the flaneur does bourke st

(tt)   When we first arrived in Melbourne on Christmas Eve 1959 Melbourne was a very different city. I think the word that many Melbournians would have approved to describe the town and its environs would have been '"select".  There were no chain stores,  no 7/11's, no scooped out banks, no high risers beyond the twenty storey ICI buiding at the top of Latrobe St and definitley no traffic free pedestrian precincts like the current Bourke St.
Here are a few facades of all but gone stores that were must sees for browsing and teas and special visits to Santa at that sweltering time of year when everyone was shopping for the makings of a trad turkey/plum pud dinner and przzies for the bubs.
This was Foys. It went under in the early 70's and has been constantly fiddled with since. It's main shape though seems to have hung on in.

Now it's being stared at by a flying pig

Leviathan was another old lady now there in spirit only. My gran insisted on calling it "Lavinthins"

Looking up is the best way to cope with The Mall

 This deco glory was Buckley and Nunn

 Myers was the hub. It had everything from the frantic Bargain Basement to the cafeteria that smelled of pies and stockinged feet.

A great South American band had shoppers jiggling with hidden salsa fire

One of two splendid Victorian arcades,  The Royal.

A little tributary off the Royal

This always gives me the "Ooh, I've lost me wallet" feeling in the pit of my stomach

The last of the Bourke St queens..The London Stores

The old GPO.

It has been painted white inside and is now Gucci'd, Pucci'd and Sprucci'd

This was the Myer Lonsdale St Store linked to its Bourke St sister by glass walkways. Santa's Cave was on the sixth floor. All that excitement and  smell  of wee are probably  trapped still in the crumbling plaster.