4 February 2025
Great little group of shop/warehouses in Little Lonsdale just down from Swanston, completely unchanged since at least 1968, when amateur photographer Karl Halla was documenting most old buildings in the CBD (and now held by the @library_vic). They weren’t heritage listed until 2023, but now part of a precinct including Drewery Lane behind. The heritage study tells me that the first one was built in 1903 for the Australian Wire Works Co. I particularly like the next one, built in the 1880s, with its intact arched ground floor and faded paint. The taller one was built in c1926 for DW Reddan, cigarette manufacturers. The ground floor has been Peony Garden, a cheap Chinese in the 70s-80s, latterly operated as a camera shop by the same now elderly couple. My photos from 2015.
28 February 2019
Wonderful aged looking 1880s #VictorianWarehouse in #LittleLonsdeStreet, one of a set of three nice little leftovers amongst newer crap including Melb Central. These three got interim #heritagelisting late last year as part of a proposed Drewery Lane #heritageprecinct, which they back on to.
28 Feb 2022:
Heritage listing was confirmed just a few months ago.
4 March 2019
The right hand one was open – first time I’ve ever seen into what I assumed was a long closed Chinese Restaurant, #PeonyGarden – but as the Cameras in the window imply, it really is a funny old camera store, run by a very elderly looking Chinese couple, and there were a whole lot of shoppers too ! Never heard of #Praktica brand (it’s an East German product). I presume they’ve been there since maybe the 60s or 70s, once running a restaurant in a tucked away spot, now surrounded by apartments and shopping centres and lots of Asian students ! Last time I posted this some remembered cheap meals there in the 70s/80s, or even later buying a camera.
Looked up my 2006 Cityscape guide to cbd property owners, which yells me Bernard and Lucy Chow from Ivanhoe bought this building in 1977 for $130,000, then they bought the Victorian next door in 1982, which does look unused. 
Storey of Melbourne 