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Behind the West side of South Granville Street, Just a bit South of the intersection with 10th Avenue. It's Friday night; all the noise, and activity is on the street side. Here in the back alley, it's peaceful, and quiet. Behind the window, a fan spins silently. The security light stutters, as if in time to a sound, audible only to burglars.

The Vancouver Lawn Bowling Club sits on Fir Street between 14th, and 15th Avenue. Well it doesn't so much sit as stand -- as a reminder of the South Granville area's genteel, and monied roots. Both the Lawn Bowling Club, started in 1912, and it's neighbour, the even tonier Vancouver Lawn Tennis and Badminton Club, situated between 15th, and 16th Avenue since 1914, were built to serve the needs of rich residents of the original Shaughnessy neighbourhood, which starts on the South side of 16th Avenue. Where the lawn tennis folk maintain a busy, year-round schedule of well-to-do doings, the Lawn Bowling Club's schedule seems to consist of about 360 days of slow, and steady lawn care, punctuated by about four summer days where groups of people actually bowl on the meticulously manicured lawn. I'm surely exaggerating -- the groundskeepers must get more than four days off a year.


Just to prove me wrong, here's a club member tossing the little black balls (and one white ball) on a fine fall day. It looks even more sedate in person. I think genteel is the distant ancestor of our modern laid back. Click the images to enlarge them.

What? It's supposed to do that -- for real? Okay, never mind. This alleged firetruck -- not an alien robot in disguise -- is being inspected by firefighters of Fire Hall No. 4, located at 1475 West 10th Avenue. The current Hall, which serves the South Granville, and Fairview Slopes area, shares a building with the area branch of the Vancouver Public Library. The current 1990s building replaced the 1911, Craftsman-style, Fire Hall No. 4 in this location. Click the images to enlarge them.

It's after Midnight outside the McDonalds on West Broadway, at Granville -- The pampered planters of South Granville are getting watered by pumper truck, less than a day before forecast rains. Click the image to enlarge.

See the changing of the South Granville  flower bundles ►

What's in the South Granville planters for Spring/Summer ►

South Granville undergoes a year-round schedule of seasonally-themed beautification. I guess it's time for flower bundles hanging from light poles. Around Christmas, in all the planters along South Granville, we get the green shrubby plants with the red pokey leaves -- Poinsettias.

Left to right: 1.) the flowers are delivered about 9 am, during rush hour, on the busy South side of West Broadway Avenue, just East of the intersection with South Granville Street. 2.) Workers jostle with commuters to hang the first of two flower bundles on the South side of West Broadway, at a bus stop. 3.) The workers have moved across to the North side of West Broadway -- they couldn't get the second bundle up, and left the scene on either end of the ladder, with the flower bundle hanging off the middle of the ladder.

See what's in the planters along South Granville ►

Night watering of the South Granville flower bundles ►

Evan says he was born here in Vancouver, BC, in 1969, and has been homeless for 30 years -- ever since he ran away from home at age 14, and ended up in Los Angeles, where he lived for the next 15 years.

Evan say he doesn't remember a time when he wasn't openly gay. He's matter-of-fact about it, same as he is about his drug use. He is, in his own words, "a rock star," meaning his drug-of-choice is crack cocaine.

Evan's visible means of support is panhandling the immediate environs of Broadway and Granville, which he does fairly continually. Here, I've obviously caught up with him on a dinner break.

Dan's a life-long Montreal Canadiens fan. With his beloved Habs winning in the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs, he's out on on South Granville showing the colours.