Talk:Kitsilano

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Contents

[edit] Tress lined streets and old houses ?

I agree re. the age of buildings (don't forget Strathcona (began as a neighbourhood in the 1860s) and Mt Pleasant (homes date from the 1880s)). Also, I'd be hard pressed to find many areas of the city without street trees (for example). Hu Gadarn 20:11, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Ds13, while I think most of your changes are good, I don't understand why you made the change in the first paragraph to remove "tree-lined streets" and "oldest architecture". I think they are both important characteristics of the neighborhood that clearly distinguish it from other places in Vancouver. --Andrew Eisenberg 04:28, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Andrew. If you or others feel strongly that those descriptions are important to the article, add them back in. They're technically true, so I can't argue on that basis. There were two aspects to what I deleted so I'll explain my rationale for each:
1. Re/ "tree-lined streets"... technically true, though it's also true of all of Vancouver's neighbourhoods, isn't it? There may even be more remarkable tree-lined streets in Point Grey or Shaugnessey. But yup, Kits has nice trees.
2. Re/ "oldest architecture"... possibly true, though it's uncited, which would be very helpful if you want to add that description back. For comparison, I know there are buildings in Chinatown (like the Wing Sang building) from the 1880s. I would suggest that "oldest architecture" distinguishes Gastown more than any other neighbourhood since it has many buildings built in the 1910s and 1920s.
Cheers. --Ds13 05:14, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Electoral districts

I corrected the text since Kitsilano is not entirely within Vancouver Quadra; the part west of Arbutus is within Vancouver Centre according to this map (see also this text description).

Also added provincial riding info. --Mathew5000 09:35, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Restaurants

It seems wierd to have a section on restaurants in Kits. I don't see any of the other Vancouver neighborhoods with a restaurants section. It's just a list with no links and no description.

Possibilities: either a) remove it, b) add links to the restaurant homepages, c) add restaurants section to all Vancouver neighborhoods sections.

My preference is a) since it just seems strange and out of place. Of course options b) and c) should go together.

Actually I'd go with c), as many restaurants are notable in various ways, sometimes for what buildings they're in (though not in any Kitsilano case I can think of); the point is to give an idea of the flavour of the area; names need not be used, but a broader pallette or what 4th is about than hippiedon vs. gentrification is in there too; the Greek places etc. Ditto Broadway; the Drive has a different range of offerings, likewise North Van vs Main Street vs Kerrisdale; it's what establishes identity in part; and as I just added, Kits has a certain style of restaurant, and has pioneered certain things locally (California-style Mex at the Topanga and Las Margaritas, e.g.) vs other area's own originalities (Gastown's long history of restaurant experiments).Skookum1 08:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History section

OK, as elsewhere I'm wary of adding overmuch to the history section, which can be quite lengthy if let be; that's why some are inline comments which perhaps someone else can condense down to visibility if suitable; I know I should have put them here, naughty-naughty....but anyway, the story of Greer's Beach and the old Kitsilano streetcar loop, and the 4th Avenue extension and what-not, should all be here, and it's all quite interesting; also something about the ultra-wealthy strip along Point Grey Road from Kits Beach to Jericho (I happen to know the family connected with the name Locarno, the Delmonicos, but that's another story). I also can't quite recall the other community halls than the Russian Community Centre; there's that one at about 7th and Balsam or Vine, and the one at Vine and 5th (formerly a bank, or church, for a while a native centre, maybe townhouses now), and others; there's other historical businesses worth noting; btw the name of the store on Broadway called Kiss-A-Rhino is an old kid's nickname for Kitsilano.Skookum1 08:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ...and Kits architecture

It's not just the aforementioned structures, as well as some of the nice Edwardian stuff like the bank on the corner of Yew and such; but the particular Kits style of house, which is very different from Fairview or Grandview or Shaughnessy or even Dunbar/Point Grey or Kerrisdale; most similar to Point Grey/10th Avenue, and I believe it has something to do with the particular contractors and designs that the CPR used when subdividing and building and marketing the city, which after all was a really big real estate promotion. Notable including Arts & Crafts and the timbered-bungalow look that's so typically bungalow, and those big rambling things Arts & Crafts I think like on Dunbar & 2nd and 1st...), and also innovative 60s/70s modernism sometimes, sometimes kitsch; the garden atmosphere of both streets and lanes, and so on, is part of what Kitsilano is; certainly it's more than the commercial strip(s). BTW Vanier Park is not on Kits Beach, but aside from that, in closing, there used to be a graffito where the No. 4 came out of its loop off the Granville Bridge and crossed the tracks at fir, by the collision place; in big scrawled black paint-can letters "Entering Kitsilano". It had been there since the '60s and was still there in the '80s, not sure about early '90s.

[edit] "Skitsilano"/"Schitzalano" etc. or just "Skitz"

Also the standard nickname "Skitsilano"/"Schitzalano" etc. or just "Skitz" ("Schiz" maybe?) should be mentioned somewhere here; perhaps The Straight is the place to look for a cite for the usage. It's uncitable, but I swear the area has the highest concentration of amateur psychiatrists on the planet ;-) - and of course eco-volunteerism and leading-the-way in recycling and organic-ness. I should probably try and fit in Banyen Books, one of the flagships of what the counterculture, um, turned into - are they still up on Broadway? Trying to remember where they were on 4th....Skookum1 08:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

And speaking of old Kits lore, a Harold Hedd article is sorely needed, as well as articles on others from that time....Skookum1 08:48, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pic of funky stores at 6th and Arbutus?

Anyone live down that way? Typical old Kits and old Vancouver corner stories, though hippified some; shots of side streets in Kits and various houses or groups of houses would help illustrate this, doncha think?

[edit] Kitsilano High School and Kitsilano Community Centre

And actually the armoury right in there on 10th, just west of Arbutus, too; both as architecture items and as institutional items not that the Community Centre is of architectural interest, but the school is). Maybe Connaught Park also?Skookum1 08:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Famous residents and the Dadaists an St. James Centre

Sorry again for inline comments, but also needing to add that the Vancouver Dadaists, like Mr Candyman and Mr Peanut and the other surrealists here in the 60s and 70s, not only need an article, but were also Kits folks, big-time; obscure now but important in Dadaist history; I saw some of their music charts once; you rubbed fake-fur patches and sandpaper to play it...there's quite a cast of characters when you scratch Kits deeper, I'd say; btw St James Centre should be listed, perhaps have an article.Skookum1 09:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Hippie Feel" long vanished

Thiswas removed by User:Ds13 and rightfully so:

Prominent gourmet restaurants Bishop's and Lumiere are both located in Kitsilano. However, the neighbourhood still maintains plenty of the feel of its hippie roots, with an abundance of coffeeshops like Jitter's Cafe, Flying Swan Cafe and Starbucks, organic food stores like Capers Market and Terra Breads and clothing and shoe stores like American Apparel, attracting many students and members of the so-called 'alternative' crowd, and flagship establishments such as Sophie's Cosmic Cafe at the corner of 4th and Arbutus.

The "hippie feel" is long-gone, and Sophie's is a mock-up of it, and not very much like the old Glady's Cafe or other onetime local fixtures, in my old-Kitilsano'er estimation; what remains of the old low-key Kits is down by 4th & Alma anyway. No self-respecting hippie would hang out in the new Toronto-fied Kits anyway. Starbucks as a "hippie feel" benchmark....gimme a break, never mind "American Apparel".at least the yuppies know they've sold out....Skookum1 (talk) 21:53, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Aww dude! What about all the VW microbuses and the guy with the carpet-covered car? You're absolutely right though, there is very little "hippie" feel to today's Kits, other than the street festival once a year, Kits Pt. park sometimes, a few downmarket places and maybe the binners. It is still a very very cool neighbourhood, but more urban cool not hippie cool. That's probably what the OP was trying to convey, though how Starbucks got in there is beyond me. Franamax (talk) 22:11, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
"Urban cool" = "trendy". Toxic to hippies, which is why the binners are binners and not running poster-and-paraphernalia shops and giving out love beads that, well, might be beads... (might be edible, too, sort of). The vintage hippie-era businesses are mostly establishment now, and Sophie's is still a latecomer, long after Acid Hill dispeersed to the wilds of the Interior and t he Islands...Zulu/Quintessence, Heaven and Earth, Black Swan Records, thet Topanga, the Naam (where though they dress like hippies they behave like Republicans...I can't think of anywhere in Vancouver with nastier, slower service...at leaset at the Elbow Room they know they're assholes, instead of treating you like you are...where else? Well, geez, not much...Evelyn Roth doesn't put out her knitted-video tape sculptures at 2nd & Stephens anymore.....it's pretty sad, really - the "Mall-ification" of 4th...redesigned and rbranded to make people from Yorkville at home. but not hippies. Urban cool? Retch, ugh.....Skookum1 (talk) 22:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, hopefully we're mostly in agreement. The main point I'm hoping will stick is that re/ "hippie-like" or "gourmet" or "urban cool" or whatever labels people like to apply to an establishment or neighbourhood... these labels are so POV and not verifiable that they don't generally belong in an encyclopedia. Yours in patchouli and sandalwood... --Ds13 (talk) 23:48, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

So you're saying "Best place to live on the planet!!!" isn't gonna cut it in the article? The view to the north shore, the summers from paradise, the quiet streets at night, the general feeling of bliss? You're right of course, totally POV :) :) Franamax (talk) 00:55, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
LOL the view of clearcut-style housing developments climbing up North Van, the background din of the city that apparently your ears are too dull to here, the general feel of consumer-heaven prescription-medicated bliss, the shinier-than-shiny people, all on the hustle and bustle and sipping cappucinos while discussing realty speculation and celebrity/fashion news? yeah, that's all still there, and Kits Beach is much waht it was 30 years ago...but speaking as someone who has dual roots in the backcountry, and just lately being more and more conscious of the subliminal din of city life (even at 3am there's a roar....in the bush the roar would be that of the river or wind; not to say that's necessarily quiet, either). But as for "the best place on earth", aside from the point that's a p.r. agency's ad slogan forthe BC liberals, and way over-used (noxiously so), it's also used by people in Oliver and Kamloops and the Cowichan or the Monahees or Slocan or Bulkley or Peace to mean their little slicde of heaven....apposite to Vancouver's urban hell; of which really Kits isn't all that much diffrernt from other retail/trendy strips; Commercial, to me, is way too self-consciously hip. If you think you're cool you probably aren't; anyway, not that this gets us anywhere.....gotta find a citation for "Schizilano", though, which was an old '70s-'80s tag.....anyone have a pic of the old "Entering Kitsilano" graffito between the Granville Bridge bus loop and fur, just on the back of that collision shop?Skookum1 (talk) 02:56, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Well I suppose all perspectives are different. Coming from Ontario 1 year ago, rural but 1 hour by road (on a proper transport network!) from the centre of the real urban hell that is Toronto, from my country property where I fought for my legal right to not mow any of my 1/2-acre and the roar was the cacophony of crickets, frogs and birds right outside the always-open window; and given all I know of various forms of urban living; and given the fact that you could hear a pin drop at night (no 4+ lane roads whining with cars, no 18-wheelers screaming off in the distance, no Harleys or Hondas with big pipes teaching the world about COOL!!), you'll have to forgive me - I can walk to everything, my carbon footprint ->> zero, I don't actually go into those trendy shops as opposed to admiring those trendy lady shoppers, the air is fresh, the weather is mild and all I see is those beautiful mountain peaks and follow the snowcaps up and down - yeah, I'm happy with the trade. I'll be back to the empty hillside someday, but meantime this is urbanity with very few drawbacks. Mebbe I didn't save it before - do you have an alternate urban-best-place candidate? Franamax (talk) 03:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah yes, now that you remind me of it, the roar of Harleys, one of the sure signs of the Vancouver spring (I'm in Halifax), especially along Cornwall by the beach....nothing like it,really, is there? Refreshing. I lived by the Barnet in North Burnaby before I left last year; the din of bikes is part of life along Hastings, the guzzling hogs sitting outside Starbucks, drowning out the canned music and the chatter of cellphones and business students....great way to have a java .....oh yeah, not quite as nice as Kits, with all the trendy people with trendier cellphones and the same hot bikes as out the Barnet and Lougheed, but way more swank cars (intead of beat-up old '60s cars and the occasional nice car being a Volvo wagon)...and even more meatheads on the main drag on Kits Beach tan ever, wonderful......yeah, the best place in the world for sure...of course the Harleys in Halifax haven't started to come out yet, the snow's only just gone these last few weeks...at least nowhere here thinks it's cool; and "the best place on earth" here means t he community, the people here, the friends you make; it's as tangible as....the sea air, also on this city's doorsteps; no mountains, but no rain to go with them either....(and I kinda like the hurricanes adn Nor'easters.Skookum1 (talk) 04:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Heh, I saw a quiet Harley pull into my ex-local in Ont, Port Perry, a multi-club-nearby and colours-banned town, and I congratulated him on having a proper bike. His buddy said how he figured the loud exhaust was so the bike riders could be sure they were noticed in traffic. I said "yeah, why do they rev them for 5 minutes when they're sitting still in the parking lot?" The beauty of Kits is that it's so well traffic-calmed, live off Cornwall, W 4th, Broadway, Arbutus, Alma, it's fine. 9:20 PM, stereo on mute, W 6th & Cypress right now, just a whisper of traffic + total silence (oops, door & garbage bin just now :). Kits is different from road-based suburbs, how many overhead trolley wires are there in Burnaby? I spent six months in Surrey before moving here, again, not the same thing at all. And trendy be damned, I am the trend, my 20-year-old aviator sunglasses are back in style! :) Everyone here holds open the door for the next person and strikes up conversations in shops, just like my old small town and just like they do where you are now (I was waiting to say, didn't you just move to NS?) Agree though that you will have a better chance of making good friends there, scotians are almost newfies, excellent good people there :) H'ermm, you didn't mention fog... Cheers! Franamax (talk) 04:38, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[unindent]It's been a long time scine there was fog like there used to be....ever heard of a Vancouver-written short story called "The Fog", come to think of it? yeah, the sound of the Pt Atkinson foghorn is digital now, not a steamhorn anymore, too...that's a fog memory; I also lived out at UBC, where it was really loud (and high enough, too, so that it might be near-sunny when Kits was in the soup). But paradise has a price, y'see, and central Vancouver's neighbourhood quietude is paid for dearly by everyone else; Vancouver's street-calming policies and"no freeways in town" policies (not that I don't and didn't support them) mean incredible taffic pressures everywhnere else. Particularly on the east side but also of coruse in the sprawl eastwards from there, with the commuter hell trint to feed into the downtown peninsula by only so many routes; and Granville is onlyl just grudginly one of them; the west side has been kept immune from it entirely, partly by low-density zoning relative to the reset of the city; Kits (which I remember as mostly downmarket at one time) just happens to be in Point Grey's and Kerrisdale's cordon sanitaire against the working-class crush beyond; keeping Kits and the rest of the west side nice by zoning and infrastructure controls is why people had to move father and fartehr south and east. Kits like English Bay is an icon of the city's lifestyle and also its ego; the grim reality for most people is south Kingsway, the Kiong George, or Lougheed-Coquitlam Centre, and all the tangle or fo roads and arduous bus routes in between. It's very nice that Kits and its other west side areas have traffic calming, good for them. If only everyone else could, too....and didn't have to pay for Kits' (I don't mean in dollars, I mean in consequences). Paradise has a price, preferably somebody else's.Skookum1 (talk) 05:40, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm right with you all the way, paradise only works for the inhabitants. Surrey, Richmond, Burnaby, are all typical CanAm 'burbs. The right answer would be for them to intensify and downtown-ify with walking streets, city squares like in Europe, non-car-dependent spaces, but that is a l-o-ng way off. There is a huge and dumb argument right now about twinning the only bridge across the Fraser, the Port Mann bridge which every single person in Canada who wishes to get to the Pacific must cross, but for some reason we must prevent that. Too many cars, not enough space, but it's nice to be in the calm zone. And it is still pretty downmarket in Kits, you can buy a refrigerator carton for less than $200K here, that's affordable! :)
We should probly agree to either delete all this discussion or put a collapsible hat on it for the readability benefit of future visitors to this page eh? And BTW, when I asked about fog, I was actually asking about the east-coast experience, it figures well in my NS memories :) Franamax (talk) 06:06, 17 April 2008 (UTC)