enhance the bridge of understanding between Chinese and western cultures, promote Chinese culture generally and be an integral part of the local community."