May 2026

I briefly touched on the 1931 Howey Court in the Sportsgirl post, thinking there’d be much more, but there isn’t really. It’s in a couple of good photos and some street shots, there was an article when it was announced in Feb 1930, another when the arcade opened 5 months later, and some features when the offices were completed March 1931. Dont know if it was built despite or because of the Great Depression, sparked by the Stock Market crash Oct 1929.

The style is rather hard to pin down, but architect Marcus Barlow was definitely going for the NY skyscraper feel, with vertical ribbing, new for Melb, and a top stepping up to a rather tall tower. The detailing up there is very geometric, more than a bit like Walter Burley Griffin, whereas the panels below have stylised floral decoration (do I see gumnuts?).

The big news at the time was that it was built by the Howey Estate, a ln English family that had inherited four city lots from the first land sales in 1837, and hung on to much of it on long leases, and one of whom made a speech and flicked a switch from London to officially declare it open. I was demolished about 1989, along with a smaller building, for the not very successful Sportsgirl Centre.

The close up with Betty Lee dance studio was posted on Facebook by the daughter of Alan Lee who named it after his (second) wife. The other two closeups are 1950s, and the bigger pics are State or National Library. The drawing is I think 1950s when archi students attempted to draw the whole of Collins Street at 20 year intervals (!).

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