This is the Hambro Building which dates from the 1920s. In 1930, when this image was shot, A H Stephenson & Co occupied the corner unit. Before 1927, when they moved in, the Reliance Financial Corporation were here in 1926, managed by R R Knight, and a year earlier Carter’s Oriental Trading Co, managed by Miss M U Alexander, and a year earlier Radio Specialties Ltd, who seem to have been the first tenants in the new building in 1923.
Although the Hambro name is generally associated with the merchant bank founded in London by the Danish Hambo family, we haven’t been able to confirm any specific connection. Instead, Patrick Gunn tracked down the building permit to Pemberton and Sons, hiring architects Downing and Kayll and builders Hodgson, King & Marble in 1922 for this $29,000 investment. The Hambo name was only associated with the building for the first two years until 1925. Pemberton & Son (or inaccurately, Sons) were a Victoria-based real estate and insurance brokerage, founded in 1887. The Insurance part of the business moved to Vancouver in 1910, based in the Pacific Building just north of here at Howe and West Hastings, developed by W A Bauer and later known as the Pemberton Building. As the Howe and Dunsmuir building was only single storey, we assume it was purely an investment by the Pemberton’s, who also operated the Pemberton Trading Co and significant financial operations in the 1920s
By 1935 A H Stephenson were still in the building. In 1927 they were real estate agents, as they were in 1935, (although they were also insurance 
agents by then) E J Gibson had also moved into the building. They were stock and bond brokers, managed in 1935 by Glenn S Francis. The company seems to have been established by a Spokane ‘mining man’, and the company appears to have been involved in mining stocks. Quite what the audience were tracking on the huge blackboard in this Stuart Thompson image seemed a little puzzling, but a 1936 newspaper report from Spokane suggests an eager Vancouver audience: “To aid in the relief of business in the E J Gibson office at Vancouver B C swamped by the volume of trading, Miss R E Nolting, cashier of the Spokane office, flew by the Northwest Airlines and connections yesterday morning. She reported by telephone the office there filled and besieged by a crowd that was massed back in the street. The boom, but a few days old, was touched off by the reportedly sensational strike in Minto Gold. It extended to other issues”. Minto Gold Mines Ltd. mined the Minto Property in the Bralorne region of BC for gold, copper and lead between 1934 and 1940. Historic production was reported as 17,558 ounces of gold, 21,327 lbs. of copper and 124,421 lbs. of lead. E J Gibson also had an office in Butte, Montana, another mining centre.
Today this is the northern part of the Pacific Centre Mall, completed in 1990 with an 18 storey office tower designed by Zeidler Roberts Partnership.
Images sources: City of Vancouver Archives Bu N510 and CVA 99-4719
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Changing Vancouver 