Sinclair Centre

We had to zip downtown to help a relative with a Passport issue, so we went to the Sinclair Center, an old Vancouver landmark at 757 West Hastings Street .

 The centre is comprised of four buildings that were restored by Henriquez Partners Architects and joined together by a glass atrium roof in 1986, at a cost of $38 million. These actually take up the whole block.

 The buildings are the Federal Building, 1937, located at the corner of Granville and Cordova, the Post Office, 1900 and the Winch Building, built by a man who worked on a railroad gang, then was a cowboy before making his fortune in salmon canning and real estate, and Customs Examining Warehouse, 1913.

The Post Office Building is the oldest of the four and is described as having an Edwardian Baroque style, combining English and French architectural influences. Construction began in 1905 and it was completed by 1910. It is easily identifiable by the 43m (141 ft) clock tower. The historic atrium clock was built in 1909 by John Smith & Sons and is the largest clock movement in Western Canada. The four, 12-foot diameter clocks were restored in 1986.

                        The buildings are simply magnificent. The elevators doors look like solid gold with                beautiful carvings.

                The old tile floors are still here.

                                                 Birk's Clock is on the opposite corner.