See the #horsie ? 😮😁 There’s rather happy looking ones at the top and bottom of the windows of the former #VictorianClub in Queen Street. Built in 1927 for Victoria’s #bookmakers, designed in an elaborate classical style by #JosephPlottel, Bunnett and Alsop. They did their ‘settling’ here in the main room, which was working out the math for who won how much, cos they paid out once/week, not on the spot back then. Which of course was tempting for crooks, and the club was robbed twice – once in 1953, and again in 1976, the famous #GreatBookieRobbery, where they got away with about $5.3 mill – never caught but years later one surviving member told his lawyer the whole story, and by 1992 all the gang members had died – killed during other robberies, or by each other.

Another curious thing is that only the club floors were built originally, with an intention to eventually build up to the 132ft height limit, but that didn’t happen until 1956, which explains why the upper floors are so plain. First pic not mine.

The club rooms inside are pretty intact – there’s a coffered ceiling over the entry and a big room with columns with exotic styled capitals and a nice frieze, and a board room upstairs with a coffered ceiling. Not protected.

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