Boyle Street

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Boyle Street (also called the Downtown East Side or Jasper-East) is a neighbourhood located in central Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, immediately east of the downtown core. The neighbourhood is bounded by the North Saskatchewan River Valley to the south and the LRT tracks to the north, with Jasper Avenue and 103A Avenue running through the neighborhood. The area (along with neighbouring McCauley) has a reputation as being Edmonton's ghetto and home to numerous homeless individuals as well as social service agencies,^{[citation needed]} though recent moves by the city could see the entire district redeveloped by the year 2030.^{[citation needed]}

The area is ethnicly diverse, with a large Chinese community (14.7% of the population in 2001).

St. Barbara's Russian Orthodox Cathedral, located in Boyle Street. In 2002, the parish celebrated its 100th anniversary.

The area also hosts a large number of people of Aboriginal decent, largely due to Canada and Alberta's extensive history of mistreating and ghettoizing its aboriginal peoples.

[edit] History

Boyle Street is one of the oldest parts of the city, and is named for lawyer John Robert Boyle.^[1]

The origin of the name 'Boyle Street' lies in the original street layouts of the area. Prior to the adoption of the grid system, the district had its avenues running north-south and its streets running east-west (which contrasts with the modern road system in Edmonton). Boyle Street was an east-west throughway which roughly corresponds with the modern 103A Avenue.

A large number of the buildings in the area were destroyed during the 1970s, largely because the city wanted to remove old and derelict housing and redevelop the area.

According to the 2001 Federal Census, 42.3% of the occupied private dwellings in Boyle Street were costructed during the 1970s, with a further 14.8% constructed during the following decade. The 2005 Municipal Census reports that 80% of the 3,486 dwelling units in the neighborhood are apartment style dwellings with a further 15% being rooming houses or collective residences.

Many sites left vacant by demolition during the 1970s were never redeveloped, leaving the area with a patchwork of vacant lots, parking lots and historic buildings. Most of the buildings that escaped demolition were spared because of their Edwardian structures or because they had been previously designated as heritage buildings.

One of the more distinctinve municipal historic resource sites in the Boyle Street area is the Gibson Block, a "rare example of a commercial building follwing the 1902 prototyoe of a flat iron building, so named for its distinctive triangular shape."

[edit] Ethic Diversity

Boyle Street is an ethnically diverse neighbourhood. According to the 2001 Federal Census, there were 5,930 people living in the neighbourhood, with 46.7% of the population identifying themselves with a specific ethnic group (including Canadian). The most common ethic groups, with their percentage of the total Boyle Street population were:

• 14.7% Chinese
• 8.2% Canadian
• 5.4% Aboriginal (including North American Indian, Métis and Inuit)
• 3.1% English
• 2.9% Ukrainian
• 2.2% Irish
• 2.1% German

[edit] Future Development

In 2006 the City of Edmonton began holding public consultations for what it deemed the "Downtown East Project"[2]. The Project's aims was to transform a large part of the Boyle Street Community (officially the borders of 'Downtown East' were defined as being from 97 Street in the west to 92 Street in the east, and from the river valley in the south to 103A Avenue in the north).

This plan saw the area divided into 4 quarters. The Heritage Quarter would consist of a stretch of Jasper Avenue between 97 Street and 96 Street, which held a large number of historical structures. The Civic Quarter would lay immediately to the north of the Heritage Quarter, and would consist of the area adjacent to the Provincial Law Courts of Alberta, which are located immediately across 97 Street from the Civic Quarter. The other two quarters would be largely residential, a low density McCauley Quarter (so named because it borders on the neighbourhood of McCauley) would lie in the north-east of the district, while the Five Corners Quarter (so named because it centres on the intersection of Jasper Avenue, Harbin Road (102 Avenue) and 95 Street - which has 5 corners) would be a more high density residential quarter.

Some new developments at the south end of 95 Street paint a promising picture for the redevelopment of the area, though as of the end of 2006, the area is still largely considered by many to be a ghetto.

[edit] References

1. ^ Lawrence Herzog, "Worshipping Edmonton's Historic Churches", Real Estate Weekly, Vol 20, No 29, July 18, 2002. [1]

[edit] External links

• Boyle Street McCauley Area Redevelopment Plan Consolidation (14 MB)
• Edmonton Designated Municipal Historic Resource Sites
• Hecla Block
• Gibson Block
• Pendennis Hotel
• Ernest Brown Block/Brighton Block
• Goodridge Building
• Gem Theatre
• Kingston Powell Building

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