The Gastown Steam Clock became only the second steam-powered clock ever constructed. The steam theme was chosen as a reference to the industrial past of the area, where steam pipes once ran underground powering machinery. So local merchants and property owners banded together and raised $58,000 for Saunders to build the antique-looking clock. Efforts, instead, were turned towards refurbishing the historic buildings that had fallen into disrepair.īy 1977 the regeneration of Gastown was largely complete, but it still didn’t have a focal point-something to draw people in. The communities that lay in the path of the proposed freeway protested and the plans for Vancouver's inner-city freeway were shelved. Vancouver didn’t have any, and the municipal government wanted to fix that by constructing a giant freeway linking the Trans-Canada Highway with the Lions Gate Bridge, bulldozing its way through the historic, and marginalized, neighborhoods of Strathcona, Chinatown and Gastown. It was built in 1977 by the renowned Canadian clockmaker Raymond Saunders as part of a rejuvenation of the Gastown area.īack in the 1960s, many North American cities such New York, Toronto and Seattle had freeways running right through town or along their waterfronts. The 16-foot-tall clock displays the time on four faces, and every quarter hour it plays the Westminster chimes on four whistles with steam shooting out of the top just like in a locomotive.ĭespite its antique look and archaic technology, the Gastown Steam Clock is of a much younger generation. Compared to the three-year, pre-pandemic average, reports of these crimes are up 9.4 per cent.Not far from Vancouver’s waterfront, in the historic Gastown neighborhood, stands one of the city’s major crowd-drawer-a steam-powered clock. If compared to the average in a 'pre-pandemic period' from 2017 to 2019, the rate has decreased by 22.3 per cent.ĭistrict 1, which includes Gastown, saw the biggest increase in property crime when comparing this year and last, with a jump of 16.4 per cent.Ĭity-wide, there have been 1,255 reports of mischief in 2022, a 4.1 per cent increase from the same time last year. The most recent data released by the Vancouver Police Department shows a 6.8 per cent increase in property crime in the first quarter of 2022 when compared to 2021. So many people signed up to speak at the special council meeting that it was continued to May 10.

The Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association has said crime is holding back the city's progress on its economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. “For example, on a recent sales mission to bring business to Vancouver, I and my team are increasingly getting these questions - is it safe there?”īridgitte Anderson, the president and CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, had similar concerns, and added that member businesses have been voicing frustration with public safety 'for months.' “That global reputation and even our domestic reputation is under increasing threat,” said Royce Chwin, president of Destination Vancouver, at the meeting. Last week, Vancouver's city council held a special meeting on public safety, at which it heard from numerous speakers concerned about violence and vandalism, including some who said the city's reputation had begun to suffer. The damage to the well-known tourist attraction comes against a backdrop of heightened attention on crime in the city, particularly in and around the downtown core. 'VPD’s Forensic Identification Unit was dispatched Sunday to collect evidence, and patrol investigators are canvassing for witnesses and security video,' police said.

The Vancouver Police Department issued a statement Sunday afternoon saying it has launched an investigation 'to determine if someone intentionally damaged the clock.'

The city did not answer questions about the cause of the damage, saying only that more information would be available 'in the coming days.' In an email to CTV News, the City of Vancouver said staff 'are securing the area around the steam clock to ensure it is safe and assessing the damage to determine next steps.' It was not immediately clear whether the damage was an intentional act of vandalism or if it occurred in some other way. Twitter user shared a photo of the damage Saturday evening, saying the photo was taken around 5 p.m. The iconic steam clock in Vancouver's Gastown neighbourhood was behind caution tape this weekend after the glass on one side of it was smashed.

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