Abandoned House, Bourke Street, C.1915
Dilapidated, abandoned and unfit for human habitation, this decaying single-storeyed building was photographed in August 1915 just prior to its demolition.
Located in Bourke St west not far from the corner of William St, it was one of the few buildings left standing from the CBD’s earliest days. Built in 1841 by Dr Farquhar MacCrae, brother-in-law of the diarist and artist Georgiana MacCrae, it was occupied for most of the 1840s by that legal luminary Redmond (later Sir Redmond) Barry until Dr Arthur O’Mullane bought it in 1852 and set up his practice there. Years later it was used by the Cameron Tobacco Factory and its most recent use had been, according to the Australasian newspaper, as a “humble, battered appendage to the Metropolitan Mission in Bourke St” where “old people … engaged in mending chairs and doing other light work”.