I Used to Work Here

What you are seeing here is the old Capitol 6 cinema from the Seymour Street side. The building across the alley with the gaping holes is the Granville Street entrance and the excavation in the foreground is where the six cinemas were. The Capitol Six was built in 1975 as part of the ultimately failed attempt to turn Granville Street into a walking mall. Prior to closing it off to all but trolleys, buses, and taxis Granville Street used to be the main drag and boasted the highest density of neon signs in the world, surpassing even Las Vegas at the time. Some well-intentioned but misguided urban planner decided that by removing the cars from the equation people would promenade rather than cruise.

The approach standard to indoor shopping malls was taken, anchor store at one end and food court at the other and that's where it failed. On the 600 block of Granville was the Bay, Eatons was on the 700 block, the 800 block had the brand new Capitol Six, the Granville 7 Cineplex/Odeon with a McDonalds at the end of the block at Nelson and the food court kitty-corner from the McDonalds across Nelson.

At the time of the Granville Mall's creation Davie Street was the red light district (the Ultra Love sex shop and the bank of pay-phones in front of the Shoppers Drug mart are remnant of this time) and Yaletown was an industrial skid full of sawmills, warehouses, and welfare hotels. Granville Street between Nelson and the Granville Bridge had deteriorated into a string of seed sex-shops, 25¢ movie booths, and by-the-hour hotels. A further attempt to anchor the south end of the Granville Mall in the form of the Chateau Granville luxury hotel on the 1000 block of Granville at the corner of Granville and Helmeken, also built in 1975. It was hoped wealthy tourists walking from the hotel to the Granville Mall would attract "respectable" business to the 900 block of Granville.

In reality, during the day, Eatons became the south anchor since it was much more pleasant and palatable for the average person to turn off on Robson Street, walk past the gleaming new provincial courthouse and the old courthouse now converted to the Vancouver Art Gallery and the ultra-modern Vancouver Public Library go to a restaurant on "Robson Strasse" the former heart of the German immigrant community and home to many fine restaurants. It was only in the evening would people walk the the 800 and 900 blocks of Granville to go to the cinemas - the new Capitol Six, the Odeon/Granville 7 Cinemas, the Plaza, the Paradise, the Caprice, and the Vogue - or to attend performances at the Orpheum and Commodore.

Only the very well established niche businesses, like Leo's Cameras, Granville Optical, Tandy Leather, and Granville Books or places that served the cinema-goers, like Taf's Café thrived. But with the 800 block of Granville being the main stop for the trolleys a different daytime crowd emerged - suburban punks and death-rockers. During the day the 800 block of Granville was populated by the alternative crowd and businesses like Fox and Fluevog, the Underground, and Golden Age Collectibles catered to them. Taf's was the place to hang out (along with the back stairs of the art gallery around the corner).

In the late 70's and early 80's I used to go the cinemas with my dad when he needed to come into the city for business. We'd often go to a matinée before heading back to the ferry. In the late 80's I'd regularly come over from the island to go clubbing at Graceland, Luv-a-fair, the Eclipse, and the Twilight Zone. I was one of those death-rockers (called "Gothics" at this point, the term had not yet shortened to just "goth") on the 800 block and the art gallery stairs. In 1990 I moved to Vancouver permanently to attend SFU. I became a regular at Taf's. In the early 90's my girlfriend at the time worked as a jewelry vendor on the 800-block of Granville and I occasionally did as well (I was frequently sought out by people who could not get their puzzle rings reassembled). A little later I got a part-time job at the Capitol Six as a doorman and usher since the hours worked well with my class schedule. It was a terrible, low paying job, but better than nothing.

The job had it's moments though. I let my friends "sneak" in for free on Wednesdays when I would be the only person checking tickets. "Nightmare Before Christmas" came out while I worked there, which is where I got the 6' x 4' Jack and Sally posters that hang in my hallway. There was the utterly surreal moment of finding a live turtle on the stairs leading to the alley overpass from the Granville entrance. It was before Yaletown was built up with towers and it was stunning to watch fogs fill False Creek and spill into the city from the windows on the top floor. I'll also never forget the annoying brat wiping out in the sludge lake in Cinema 1.

Like any multiplex theatre our primary function as doormen were to keep people (usually boys between the ages of 12 and 15) from buying one ticket and then skipping from one cinema to another to see two or three movies. One day there was a couple of particularly obnoxious 12-year olds that were trying to skip from a 7:00 show to the 9:00 show in Cinema 1. Cinema 1 one was the big screen on the first floor that seated about 1,000 people. On a Saturday with a popular movie with shows at 1:00, 3:00, 5:00 and 7:00, three to four thousand people have already been through the cinema by the 9:00 show. A lot of those people spill pop. The floor is sloped and all the spilled pop would collect in a foetid puddle in the space between the first row and the screen. While another doorman and I had the exits back to lobby blocked a third doorman was chasing this kid down the isle to boot him out. The kid tore down the isle, slipped in front of the first row and skidded into the pop-lake. He was covered from head to toe in rancid pop. It wasn't hard to get him to leave after that.

Now the Capitol Six is gone. It was replaced by the Paramount (now "Scotia Bank Cinemas") at Smithe and Burrard. Fluevog (now sans Fox) and Taf's remain, but the "alterno-mall" portion of the Granville Mall is gone with it. The Underground didn't survive the four-month bus-strike of 2001. Other business were driven away (Leo's) or driven out of business (Cheap Thrills, Granville Books) by raised rents resulting from the Canada Line LRT station going in at Granville and Robson and 2010 Olympics profiteering. The Vogue is now a performing theatre, while the other single-screen cinemas have all been turned into cavernous night-clubs in another city hall (mis)guided initiative to return Granville Street to its glory days of 40-50 years ago.