Along Davie Street are a variety of shops, restaurants, services, and hotels catering to a variety of customers, as well as private residences. Davie Village is also home to the offices of Xtra! West, a biweekly LGBT newspaper. The Centre (formerly the Gay and Lesbian Centre) is located just off Davie Street on Bute. It provides a variety of services for the city's gay, lesbian, transgendered, and bisexual residents. The business with the most notoriety is Little Sister's Book and Art Emporium ("Little Sister's"), a gay and lesbian bookstore, because of its ongoing legal battles with Canada Customs that has received extensive national media coverage.
The Davie Street Business Improvement Association coined the name "Davie Village" in 1999 and also commissioned banners from local artist Joe Average, which fly from lampposts along the street. The two-sided banners depict a rainbow flag on one side and a sun design by Average on the other. Many businesses and residents along Davie and in the West End generally also fly rainbow flags as a symbol of gay pride, and many of the covered bus stop benches and trash cans along Davie Street are painted bright pink.
The Village hosts a variety of events during the year, including the Davie Street Festival which runs in conjunction with Vancouver's annual Gay Pride Parade, during which sections of the street are closed to motor traffic. Davie Day is also held each year in early September, to celebrate local businesses and the community itself. This Day is designed to build awareness and promote the surrounding businesses, and is focused around Jervis to Burrard Street.
Davie Street - and, by extension, the Village - is named in honour of A.E.B. Davie, eighth Premier of British Columbia from 1887 to 1889.
See also
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Last updated on Sunday March 16, 2008 at 19:11:32 PDT (GMT -0700)
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