When you grow up in St. John's, one of the places everyone goes to have a drink and a laugh is George Street. It's also a street with a unique history.
The Great Fire
The great fire on June 9th, 1846, decimated St. John’s. It started on the corner of George and Queen Street. When a glue pot boiled over and started an inferno that burned everything in its path. The only surviving structure was a mercantile house in the downtown river area. One artillery officer and two civilians perished in the blaze.
Two Blocks of Fun
The two blocks of George Street are jam-packed with bars, pubs, and restaurants. Some bars with fronts open to the street allow you to hear live folk music from their inner dwellings. At one time, George Street was six blocks long before the current St. John’s Convention Centre building was constructed on top, dividing it into George Street and George Street West.
Open for Business
Like most establishments that work into the early morning, George Street is only open to traffic in the mornings to allow businesses to restock supplies and only pedestrians in the evening.
Mardi Gras
And this is the fun part. One of the significant events that have been hosted for years by businesses is the annual Mardi Gras, loosely based on the New Orleans celebration but on a smaller scale. During the event, the entire street is closed off only to paying patrons who dress up in costumes similar to Halloween and party their asses off, bar hopping, listening to live music and having fun.
George Street Festival
The other major event that draws entertainers from all across Canada, from Alan Doyle to Blue Rodeo to Canadian classic rock bands such as Glass Tiger and Honeymoon Suite, is the George Street Festival. It is estimated that about 120,000 people participate in the event annually.
Pop Culture
For mainlanders who have never been to St. John’s, George Street is always the place to go based on reputation alone. There are some famous references in pop culture where the street is recognized and situations where it stood for an American state in a top-rated TV show on Amazon Prime. I'll get to that later.
Local and national Irish folk band Great Big Sea referred to songs about George Street. The songs were titled “The Night Pat Murphy Died” and “Old Black Rum.”
George Street TV was produced locally on NTV and later on the Comedy Network. In the Netflix program Letter Kenny, in the National Senior Hockey Championship episode, there was a Newfoundland team called George Streeters.
George Street Goes Hollywood
In June 2024, George Street stood for the State of Maine in the Amazon Prime hit series Jack Reacher, starring Alan Ritchson. Ritchson plays a former military police officer who travels the United States but also manages to find trouble along the way.
The show is adapted from Lee Child’s seventh Jack Reacher novel, Persuader. The much-anticipated third season is currently under production. The novel's setting in Maine was filmed in various locations across Canada, including St. John’s, from July 4th to July 11th. No release date has been scheduled, but it is estimated that it possibly could be in early 2025.
So there you have it: drinks, laughs, Mardi Gras, Festivals, and Hollywood. All the more reason to visit this wicked part of St.John’s, NL, whether you are a local or come from away.
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