pitt

Pitt and Margaret Streets no longer meet - this section is now called Curtin Place. NW corner, Google Street view - maps.google.com.au/maps?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Sydney+... Just discernible on the front of the building is "FARMER AND COMPANY" and the date "1883"(?) on the top. A quick Trove search produced this SMH article from Saturday 5/4/1884 describing the "New Warehouse" in great detail - its height, iron girder construction, lifts, and those enormous plate-glass windows. trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13560352 Perhaps this fine photo was taken to record a new showpiece building in 1884?

H O L D T H E P R E S S E S !! I was wrong again - it is NOT MARGARET St / Curtin Place and Pitt St corner. The road dips there (and used to be called Little George St). It is MARKET Street and Pitt Street NW corner. See the SMH article above. Also wrong on the State Records database.

The facade (or seven of the nine window width) is still there, part of Myers (?) . It is the pale building, the corner has been rebuilt using red brick on this Google Street View - maps.google.com.au/maps?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Sydney+...

That is indeed Pitt and Market Street corner, now Myer

beachcomber australia Thanks for the correction - will amend here and on Photo Investigator. I've replaced this with a larger version. It does indeed say "FARMER AND COMPANY" on the building and the date is 1882. At this size you can see the window displays!

Date - 1892 about May. From the advert on the Exchange Hotel for "Signor Foli, Premier Basso of the World, Town Hall, W.H. Poole Director. See SMH, 16/5/1892, p.7 - trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13854120

This pic is interesting...if you zoom in on the original pic at the PHM you can see that over in Bridge St there's a vacant space where the Burns Philp Building was built in 1899-1900...so just going on this pic, it appears that this vacant space must have remained as we see it here thru much of the 1890s...the allotment was evidently purchased by Burns Philp in 1899... trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/85783328 - the Cumberland Argus, 9th August, 1899...'Burns Philp's Business'...'Messrs. Burns, Philp, and Co., Limited, have purchased the large vacant blocks of land in Bridge-street, alongside Holdsworth, Macpherson's, upon which they propose erecting large shipping offices.' NSW SA pic of the row of buildings in Bridge St that occupied the site on which the Burns Philp Building was later built...with the exception of the small building on the rhs (which at one point was part of the Metropolitan Hotel), these buildings appear to have been demolished in the late 1880s or early 1890s... www.flickr.com/photos/state-records-nsw/2627336538/

Farmers & Co "Central Pitt St " store (right) occupied this site from 1910-1960. dictionaryofsydney.org/organisation/farmer_and_company
Sir William Farmer 1870s :

See also -

beachcomber australia Oh dear - we must really like this image!