corner of oxford and pelican

The original of this photo was in the national archives, so faded in detail that it seemed to be just an ornate Victorian pile. As I pass the spot every day, I'd wondered why such a large building in a prominent location had been replaced by something much smaller and plainer.

Then the penny dropped. It hadn't been replaced, but demolished to widen the street. The simpler building is actually its neighbour.

But the horror set in once I'd cleaned up the image. It turned out not to be an overdone ornamental Victorian, but an extremely rare, brick and sandstone, Federation Beaux-Artes, and, due to similarity in style, perhaps by the same architect who designed Newtown Post Office (below).

In the top photo, it's 1968 and the highrise Koala Inn, which replaced the burned-down 1920s Buckingham's department store, is nearing completion. Pelican Street became the main access for the hotel, hence the widening. The Koala was converted into apartments a few years ago using the same structural skeleton, but which made the street semi-redundant.

Postscript: Only the facade of the two-storey neighbour remains, as the original buildings behind it (in the b&w pic) are Victorian terrace houses with pitched roofs, dormer windows and chimneys. They were most likely residential houses, but as Oxford Street burgeoned, were later converted to shops with the addition of the facade. Yet only that survives, with a heritage order and Hungry Jacks sign.