Historic Shanghai Alley - Vancouver

Shanghai Alley holds a single, narrow brick passageway that cuts between the buildings of Pender and Keefer Streets. In the late eighteen hundreds, this was the gateway to Vancouver for thousands of Chinese migrants who arrived to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway. These men lived in cramped boarding houses lining the alley, often sharing a single bed in shifts. In nineteen twenty-two, a young merchant named Yip Sang operated his business here, acting as a crucial mediator for the growing community.