Old photos of Melbourne and suburbs @melbmemories - Tumblr Blog

In 1951, long before Melbourne was famous for its cafe culture, a lesbian in her mid-20s named Val Eastwood opened Val’s Coffee Lounge across from Melbourne Town Hall.

She wore tailored suits and red lipstick and carried a silver-topped cane.

Val’s became one of the first places in Melbourne where gay women and “camp men” could gather without fear.

It was a haven for misfits, bohemians and theatre kids.

Melbourne’s nightlife thrived in coffee shops: live music, big feelings, chosen family.

Running it was, in Eastwood’s words, “bloody hard work” but she kept going – opening more cafes in St Kilda, South Yarra and Hawthorn.

Today, a plaque marks the site of her first cafe – a tribute to a woman who created one of the city’s first safe spaces.

Notes from The AGE

#1950's #coffee #LGBT #Val's coffee lounge

1890's Little Bourke St, Melbourne

An opium den.

A journalist wrote,

"It is one of the most repulsive experiences in Melbourne to go into one of these hovels in the vicinity of Little Bourke Street, and see men and women, many of them well-dressed and respectable-looking, lying on dirty boards.. inhaling the deadly fumes through a bamboo pipe."

photo credit Mitchell Library

#1890s #opium den

Richmond looking down Swan St back towards the MCG, Melb. Vic 1945

#aerial #richmond #1940s #MCG

Queen Street looking south towards Flinders Street, 1859.

T. Curran's Woolpack Hotel is in the right foreground, on the north-west corner of Flinders Lane. On the south-west corner is the stately Oriental Bank building. The Bank went into receivership in the mid-1880s and by 1889 the building had been demolished and replaced by a nine-storey structure. The Hobson's Bay Railway Company's wooden bridge over the Yarra (the Sandridge Bridge) can been seen in the background and beyond it the suburb of Emerald Hill (South Melbourne).

Source: Tony Beyer

#queen street #1850's #yarra river

Until 1974, this is how the various departments at the State Bank of Victoria Head Office shared information internally: the Lansom Paragon Pneumatic Tube System.

The Lamson Pneumatic Tube System (PTS) was officially introduced by the turn of the 20th century (around 1899), when William Stickney Lamson acquired a pneumatic tube manufacturing company to expand his existing retail cash-carrying business.

Lamson opened an Australian branch in 1901. By 1925, a large-scale Lamson pneumatic tube system was installed across several kilometers to connect the Provisional Parliament House, the main post offices, and the Government Printing Office in Canberra.

By the 1950s, Lamson Concepts tube networks were used globally across industries like mining, logistics, retail, and healthcare.

Not unlike a Switchboard Operator, this employee is sending paperwork sealed within a cup, via vacuum tubes, to different destinations within the building.

Many retail stores used (some still do) a vacuum system between a cashier and a cash point. But these were/are one channel systems. This and similar systems were multi-channel, Inter-Departmental: used to transfer material between various departments via a central traffic point: a much more elaborate system…

Most hospitals still use systems like this to transport pathology lab samples.

#vacuum shoot #1970's #pneumatic shoot #technology #1920's

Crossing the Yarra, Melbourne Town Samuel Thomas Gill 1800s Mutual Art.

#yarra river #1830s

Sunshine and District Private Hospital in King Edward Ave, Albion Victoria in 1922.

Photo taken in 1960s or 1970s?

CLOSED 1988

#hospital #sunshine #albion #1920s

Steelweld & Industrial Engineering

Ashley St Braybrook Victoria 1942

#manufacturing #1940s #braybrook #western suburbs

Braybrook Hotel Ballarat Rd Braybrook Victoria

In 1857, a hotel was established on this site to serves the thirsty diggers on route to the gold fields in Western Victoria.

source: Tony Beyer

#braybrook #hotel #1850s #gold rush #western suburbs

The Melbourne Homoeopathic Hospital

One of Melbourne’s most distinctive hospitals once stood on St Kilda Road, opposite the Domain.

The institution began in 1869 as the Melbourne Homoeopathic Dispensary. It later became the Melbourne Homoeopathic Hospital, initially operating in the city before moving to a purpose-built hospital on St Kilda Road in 1885. The new building was officially opened in October that year.

The original hospital was an ornate Victorian complex, with verandahs, decorative brickwork, steeply roofed corner towers and elevated rooftop platforms. Architect Thomas James Crouch was responsible for the designs for the St Kilda Road hospital.

As the hospital grew, additional buildings and wings were added to the site.

In November 1934, the institution’s name was changed from the Homoeopathic Hospital to Prince Henry’s Hospital.

Source: Tony Beyer

#hospital #homeopathy #prince henry hospital #1880's