I was around in time to recall the sights on the "high track" in the Richards/Helmcken area, and I recall some very-early 1980's scenery outside of the Georgia Hotel, but I just didn't know the city well enough in those early days to avail myself of the amazing selections that some of you are citing from the outlying areas not in central downtown.
Of course the "high track" women, while immaculately presented, were almost all upsellers, where their first line was often "Can you spend a hundred bucks?" ... which, you'd later find, would barely get you in their doors, and often it would take several hundred more to get what you really wanted from them.
But it wasn't really the close encounters of the sexual kind that mattered most back then, it was instead the vast potential your mind would perceive as you perused the plentiful selection of striking women with the strong feeling that the night (or early morning) would end with you getting what you wanted from one of them.
It was often so fun to just walk circles around the downtown "high track" area while inconspicuous to all but a few of the working girls (who noticed you passing over and over) while seeking just the right 'vibe' (or, short of that, somebody who would effectively *approach you* so as to ease your nerves and engage your thoughts effectively enough to woo your interest. The women who did so were sharp-minded and perhaps a bit more earthy and approachable than were their mostly-silent counterparts, which was nearly always a good thing.)
There just isn't a way to give today's younger, internet-savvy pooners who know more efficiency, and more safety, a full sense of how amazing it would seem to walk along central Vancouver streets nearly flooded with working girls who had each gone the extra mile in prepping their look for yet another night at curbside.
Yet despite my having witnessed that ~ far too often without enough money to spend ~ I can tell with clarity that those outlying areas, away from central Van., were the places to have found the best values and the true 'gems' of the Vancouver street trade (circa 1980-1990 perhaps).
Late in the 1990's and through the 2000's there were still vast numbers of very sincere women plying the trade in the DTES and surrounds, many of whom have been terrific encounters (healthy women merely trying/needing to make ends meet late in their pay periods) but sometimes one would have to drive and drive for ages trying to determine those from the vast numbers of drug-addled women in the same surrounds.
But I'm sure the 1970's and 1980's were the golden age of on-street pooning in Vancouver, and any photo/video evidence would assure most observers of same.