Sydney CBD

Pitt Street, Sydney

For half the twentieth century, Pitt Street was where Sydney went to be seen shopping. Trams ran down its centre, department stores filled both footpaths, and on the night a hit show opened, its theatres lit the street end to end.

The Palace Theatre opened in December 1896, built by George Adams — of Tattersall's lotto fame — as a supplement to his hotel next door. Phil Goatcher's interior was, by one review, "as gorgeous as an Indian temple." By 1949, when its marquee advertised Noel Coward's Present Laughter, it had already outlasted vaudeville and the first wave of cinema; it closed in 1969 and was demolished the year after, cleared for the Hilton. A little south of it, department stores — McCathie's, Selfridges, Dents Shoes, the Strand Bag Shop — crowded their footpaths through the 1940s, one shopfront still carrying a wartime banner asking Sydney to "save."

The street dressed for a different crowd in 1934, when the Duke of Gloucester's tour of Australia brought him to Sydney that November — the same visit that took him to Hyde Park to dedicate the Anzac Memorial before a crowd of about 100,000 — and Pitt Street hung Union Jacks and vertical banners for the occasion. By 1951 the flags were down and the street had settled into the quieter postwar view north toward the Harbour Bridge, past the Angel Hotel and a chemist's corner on the way.

6 works
Crowds crossing Pitt Street outside Shirley Shoe Co., Sydney — photograph, from Pitt Street, circa 1949
photograph·1949·Sydney CBD

Crowds crossing Pitt Street outside Shirley Shoe Co., Sydney

SydneyState Library NSW
Pitt Street crowds outside Shirley Shoe Co — photograph, from Pitt Street, circa 1949
photograph·1949·Sydney CBD

Pitt Street crowds outside Shirley Shoe Co

SydneyState Library NSW
Pitt Street shopping crowds past McCathie's and Selfridges, Sydney — photograph, from Pitt Street, circa 1949
photograph·1949·Sydney CBD

Pitt Street shopping crowds past McCathie's and Selfridges, Sydney

SydneyState Library NSW
Palace Theatre, Pitt Street, lit at night for Noel Coward's "Present Laughter", 1949 — photograph, from Pitt Street, circa 1949
photograph·1949·Sydney CBD

Palace Theatre, Pitt Street, lit at night for Noel Coward's "Present Laughter", 1949

Theatres of SydneyPix magazine
Pitt Street looking north toward the Harbour Bridge, 1951 — photograph, from Pitt Street, circa 1951
photograph·1951·Sydney CBD

Pitt Street looking north toward the Harbour Bridge, 1951

Sydney streets, August 1951State Library NSW
Pitt Street dressed with flags for the Duke of Gloucester's visit, 1934 — photograph, from Pitt Street, circa 1934
photograph·1934·Sydney CBD

Pitt Street dressed with flags for the Duke of Gloucester's visit, 1934

The Duke of Gloucester in SydneySam Hood