Talk:Gastown

Haight-Ashbury of the North?
That's West 4th and McDonald, but nice try. Unless someone can verify the previous, please remove it, as it's baseless. Allen Ginsburg himself visited Kitsilano a number of times, living right of Pt. Grey Road for a while. -Jackmont, Jul 27, 2007.

Source of steam for clock?
From the article: The steam used is low pressure district heating steam that powers a miniature steam engine in its base. Just curious... is this "district heating steam" part of a larger city-supplied heating system? I know central steam heat for neighbourhoods was much more common in days gone by, but is that still how buildings in Gastown are heated? --Ds13 18:53, 13 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, the main steam plant is at Georgia and Beatty and supplies steam to a whole host of buildings downtown; it is (or was) possible to traverse the city underground from about Carrall and Hastings all the way to the Hyatt Regency/MacBlo/Hotel Vancouver using the connecting tunnels and doorways that interlink the system. Omitted from all the bumpf about the steam clock, which is NOT "historic" (except in a brochure-y kind of way, and because it was the first of its kind), is the fact that the clock was come up with in order to deter rubbies from sleeping on the old steam grate in the sidewalk at that location.....one of the people in a material history course I did a presentation for wrote up some details on the Steam Clock; I'll see if I can get them to post some of those details here.  But geez, there's so much more in Gastown that deserves writeup instead of this made-for-tourists "attraction".Skookum1 23:18, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

the steam clock uses 25 psi waste steam from the Central Heat plant. The pressure is too low for any use, and the Stuart Turner bookshelf model engine was too unreliable, thus the clock kept bad time in the 80s. An electric motor nowassists the Stuart 4 engine. IT IS ALSO why the main whistle sounds like a wet fart. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.7.23.169 (talk) 01:26, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Crosstown reference removed
"I was there" when Ian Hunter coined this name (I was his roommate at 328 W), and have to admit to having had a part in its creation, which was an attempt to bypass the wartime legacy/name of Victory Square, which is the usual name for this area; it was such a neologism that the Bishop sent someone down from Holy Rosary to make sure it wasn't a reference to "the Cross". Anyway, as a locational descriptor it's totally useless and I removed it; especially since the north flank of "Crosstown" is part of the official boundaries of the Gastown BIA (e.g. the Dominion Trust building and its neighbours), and the upper part of it is just part of Downtown, period (West Pender from Beatty to Richards, more or less). And I agree with the post in the preceding section that Gastown is in the Downtown Eastside, or overlaps it significantly anyway (as does Chinatown); but "Downtown Eastside" in Vancouver parlance tends to refer to the nightmare corridor along Hastings, plus some of Cordova and Powell (east of Columbia), and not to Water/most of West Cordova/the 0-blocks of Powell and Alexander. A better descriptor would be more like "Gastown flanks the northeast side of downtown, adjacent to the Downtown Eastside and Chinatown". They are three separate things, no one of them is fully part or a subarea of the others; the media screw this up all the time, tarbrushing the whole area with "Downtown Eastside" and at times mentioning the area of the Balmoral (the 100 block East Hastings) or Pigeon Park as if they were part of Gastown (which riles the Gastown BIA a lot when it happens). Same deal as the Pender-Hastings alley defining the boundary between the DE and Chinatown; Cordova Street serves the same boundary function on the north side, give or take a little jiggle here or there. Anyway, Crosstown reference removed; Crosstown was only a concept, and not a very successful or popular one, despite attempts to dust it off from time to time.Skookum1 (talk) 22:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Crosstown (neighbourhood) exists as a redlink on the Crosstown disambiguation page; I'd venture that it should redirect to Victory Square (neighbourhood), as synonymous (except for Ian Hunter's post-historical meddling...).Skookum1 (talk) 22:03, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Archive links removed
Visiting the page today, I found that the webarchive links to the old photos on the defunct BC Archives website didn't work well at all. BC Archives is now part of the Royal BC Museum. I have replaced the Webarchive links with links to the same photos at the Royal BC Museum's public archive site. Rich (talk) 16:36, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

can we make a section about the gastown fire that happened this year?
— Preceding unsigned comment added by MrMemer223 (talk • contribs) 22:08, 6 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't know that it needs a separate section. With the proper sourcing, it could fit into the section labelled "21st century".  signed, Willondon (talk)  22:14, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * ok MrMemer223 (talk) 06:50, 23 May 2022 (UTC)