Boyle Street, Edmonton

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This article is for the Boyle Street neighbourhood. For the Boyle Street Education Centre, see Boyle Street Education Centre.

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 neighbourhood.

The area is ethnicly diverse, with a large Chinese community (14.7% of the population in 2001), and Aboriginal decent (4.0% North American Indian, 1.2% Métis, 0.2% Inuit in 2001).

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

Contents

[edit] History

Boyle Street is one of the oldest parts of the city, and is named for lawyer John Robert Boyle.[1][2]

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.

A Boyle Street parking lot. Note the houses visible behind the parked cars.
A Boyle Street parking lot. Note the houses visible behind the parked cars.

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.

Buildings Designated As Municipal Historic Resource Sites
Name Year Built
Hecla Block 1914
Gibson Block 1913
Pendennis Hotel/Lodge Hotel 1904/1912
Ernest Brown Block/Brighton Block 1911-1913
Goodridge Building 1911-1912
Gem Theatre 1913-1914
Kingston Powell Building 1907

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

[edit] Ethnic Diversity

The Chinatown Gate.
The Chinatown Gate.[3]

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 ethnic 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"[3]. 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] Notes

  1. ^ Lawrence Herzog, "Worshipping Edmonton's Historic Churches", Real Estate Weekly, Vol 20, No 29, July 18, 2002. [1]
  2. ^ Lawrence Herzog, "Lambton Block", Real Estate Weekly, Vol 20, No 31, August 1, 2002. [2]
  3. ^ Erected in Boyle Street in 1987, the Chinatown Gate represents the friendship between Edmonton and its sister city of Harbin, China.

[edit] External links