Before CRAB Park was created in 1987, there was a funky Spanish Colonial-style building that sat on the pier at the foot of Main Street. Built in 1931 as the terminal for the Canadian National Steamship Company, access was by way of a roadway over the CPR railway tracks.
Tom Carter found this ca.1930s map from a Hotel Greeter’s Guide at MacLeod’s Books. It shows the CN terminal, the ferry to North Vancouver, the North Arm ferry to the Wigwam Inn, Pier B-C which was eventually replaced by Canada Place, and Pier D which burned down in July 1938. (Note the two missing piers at English Bay, how Crystal Pool is highlighted, and the “Old Mill Site” in Coal Harbour).
While Canadian Pacific Railway owned the Princess line of steamboats, the competition—CN had a healthy line of Prince’s—Henry, David, Robert, Charles, William and George until the war years when steamship service dropped and stopped altogether in the 1950s.
It’s a bit unclear what CN did with the building in the intervening years, but by 1973 it was in full swing as the Oompapa Restaurant and Happy Bavarian Inn.
Over the next decade it changed hands at least twice. Here it is as the Dock,
And as O’Hara’s and missing the distinctive maple leaf.
And demolished in 1983.
For a story on the last remaining house on the waterfront in the immediate area just to the east of Crab Park see Hastings Mill and the Flying Angel Club.