Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 43
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[Page 43]
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Horderns, almost immediately, set up shop again in temporary premises nearby and began the building of the huge five-floor solid brick building that exists today. At the time of its opening for business it was claimed that it was the biggest store in the Southern Hemisphere, a "Universal provider" that sold everything "from an anchor to a needle"; but they didn't say how big an anchor.
Sydney had more live theatres in those days than half a century later: the Royal and the little Palace, both still on the same sites, His Majestys (now the Pitt St Woolworths),The Criterion (demolished in the widening of Park St), the old Tivoli and Fullers, two vaudeville theatres side by side in Castlereagh St until demolished in the twenties to make a place for the St James theatre and office block.
Cinemas and cabarets did not exist. A drinking and gambling club over the shops on the corner of George and King Sts was patronised by ladies and gentlemen of the very unconventional rich. The police raided it periodically and took the names of those present, including those of several prominent citizens, and they all had to face court charges. This club was known as the Burlington. The glamour restaurant was "Paris House" in Phillip St, opposite Selbourne Chambers, that ofice-warren of the barristers: it specialises in real French cuisine, and was frequented by wealthy gourmets and leaders of the professional classes; it was much too expensive for most citizens. Behind, in Castlereagh St, the "Trocadero" offered exotic Italian dishes and was less costly.
Except for the large A.B.C. (Aerated Bread Coy) tea shop in Pitt St near the Strand, and another one belonging to a Chinese gentleman, Lee Kwong, who provided a good cup of tea and a well buttered bread roll for threepence, there were no other tea shops of any consequence in the city.
The "Australia" was unquestionably the leading hotel, and invariably received overseas stage and concert celebrities, or important personages from abroad. Its public rooms and bars were notoriously the haunt of well-dressed tricksters, starting-price bookmakers, elegantly dressed harlots, and homosexuals.