Around fifty years ago (in the 1960s) this was the view at the foot of Alder Street where it meets West 6th Avenue. There was a small wood-frame apartment building to the east, supposedly dating back to 1910, and across the street was more of the Vancouver Iron and Engineering Works (once the buildings of the Vancouver Machinery Depot Co whose president was George Walkem, a Conservative MLA in the early 1930s).
Actually the apartment dated back to 1912, and was built at a cost of $50,000 by Arthur Langlois a carpenter who designed and built it for himself and three tenants. in 1913 they were Edward Dell (an engineer with the CPR), Harry Hunt (a compositor on the Province newspaper) and James Duke, (a draperies salesman).
Arthur lived with his wife Elizabeth, daughters Mildred and Thelma (aged 9 and 7) and son Arthur jnr. Arthur was originally from Ontario and his wife was Scottish, but all their children had been born in British Columbia. Although the apartment building only received a building permit in 1912 and the Insurance map that year shows a vacant site, the 1911 census has the family living at that location so perhaps they were about to be living in a construction zone as Arthur replaced the house they had lived in for several years into a four-unit complex.
Anybody living there today would be doing much the same; Alder Crossing, a 12 unit townhouse designed by Matthew Cheng Architect is just nearing completion. The view across the creek has changed a bit.
Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 780-485
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Changing Vancouver 