This 1965 aerial lines up really well with Trish Jewison’s shot posted six months ago and taken from the Global BC traffic helicopter. There were very few landmarks available to match the pictures. Way up at the top right, behind the Citygate towers lined up across the end of False Creek, Pacific Central Station (the Canadian Northern station) still runs a few trains across Canada and into the US. Next to it, today, the new St Paul’s Hospital is under construction. In 1965 there were still tracks from the Great Northern Railway; the station was demolished very soon before this picture was taken, (to avoid taxes).
The tracks that now terminate behind the CP Station at Waterfront used to run westwards (towards the bottom of the picture) through Coal Harbour. The Marine Building sat on the top of a cliff overlooking the tracks (that had been laid along the beach). The area where the train tracks were is now a row of expensive condo towers, marking the edge of the Central Business District to the south. Remarkably, in 1965 the northern end of the Central Business District was still dominated by The Marine Building. The first Bentall Centre tower broke ground in June 1965, and topped out exactly a year later. The site is already under construction in the picture. The second was completed in 1969, both now dwarfed by later and taller towers (with a fifth tower on the block under construction and a sixth recently proposed).
On the waterfront Canada Place was built on Canadian Pacific’s Piers B-C, originally constructed in 1915, with the buildings added in 1927. The Convention Centre occupies the space under the sails, and was expanded with the new addition with the huge green roof in 2009. It sits where Pier A once stood, with the Canada Immigration Building still standing beside it. The Pier was cleared away in 1968, and the Immigration Building was demolished in 1976 to create more space for the CPR trailer pier parking area.
The shoreline today is quite different from when the waterfront had industrial uses, and Harbour Green Park sits where there were a series of oil tanks. Bayshore Marina was already in existence, as was the Bayshore Hotel to the west, with the main wing opening as The Bayshore Inn in 1961, and the tower added in 1970. The hotel sold for redevelopment in 2015 for $290m.
Image sources City of Vancouver Archives CVA 1399-417 (copyright, Townley & Matheson fonds), and Trish Jewison, July 2021, Global BC traffic helicopter.
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Changing Vancouver 