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| The verandah outside the 1886 Soul Pattinson Chemist |
| Pitt Street Mall is now a pedestrian plaza. I will chance my arm and declare it the retail heart of Sydney. Once upon a time, the streets of Sydney were littered with shop-front verandahs. They were probably a harking back to "the old country", but I prefer to think of them as a protection from the heat, or even a hitching post for the horse'n'buggy. |
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| This is the facade for Eway & Co, a drapery department store established in 1891 and taken over by Farmers in 1955. The verandah is faux. |
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| Showing the detail in the Soul Pattinson wrought iron. |
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| The "Pitt Street Mall" in 1878. First the east side, then the west side. |
| Nowadays, there appears to be a harking back to the mid-19th-century, with the return of shop-front verandahs (faux, invariably). It is more easily accommodated in a pedestrian mall, than on a busy footpath beside a major street, like Pitt Street. I quite like the mental image they conjure up, of continuity. Make sure you enlarge the two historic images which I found on State Records Archives Investigator. |
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| The detail of The Strand Arcade wrought iron. |
7 comments:
I'm glad you included the link to the old photo to show the then as well as the now.
I don't 'quite like' the image they conjure up Julie, I looove the idea they conjure up, I think I was born into the wrong era :)
A beautiful building and my favorite kind of details!
The detail work is quite intricate.
Fancy that.
'Twas only on the week-end as I trawled the mean streets of Toowoomba, that I was contemplating the loss of all the beautiful old shop verandahs.
The verandah bits still exist but the posty bits are all gone.
Why did they get rid of the posts?
It was the same in Ararat too - verandah bits but no posts.
I never think of verandahs are being from the "old country". I think of verandahs in the old-syle USA but not of ye olde England.
Buildings look ever so much more interesting with them, even houses. We use our front verandah heaps during the summer time.
Great lacework.
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