Granville Street is one of the few Streets in Vancouver that can tell you a story, you can feel the passage of time and the big changes the city has faced through the years.

After "Gastown," Granville was the name of Vancouver, until it was incorporated into the "City of Vancouver" in 1886. The Street name honours Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville, who was British Secretary of State for the Colonies at the time of local settlement.

During the 1950s, Granville Street attracted many tourists to one of the world's largest displays of neon signs, some of them are still in good shape until now; these can be still be appreciated every night.

The north end of Granville Street passes through an area of the city called Gastown, which, in the late 1960s and 1970s, was home to the largest counterculture community in Canada. Today, 'Cuba libre 'posters, are at times still seen decorating lampposts, and alternative smoke shops are still open for business, these are reminders of Granville Street's history.

Towards the middle of the twentieth century, the Downtown portion of Granville Street had become a flourishing centre for entertainment, known for its cinemas (built along the "Theatre Row," from the Granville Bridge to where Granville Street intersects Robson Street), restaurants, clubs, the Vogue and Orpheum theatres, and, later, arcades, pizza parlours, pawn stores.  Today Granville Street still is a big portion of the night life among vancouverites and is a big tourist attraction.

By the late 1990s, Granville Street suffered gradual deterioration and many movie theatres, such as "The Plaza, Caprice, Paradise and Granville Centre had all closed. In the early 2000s, the news of the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympic Games hosted in the city, Granville Street became part of a restoration program and today the last touches of the new look of the street have been completed, so you can appreciate the new face of this historic Street and be part of it.