Calgary’s "Cool Streets" Get No Respect

Recently, TimeOut released its Top 30 Coolest Streets in the World which included four Canadian streets - Montreal’s Wellington Street (#1), Vancouver’s Commercial Drive (#5), Toronto’s Ossington Avenue (#14) and Montreal’s St. Hubert Plaza (#27). It is impressive and surprising that Canada would get four out of top 30 cool streets in the world as car centric North American cities aren’t known for their pedestrian oriented streets.

TimeOut is a website that lists thing to see and do in 100s of cities around the world including Calgary.  It is often used by those traveling or moving to a new city interested in cool places to visit or live. Their criteria to determine a street’s “coolness” includes the diversity of cafés, patios, public art/murals, restaurants, pubs, bars, entertainment, events and nightlife, as well as pedestrian and environment friendliness initiatives (e.g. bike lanes, transit access, walkability, trees etc).

Commercial Drive is known for the diversity of restaurants and cafes.

Vancouver's Commercial Drive is a quirky collection of shops and buildings.

Tompkins Park is literally a cool oasis in the middle of 17th Ave.

One Saturday when I was flaneuring 17th I found these couples dancing in the park - very cool.

How cool is this al fresco dining on 17th Ave?

Cafe Beano is popular with Calgary's hipsters.

Just a few of the many murals along 17th Ave SW.

What about Calgary?

I couldn’t help but think Calgary has pedestrian streets on par with Commercial Drive in Vancouver (which I am very familiar with) so why a Calgary street wasn’t included. I became even more suspect of TimeOut’s list when I checked out their list of the “Best things to do in Calgary” and found Big Al’s Bar & Grill (#7) and Bottlescrew Bill’s (#8) and Iron Crow Antiques (#12). No offense to these establishments, but surely Major Tom’s, Ironwood Stage and Grill and Ship & Anchor and several other places deserve to be on the list before them. And how could they leave out Arts Commons and National Music Centre and Stephen Avenue Historic District pedestrian mall entirely. 

Commercial Drive vs 17th Avenue SW

Having wandered Vancouver’s Commercial Drive many times I always leave wondering why it is considered by many urbanists as a great street. Yes, it has a diversity of shops, cafés and restaurants, but so does Calgary’s 17th Avenue.

Commercial Drive is not a particularly attractive street and lacks pedestrian-friendly upgrades like street furniture, wide sidewalks or other public realm improvements normally associate with cool streets. Nor does it have great heritage or modern architecture. It is actually quite ordinary.   It lacks a nice park space like 17th Avenue’s Tomkins Park and 17th Avenue has better murals.

Like Commercial Drive, 17th Avenue has lot of cool places e.g. Ship & Anchor Pub, Gravity Pope shoes, Rubaiyat home décor, Reid’s Stationers, Betty Lou’s Library (speak easy) and Caffe Beano.

Both streets have attracted a diversity of new residential development over the past 20+ years.  Yes, Commercial Drive has better public transit connections with its access to LRT, but 17th Ave is better connected to downtown and Stampede Park - both being within easy walking distance. 

Mission has a laid back street patio culture.

Mission aka 4th Street SW is home to the very popular Lilac festival that kicks off the city's summer festival season.

Mission has a funky public art program that include this Van Gogh portrait by Joe Fafard, one of Canada's most respected sculptors.

Calgary’s Cool Streets

Calgary has more cool pedestrian-oriented streets than many urbanists realize.  Kensington Village has two – Kensington Road and 10th Street. It boasts Pages, a great independent bookstore, The Plaza, an independent cinema, a signature café (Roasterie), a diverse gastronomy scene, several pubs and cocktail bars and a vibrant patio culture.  It has an authentic village vibe with its mix of low-rise old and new buildings.

Kensington is home to funky collection of shops, cafes and restaurants.

Kensington Road Plaza is a fun place to get off your bike and your happy dance.

Kensington's Plaza Theatre also includes a speak easy - how cool is that

Cool streets have cool bookstores like Pages on Kensington Road.

Kensington has a funky back alley culture

SAW

On paper, Stephen Avenue Walk aka SAW (cool nickname) should be acknowledged as one of the Canada’s great streets. Within a few blocks, it is home to a dozen great restaurants and patios, one of North America’s largest performing art centres, one of Canada’s largest museums/art galleries, three major department stores and a huge four-storey indoor shopping centre and The Palace nightclub. It also includes Olympic Plaza as its anchor outdoor public space, as well as being the gateway to Devonian Gardens as its indoor winter space.

It also has easy access to Calgary’s 7th Avenue Transit corridor linking it to all quadrants of the city. And you can’t get much more pedestrian-friendly than a pedestrian mall lined with historic, small-scale, sandstone buildings.  It is also unique in how it is linked to Calgary’s indoor +15 walkway.  

Stephen Avenue’s weekday “Power Hour” creates a festival like atmosphere when thousands of office workers invade the street at lunchtime to grab something to eat, browse the shops and street vendors, or just stroll the street.

Stephen Avenue is home to many events throughout the year from Chinook Blast to the POW Parade.

Stephen Avenue has a fun busker program.

Everyone love horsing around on Stephen Avenue Walk during Stampede.

SAW's Trees create a unique sense of place at night.

People of all ages love to improvise on SAW

SAW is a national historic district.

SAW has an amazing patio scene from May to October.

Mission

Mission’s 4th Street is also very cool as a fun restaurant row, combined with a vibrant café scene, several fitness clubs and boutiques. It is home to one of Canada’s best street festivals, its annual “Lilac Festival” that attracts 100,000 people to celebrate the beginning of summer in Calgary.

And there’s Bowness Road in Bowness with its retro cool super-wide roadway and angle street parking creating a small prairie town sense of place. It has a couple of unique anchors Bow Cycle (one of the world’s largest bike shops) and the public library with its bicycle wheel neon sign.  This bohemian street is home a diversity of fun stops, from a heritage street car next to Leopold’s Tavern, to Light Cellar where you learn to craft your own food and medicine and from Salt & Pepper Restaurente Mexicano to Little Shop of Pleasures for those looking to spice things up.

It is home to Tour de Bowness, the largest amateur bike racing event in Alberta combined with an all ages street party and has its own Stampede Parade. Cadence Coffee its signature café is very popular with Calgary’s cyclist community.  It will soon become even cooler when Calgary’s venerable Mikey’s Juke Joint opens in the Bowness Hotel.

The Bowness Library is very cool with its bicycle hub signage. I believe it was the old Bow Cycle building.

Cool streets always have a signature cafe like Cadence in Bowness.

Bow Cycle anchors Bowness Main Street

Salt & Pepper is fu place to celebrate.

There are several of these fun art installations along Bowness' Main Street. It is a clever play on the Little Free Libraries.

Calgary’s “Coolest” Street

But in my opinion Calgary’s coolest street is 9th Avenue SE in Inglewood (aka Atlantic Avenue), as it has the best mix of boutiques, galleries, cafes, restaurants, and live music venues. It boasts several unique anchors - Recordland (one of Canada’s largest used record stores), Ironwood Stage and Grill (live music venue), Esker Foundation Art Gallery, Smithbilt Hats and two signature bookstores Fair’s Fair Books and The Next Page.  It’s part of Calgary’s Brewery Flats, with several brew pubs including Cold Garden (perhaps the coolest place in the city) and PedalPub, Canada’s first mobile bar on wheels.  It is also home to Calgary’s Fringe Festival.

It is full of funky shops like Plant, a boutique that specializes in green plants (it is not a florist), STASH, a haven for sewers and knitters (Tour de Fleece is very cool) and espy apparel boutique that specializes in personal fittings (women and men) and greeted by two resident basset hounds how cool is that?

Unfortunately, two of its unique anchors Crown Surplus Store and Blues Can will be closing soon.  While there has been some gentrification of the street, it still boasts an attractive collection of original, early 20thcentury brick buildings surrounded by vintage single family homes that make for a fun stroll.

Ironwood has live music 7 days a week

So does the Blues Can, put it will soon be replaced by new residential development.

Inglewood is home to Canada's first pedal bars.

Park Park is both a park and parking lot!

Recordland is Canada's largest record store

Cold Garden is perhaps the coolest place in Calgary inside and out.

Inglewood's Lawn Bowling Club was established in 1936, today it very popular with Calgary's design and creative community.

Last Word

Yes, I am bias, but who isn’t? For my money, Calgary boasts one of the best collections of cool streets in Canada.  Calgary’s reputation as a “cool city” is inhibited because it is not a major tourist city, so we aren’t on the radar for many urbanist and travel influencers when it comes to ranking cities as cool urban playgrounds. Calgary remains a hidden gem when it comes to urban living and street life.