Myer Department Store, Bourke Street, C.1952
The biggest store in the British Empire - you can do that right here in Melbourne.
It's the Myer Emporium, a selling colossus which in the brief space of less than 50 years has become as much a part of Melbourne as a meeting "under the clocks," Chloe, and Degraves Street subway ...
Since three weeks before World War 1 the Myer Emporium has been at its present Bourke Street stand.
The 59 acres of floor space, equivalent in area to a Gippsland dairy farm, are lit by 14,272 permanent lamps, and 1,249 festooned lamps provided with electricity by three SEC sub-stations, and a generating plant run by the store itself.
A selling staff, which has grown to 4,000 (5,000 at Christmas) has clanged 31,000,000 dockets through the store's 500 cash registers at the end of a year.
Myer's aren't saying much about what their present turnover is, but in 1948 it was more than £16 million ...
In the 566 feet of frontage to Bourke and Lonsdale Streets there are 118 display windows and 40 display niches, closed in by 2,500 square feet of plate-glass, and cared for by 40 window dressers.