Pitt Street at Market 1875

If you don't already know, then you may be surprised how dramatically this 'Then and Now' ends.

'Tis the corner of Pitt Street at Market, circa 1870. That open-air butcher shop is, by today's standards, pretty foul without refrigeration. The spire in the back is St James, over by Queens Square. Notice how small and simple are the original, early-19thC colonial buildings.

By the late 1800s, Pitt and Market were becoming retail-central for the burgeoning colonial capital, with Farmers and Ware's department stores opening, to rival George Street a block over. Below is the same corner as above just twenty years later.

The same corner a little later, and the surrounding blocks are consolidating with grander retail buildings. Her Majesty's Theatre takes the place of Woodwards Furniture. This is a city maturing from 'colonial' to its own identity.

Hecks no! The Her Majesty's Theatre burns, next to (the very skinny) Hilliar's Hotel on the corner, around 1911.

And which is why, by the looks I guess, in Sydney today we still call them "fire engines", and not "fire trucks" as they do elsewhere. Then, they were simply coal-powered engines to pump water, dragged around on carts by horses. And so the name "engine", at least here, stuck.

Then along came Sydney's 1960s modernisation rampage and all before was lost. Up then went Centrepoint shopping centre in 1969, and its tower fifteen years later. 

To be renovated in 2009 by Westfield. It still stands.