The Vancouver planning department should be ashamed of themselves.
They tore down so many iconic buildings such as the Medical Dental building, the Devonshire hotel, and the Birks building to name a few.
These are the buildings which give a city its sense of history and maturity.
City Hall has had its eye on personal profiteering for far too long.

I returned to the reception area with my jaw hanging open and asked WHY (for the love of God) was that space going unused? I said that I’d be happy to rent it! The receptionist just shrugged at me and said that the company owners used the boardroom table for occasional meetings and that was it. I went home and raved to my roommate about the place, and lamented that it was not being used. What an unbelievable place to be sitting vacant and collecting dust. It’s too bad that I didn’t think to take a camera with me but back then they were still pretty bulky and I was dealing with a lot of water and dirt everyday.

The Marine Building is my absolute favourite building in Vancouver and every once in a while I remember thinking about how cool it would have been to live there.

Interesting article. Do you know where Joe Hobbs originated from. We are trying to find family history.

I articled at Coopers & Lybrand, David, but I left before you were there. Is your corporate history of C&L public, or was it an internal document. If available, I would appreciate a link.

There was a bank in that space – the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. The bank went bust in 1991 due to concerns about money laundering (and other shady practices). I can’t recall when BCCI went in there, or what was there before that.

My uncle, Doug Hunter, began as a junior architect with McCarter & Nairne while they were designing the building. I remember going up to the 19th floor M&N offices (in those wonderful elevators) as a young boy while Doug was still working there. He passed away in 1989 at the age of 82 but I have a lot of his renderings for various M&N buildings, which I lent to Donald Luxton when he was preparing his book on Building the West: The Early Architects of British Columbia.

I also have one of the original detail drawings of the front entrance of the Marine Building, drawn on vellum, as well as a couple of stained-glass panels that I think were in the M&N office. Unfortunately I never managed to get pics of them to J.Y. McCarter’s daughter, whom I thought might know of their provenance.

What a lovely old building. Brings back a lot of good memories, including some of Doug’s stories of his early days at M&N and the shenanigans some of the staff got up to!

Hi Eve,

The elevator operators were all female (1968) and wore dark blue suits – very smart. I don’t remember exactly when the elevators went ‘self-serve’, but it was sad to see these lovely women leave (probably in the early 70’s). The building inside & out was spectacular, until someone put a line of acid all the way down the centre of the floor on the mezzanine, (where I worked – BC Forest Service). It was very sad to see & was like that when I left in 1981. I loved the revolving doors. Now I can’t even find the Marine Building in pictures – it’s hard to believe it was once the tallest building in Vancouver! Very fond memories.

Hi:

The penthouse was locked and off-limits.

Great story. I think much that has been written about the Marine Building overlooks or seriously underplays the Hobbs story. Too bad. It’s way better than those silly Sleeman commercials!

I have loved the building since I first set eyes on it back when I was in elementary school taking a tour of the big city. And, of course, I’m not alone. If one were to poll Vancouverites and tell them only one heritage building in the city could be saved, and then ask them which one do we keep, I would bet that the MB would get near-unanimous support.

Another reason for the love affair: My wife worked there as a young woman.

Once around 1992 while in the midst of a stubborn stretch of unemployment, I spent two solid days applying to every company in the building. If no one would hire me, I figured I could at least stay out of the rain, save on shoe leather, ride the shiny elevators, and enjoy the views. I never did land a job there—although I recall a great conversation with a printer in the basement—but I did find work at 1111 West Hastings with Coopers & Lybrand, and I loved nothing better than strolling to the cafe on the ground floor of the Marine Building for lunch.

I believe the Guinness family was a very early client of C&L. When I wrote the corporate history of C&L (2001?) I heard tales of them touring like royals (Walter Guinness was a baron) over Vancouver, West Van and New West looking for properties to invest in. And it was then I found an old shot of Mr Taylor in his Marine Building penthouse office. If I remember correctly, his feet were up on his desk and there was a scale replica stone lion (the same as the pair in front of the bridge) facing out west window.