23 August 2024
I posted this on Insta in 2018, when I ranted about how terrible it was that McDonalds had been allowed to paint the lower level black in 2017, and just now looking for 19thC photos I found one from 1875 showing that the lower level was in fact dark! Though it certainly wouldn’t have been black, maybe very dark red or dark brown, which would have been unusual when rendered masonry was not usually painted at all. Still think it looks better all cream as in my shot from 2011. But I admit the all dark version from 1978 sort of looks ok too. It’s actually pretty intact and pretty old, being built as the #AustraliaFelixHotel in 1860. Later it was Richardsons Hotel, named for James Richardson, who bought the building and moved in upstairs in 1899, then built a hotel empire of 6 city pubs and two hotels, the London and the very big Alexander later Savoy in Spencer Street. When he died here in 1944 he was described as ‘Australia’s largest hotel magnate’. It was then converted into a bank in 1951 rather smartly just by adding matching #pilasters between the existing ones. Photos go 2011, 2018, 1978, 1875.
Storey of Melbourne 