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Widening the Streets
New Buildings
The widening of Oxford Street was mainly completed by 1914. The
impact of Council’s intervention was not simply the creation
of a boulevard 100 feet wide. The Council imposed height, scale
and aesthetic guidelines for larger, classier shops. There was social
disruption as smaller family businesses were pushed out to make
way for the new shopping emporiums.
| Shop
designs
Plans for the council owned and designed Sydney Municipal
Council Shops, located between Crown and Palmer Streets, 1912.
(image: City of Sydney Archives, CRS
569/P391)
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| S.M.C.
Shops, 1920
View of the Municipal Shops from Crown Street, 30 April 1920.
The Institute of Physical Culture occupies the upper floors
on the corner.
(image: City of Sydney Archives, CRS
51/4729)
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| Oxford
Street, c.1940s
View of the north side of Oxford Street from the top of a
building on the southern side, c1940s. The first building
on the left is G.A. Zink, Tailors. The vista extends right
up the street to Taylor Square.
(image: City of Sydney Archives, SRC 310)
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| Street
vista, c.1940s
Street life along the new Oxford Street, c.1940s. Women wait
in the centre of the street for the tram to arrive. Omnibuses
and motor cars replace the horse and carts of two decades
ago. The vista continues right up to Taylor Square. Note the
uniformity of the building heights and styles of the Federation
streetscape on the left in comparison to the more exuberant,
higgledy piggledy Victorian architecture of the streetscape
on the right
(image: City of Sydney Archives, SRC 308) |
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Size: 82 KB
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