george at king

This evocative pic positively jumped out of the archives, did an arabesque, up tempo cha cha, swivel and point, and pleaded, "Blog me!". Do click on it for the full size glass-plate original to capture the real atmosphere of what's going on here. This is 1890s George St, when it was a genuine main road connecting the working wharves of Circular Quay to the rest of the industrial port city.

 While the dome of the Queen Victoria Building is now obscured by Sydney's ubiquitous 1960s internationalism, the old building on the corner is the sole survivor in view. It's Victorian Gothic facade had an Edwardian makeover it seems, the textured sandstone and decorative entry simplified perhaps not long after the first photo was taken. It's also had two floors added on top, and the window pediments strangely swapped; triangular for curved and vice versa. It must have made sense at the time.

Zoom into the original to get an extraordinary essence of Sydney's dynamism in those days. You can almost be walking behind madam in a satin bustle escorted by hubby, or passing an extremely comely figure in a fitted long dress, or being eyed off by some superb muttonchop whiskers from under a bowler, atop a horsedrawn, open top double decker.

There are drays of wool bales, steam trams, a bloke on an early bicycle, and to the right is Robertsons bookstore, before it became today's chain of Angus and Robertsons. Do click on the original, it's worth it.