More faded days

Idly looking through Museum Victoria's pics...I most like the ones where you can see the streetscape in the background...gives you a feel for how bare and new things looked way back when.

This fella is in Essendon:

[source] "This photograph shows Peter Oakes aged 3, at Lyon Street Essendon, 1949. Peter is playing in a wheelbarrow in the front garden of the family home."  I think this is where he was, courtesy of Google maps, Lyon Street Essendon.

Here in another photo (Moonee Ponds, in 1949), a young boy is captured in a quick sprint past the shops:

[Source]

I love the old store fronts, I wish I could see what's in the windows.

And here we are, in Puckle Street.

Little girl outside a newsagency, a bit later this one, in 1958. Menzies has just swept in, apparently.

[source] A young girl with curly hair and wearing shorts, standing in the doorway of a newsagent. There are newspaper headline pages in wire frames in front of her- 'Australian Post' and 'The Sun'. This photograph shows Rafferty's Newsagent, in Fletcher Street Essendon, 3 November 1958, with a local little girl Beth in the doorway. The photographer Judy Archer remembers: 'Beth's parents ran the local bakery in Napier Street, and in those days all the shop owners knew each other, so Beth would wander down the street to say hello.' This newsagent is where Judy used to work from February 1956 agent to June 1959 - she started there at age 14 when she left school."

I could be stretching it a bit, but a look around Fletcher Street and comparison of shop front and step, makes me think this is the shop now:

Here's a photo I can't place, it's captioned Derby Street Balwyn (but the only Derby streets I can find are Kew or Camberwell)...I think it's Kew, but there's been so many houses knocked down in Derby street, I'm not sure the house in the background is still standing.

[source] "Two girls in dresses, standing on the lawn of a front garden. There is a magpie in front of them on the lawn. This photograph shows Muriel and Edythe Watson in Derby Street Balwyn, circa 1935. According to the family: 'This was one of the rental properties the Watson family lived in, 10 years after the family's arrival from England. Edythe would have been about 20 years old. Mary their mother probably took the photograph, as she had a Box Brownie camera."

In other mystery locations, I'd very much like to see if this building is still as it was, I love the signwriting on the window. I had a little wander around Moonee Ponds on Google Maps, but couldn't find it.  Mmm, chocolates.

[source]"This photograph shows a child playing outside the shop-front of the Atkinson family's new milk bar, Moonee Ponds, 1949. This milk bar was purchased by the Atkinson family only six weeks after migrating from England. The Atkinson family's mother and father had given them some start-up money, 1000 pounds to buy a business. Unfortunately the young couple struggled and eventually bowed out of the business having learnt a hard lesson. They ended up moving to Gippsland when Cliff Atkinson found employment with the Gas & Fuel Corporation."

Old photos, I love 'em.