Cable Tram Engine Shed - Johnston Street, Fitzroy, C.1976
Better known today as Coles Fitzroy, the facade of this supermarket is part of a cable tram engine shed that formerly occupied this site. A cable tramway opened along Johnston Street in 1887, connecting Collingwood with the City, via Johnston, Elgin and Lygon Streets. The engines in the shed kept the tram cables below street level moving, via a large turntable below Johnston Street at the front of this building.
The cable tram was replaced with buses in 1937, and the building was initially used by the MMTB (Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board) to auction lost property. It was sold by the MMTB in 1939, and over the years was occupied by a tin can manufacturer, a motor trader, and by 1976, when this photograph was taken, the furniture retailer, Maples, seems to have been using the building.
In the years leading up to the redevelopment of the site in c2005, the building was the entertainment venue, the Bull Ring. When the site was redeveloped the engine shed was demolished, but its facade was retained, and, with some modifications, used to form the shopfront of the Coles that now trades from this site.