The story starts at Flagstaff station where I was checking out progress on the Melbourne Underground Rail Loop Upgrade Project, when a voice came over the PA system – “photography is prohibited in City Loop stations”.

I’d gotten the photos I needed, so I headed back up to the surface and stepped into the middle of La Trobe Street to photograph a diverted route 12a tram, when a police car pulled up beside me, and the officer inside said “you can’t stand in the middle of the tram tracks”.

At that point I tweeted:

So far this afternoon I’ve copped a “no taking photos in the station” over the PA, and a “you can’t stand on the tram tracks taking photos” from a passing cop car – so how long until I complete the trifecta?

And 40 minutes later, I won! I’d climbed on top of a crash barrier to photograph the demolition of 600 Collins Street, when the traffic controller down the street said I’d have to climb down.

And that made three.

Footnote

Of course that didn’t stop me – I headed around the corner to Collins Street and climbed onto the top of an electrical box.

So I could photograph progress on the rebuilding of the tram tracks at Spencer and Collins Street.

No rest for the wicked.

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Open House Melbourne

The last weekend of July is usually Open House Melbourne, so I did the rounds of places normally closed to the public.

First off, the underground Russell Place electrical substation.

Complete with mercury arc rectifiers.

Hamer Hall, which was mid renovation.

The former Land Titles Office on Queen Street.

Toured the back of house areas of the State Library of Victoria.

A rooftop garden at 278 Flinders Lane.

The Myer Mural Hall.

Melbourne’s first skyscraper – ICI House.

Up to the top of 50 Lonsdale Street.

And down into the Royal Melbourne Hospital steam tunnels.

Trains and trams

One morning I was on my way to work, and found something odd – a V/Line train being pushed by a suburban electric train!

The V/Line train had run out of fuel at Footscray, so to keep things moving in the lead up to morning peak, it was pushed out of the way by the first train behind.

I found another public transport oddity down at Appleton Dock – a tram sitting on the back of a truck.

The Bombardier-built Flexity tram had just arrived from Germany by sea, and was ready to head for Adelaide to run on the Glenelg line.

But an everyday sight back in 2011 was ticket machines onboard Melbourne trams.

Removed following the decommissioning of the Metcard ticketing system in December 2012, it was originally planned to replace them with Myki machines, but the idea was abandoned in 2011.

Another then-unremarkable view was this one from Wurundjeri Way looking back towards Southern Cross Station.

A pair of office towers now occupy the western roof of Southern Cross Station, the Regional Rail Link tracks now occupy the roadside, and the skyline behind is full of new apartment towers.

Abandonment

A forgettable building in the Melbourne CBD is 405 Bourke Street. Launched back in 2007 as ‘The Foundry’, by 2011 the shopping centre had been boarded up, the original developer having gone into liquidation.

But a decade later things have changed – a new 43 storey tall office development has been built on the site, cantilevered 10 metres over the heritage listed building.

Another unremarkable building was the last remaining part of the West Gate Bridge toll plaza – the abandoned VicRoads control room in Port Melbourne.

Located next door to the tensile membrane roofed service station.

The site had just been sold to a developer, with demolition commencing a few months later.

Warehouses now occupy the site.

Finally, another abandoned site I visited this month was the former Gilbertson’s Meatworks in Altona North.

Empty for years, the site was finally cleared in 2012, and rezoned for residential development – with ‘Haven’ by Stockland and ‘The Fabric’ by Mirvac both under construction today.

And new construction

In 2011 demolition was well underway at the former Myer store on Lonsdale Street.

The facade was still there.

But a wall of scaffolding was on the way up.

Ready to support the building.

While the guts were ripped out of the middle.

Emporium Melbourne was then built on the site, opening to shoppers in 2014.

Footnote

Here you can find the rest of my ‘photos from ten years ago‘ series.

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Demolition of former hospital buildings commenced in July 2012, with the site consisting of four main buildings, as annotated below:

• the main ‘H’ block (aqua)
• the former nurses home, later known as the South East building (yellow)
• main entrance building (red)
• research building (lime green)

Of the above, only two of the newer buildings have been retained – the research building that has since been linked up to the new hospital complex next door, and the former entrance building on Flemington Road that will be incorporated into a new hotel development on the site.

Hiding the works was a blue painted plywood wall that encircled the side.

Behind the scenes the first victim was the former nurses home, a stand-alone building on the south east corner of the site, which by the time of closure had been converted into consulting rooms for medical specialists.

Demolition crews started on the two side wings of the building.

Then worked inwards towards the central lift core.

Which was the last to come down.

Next to be demolished was the ‘H’ block that formed the core of the hospital. The first stage was covering the entire northern facade with scaffolding.

Demolition then started on the top levels of the northern wings.

A large mobile crane was needed to move demolition equipment to the upper floors of the building.

Work on this area was delicate due to the new Royal Children’s Hospital being right next door, so water misting was needed to keep the dust down.

Despite this, the resulting rubble was just pushed out the side of the building.

As work moved to the southern wings, the ‘H’ block was separated from the neighbouring research block that is being retained.

By the time January 2013 was over, so was demolition of the former Royal Children’s Hospital, leaving just the entrance and research buildings.

The initial plan for the construction of the new Royal Children’s Hospital was that former hospital site would be restored as public space as part of Royal Park, but since then it has changed.

Stage 2 of the new Royal Children’s Hospital is still to come – involving the construction of an underground car park for 800 vehicles, a seven-storey hotel with 90 rooms, two gyms, small supermarket, childcare facilities, a hairdresser/beauty salon, post office, florist, dry cleaner, doctors consulting suites upstairs and three general retail outlets.

Further reading

• Royal Park Protection Group – community group that isn’t happy with the way the government is giving away public land to developers.
• Return to Royal Park – City of Melbourne and Department of Health website about the restoration of the former Royal Children’s Hospital site.
• Hospital PPPs show no signs of good health – opinion piece in The Age by Kenneth Davidson regarding the dodgy contracts the state government signed with a private company regarding the new hospital.
• And my full set of photos showing the demolition of the former Royal Children’s Hospital.

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