Vancouver's first neighbourhood is returning to its roots and becoming reborn thanks to food and culture.
From the Save on Meats renovation to the PuSh Festival to the city's hottest restaurants, Gastown is back.
Despite Gastown's proximity to Canada's poorest postal code, the Downtown Eastside, this turn-of-the-century part of town is undergoing a rebirth thanks in part to new residents in new residences, like the Woodward's complex.
The community is being energized by trendy eateries, bars, lounges and boutiques.
Craig Parkes and his partners opened up Parliament, a high-end design store, here a year and a half ago. They say Gastown's rich heritage compliments the modern aesthetic of the home decor they sell.
They knew Vancouver's oldest neighbourhood was becoming the city's new place-to-be.
"We just viewed it as a really up and coming area, where new restaurants and shops are opening weekly it seems like," Parkes said.
"They tried many times to rejuvenate the neighbourhood but actually having people live here is what's making it stick."
In Pictures: Historic Gastown
The Gastown Steam Clock on Water Street and the shops around it are still draws for tourists and cruise ship visitors but more and more locals from right across the region are flocking here as they did 125 years ago.
While it wasn't nearly as built up then, Water Street was already the heart of the new city more than 100 years ago.
"By 1886, by the time we're incorporated, where we're standing we have some very impressive wooden buildings around us, some big businesses, a few hotels, saloons obviously," said historian John Atkin.
A devastating fire destroyed 95 of 100 wooden buildings in the summer of 1886. But even the blaze couldn't keep the hot community down.
New buildings went back up, as did businesses. Hastings Street began to take shape and streetcar lines were laid out to take workers to new suburbs like Strathcona to the east and west towards Stanley Park.
Back then, Alberni, Burrard and Robson streets were residential, with mostly large single-family homes.
"The other side of Burrard was all residential, so the folks with the money lived on the other side of Burrard or closer to the water," Atkin said.
Gastown was Vancouver's downtown. The city's oldest film, shot from the front of a streetcar in 1907, shows a commercial centre flourishing with new businesses.
There was prime-time entertainment too, like Henry Savage's over-capacity production of "King Dodo" at the long-gone Vancouver Opera House.
The go-get-em spirit of Vancouver's first boomtowners isn't all that different than what's happening in gastown today.
There are new businesses moving in and even old ones like Save on Meats on West Hastings Street are being re-opened.
"A lot of the people, who have shaped that renaissance in Gastown, should get full credit," said Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.
"There's been investment in the buildings, there's been a great entrepreneurial spirit that's come to Gastown, a lot of artists have brought life back to it -- a real resurgence of Vancouver's original neighbourhood."
Just like Gastown's originators, who boasted being the first place north of San Francisco to have electric lights, today's inhabitants are feeling the future is just as bright.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Peter Grainger
