Photographs are an excellent resource to use when studying a location or community. You can utilize an array of images that show how a place changed over time from simple variations to complex evolution. Photographs can show many different things that will be helpful to varying degrees. One category of images can be quite special, and that is the aerial photo.
Aerial photographs show many changes throughout the city of New Westminster, especially how specific parts of the city have changed. There are some that show many blocks covered in trees and underbrush with road lines cut through. There are images that show the first houses built in a particular block and even an early highrise. Aerial views of the waterfront are quite dramatic as docks grow, buildings are added, structures move around rail lines, and the whole thing evolves.
The earliest aerial photos that we use in our studies and programs are from the mid- to late 1920s. One shows a portion of Sapperton, and a couple of others show the area along the river in front of the main part of the city from about Eighth Street to just past the bridges. These are excellent photos in which the detail is truly exceptional.
One series from the 1940s shows the current areas of Victory and Massey Heights, but with basically no homes except for a few across the landscape. The rest of the space there is covered in bush.
A set of aerial views from the 1940s and 1950s features interesting images of the area around Columbia Street at Eighth Street, 10th Street, 11th Street and 12th Street. The viewer here is able to pick out businesses, structures with Chinese connections in the old Chinatown location, rows of very old houses and so on. Also you can see where the streetcar ran and was built and repaired. There are so many things to pick out.
The Woodward’s Department Store uptown drew lots of photographic attention including a couple of aerial views that the company had taken. These and a few others of the uptown area really show the changes and identify its growth.
There are aerial photographs, all with a great story to tell, for virtually every portion of the city with some offering a simple overview while others will have a great deal more. Sometimes, as with a 1929 view of the central hillside, there is evidence of very many trees.
