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MELBOURNE’S BROADWAY by Bert Bertram

hen the "Melbourne Peelers" went
Wscrabbling up alleys in their diligent
search for that suave and elegant gentleman
crook, Squizzy Taylor, in the early twenties, he
was right under their noses, hiding in the cellars
of the Bijou Theatre, in his favourite part of
town - Bourke Street, where the prestigious
Commonwealth Bank resides today.
For where else in Melbourne town would
Squizzy gravitate to except Bourke Street, for
it has been the magnetic thread of our city, even
before the turn of the century to the present day,
when it plays host for St. Patrick's Day
marches, Anzac Day celebrations, Football
Grand Final appearances of the top competitors
and the thrill of seeing all the Melbourne Cup
Hoops prancing along in their racing silks, the
day before they mount "The Bangtails" for the
world's most famous horse-race which sets the
old pulses into top gear.
All this and more takes place in bawdy, bustling
Bourke Street, Melbourne's original venue of The Bijou Theatre at 217 Bourke Street
ribaldry, raunchiness and razzamatazz!
popular "rubberdies", I sat up on the front seat Friday night by the Eastern Market's gaslights.
How did a kid of seven years get an interest in and the baby blues took in the passing parade There were the "Bouveroos" from Carlton, the
Bourke Street in 1927? Easy - live in a not so and there was oodles to see - jinkers, drays, "Coffin Mob" from North, "Chooky Fowler's
salubrious cottage opposite Mr Say's big M.C.C. water carts spraying the roads to keep Crown Mob" from Richmond and a jaunty crew
butcher shop and factory in Richmond and be the dust down, 'Sparrow Starvers', young men of jovial juveniles from Johnston Street,
the candy kid with the drivers of the horse and with hand carts and long-handled shovels, Collingwood - the “Don Mob" who had all the
carts which delivered the meat back in the good picking up horse manure which old Dobbin warmth and affability of a school of
old Roaring Twenties'! would splatter over the road (and they worked hammerhead sharks on a feeding frenzy.
every day of the week); bakers' carts gaily
A cobber of brother Bill, Percy Brindley, would painted, with the driver whipping the frisky Early on in the 1900s was another group of
lift me up into the cart and away we'd trot from horse and the little step on the back to stand on warm hearted Buckeroos, "The Bourke Street
the corner of Hoddle and Elizabeth Streets, and which small boys whipped behind and Rats" from which Mrs. Taylor's lovely son
Richmond, all the way into the Royal Mail sometimes stole a load of bread. Cable trams “Squizzy'\” gravitated and this delightful group
Hotel and The Bull and Mouth Hotel in passed in quick succession - the Gripman up of early century vitriolic vultures were always
virtually the centre of Bourke Street which, to front, giving the bell a workout to clear any on the lookout for any honest burgher, who
me in 1927, was the hub of the universe. While slow horse and cart off the track or perhaps they would inadvertently stray into their orbit, where
Percy would shoulder up flat wooden boxes of were trying to do a line with some little tabby they held court! A golden guinea may avoid a
sausages and chops to the kitchens of these two with a short skirt. Even I noticed the girls in biff over the cruet from a stocking full of ball
short skirts (actually I was almost 8!) bearings, which could produce a broken jaw or
a long spell in hospital, for the innocent
Below: Melbourne’s infamous “Squizzy” Taylor
When we moved further down Bourke St to the wayfarer.
Bull and Mouth Hotel, I'd really arrived in the
big city, for the Bull and Mouth in those years In the late 1930s, there was another group of
of hustle was not only a popular hotel and bright and breezy hoodlums centred on "The
eating establishment for hundreds of passing Tivoli Billiard Room" and, as the name
Melburnians, but it was a jaunty trysting spot suggests, it was adjacent to the Tivoli Theatre.
for the Fancy Men of the city's "knock shops" If an innocent abroad had any ideas of waltzing
to meet their er Ladies for a few convivial in for a game of snooker or billiards, he'd find
drinks and possibly discuss "the state of the that he'd be better off swimming through a
nation".. (well!!) creek full of piranhas in Mexico City. In 1936,
while delivering meat in that area, I had
Oh sure, Bourke Street had Treadways, Love occasion to pass a flippant remark to one of
and Pollards, Myers, Paynes Bon Marche, these 'sweethearts'. "Get smart with me Jack
Buckley and Nunn, Corsetiers (and we know and I'll bite your ear off!", he said. Sixty years
what they sold), Coles Book Arcade, Hair later, I still have an old fashioned idea he was
Salons, Dance Studios, Tea Rooms, Cake fair dinkum.
Shops and, for the gullible, it had Fortune
Tellers - some whose parents had practiced in The big department stores had their worries.
the Eastern Market - a very murky part of the Shops like the Leviathan, London Stores,
top of Bourke Street in the late 1800s and early Myers, Norman's Corner Store and Mantons all
part of 1900! had small battalions of store detectives
guarding their merchandise and they still fought
And it had its vicious mobs who, even in the a losing battle against the Bourke Street hustlers.
late 1920s, would happen to get together of a

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