Larwill Park, also known as the Cambie Street Grounds, is a former park and sporting field in what is now downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Currently a parking lot, the site was also the location of the bus depot of Pacific Coach Stage Lines and Greyhound Bus Lines from World War II to the mid-1990's, when it was demolished.
Bounded by Cambie, Dunsmuir, Beatty and Georgia Streets, the former park occupied a whole city block and was laid out at the time of the CPR Townsite survey in the early 1880s. It was Vancouver's second sporting grounds, the first being on Brockton Point in what is now Stanley Park, and was used for all kinds of sports. A house on the corner of the lot was occupied by an Alfred Larwill ("Al" or "Fred") who good-naturedly stored all kinds of game equipment in his toolshed and allowed team members to use his dining room for a dressing room.
Located midway between the city's old downtown around Gastown Hastings Street and newer areas uptown around Granville, the park naturally became a centre for public meetings, the most infamous one was a rally by the Knights of Labour which led to the Anti-Oriental Riots of 1907, with the Beatty Street Drill Hall, across Beatty Street on the block's northeast flank, serving as a stage and podium. Baseball, cricket and lacrosse teams made use of the field year round. The playing fields also served as military drill-grounds, with the city's first muster being called up for the Boer War using the site for that purpose, as well as for World Wars I and II. The site was also a main site for rallies of demonstrations by the unemployed and labour organizations in the 1930s. During World War II, while the men who had used it for sport and politics were away at war and not around to prevent it, the site was converted into the bus depot.
Often used for parking by Canada Post trucks and for film production "circuses", the site has been proposed variously as the location of a new cultural facility such as the new site for the Vancouver Art Gallery and other developments. During the 2010 Winter Olympics, it was one of two main sites for cultural events and "nightly celebrations", (although not an official venue).[1][2][3][4]