Category: The Melbourne Files

The corner of Swanston and Bourke Streets used to be dominated by a giant Santa, and a fondly remembered department store. This is Foy’s Rooftop Funpark.

In The Great Melbourne Flood of ’72, a violent storm front buried the CBD under a surging torrent of water.

March, 1918: Alick Wickham, AKA: ‘Prince Wikyama’, completes a world record high dive in Yarra Bend Park in front of 60 000 people.

Australia’s first movie screening came courtesy of a vagabond English magician, and a local promoter looking for a get rich quick scheme.

The Keith Haring mural in Collingwood is the remarkable legacy of the artist’s visit to Melbourne in 1984. It has faded, been restored, part of it was even stolen.

Just south of the city, St Kilda is one of Melbourne’s most popular suburbs. The origin of its name is a mystery. Who was ‘Saint’ Kilda?

Sitting directly below the Westgate Bridge, in the middle of Westgate Park, in Melbourne’s industrial heartland, is something totally unexpected; a vibrant, electric pink lake. …

Federation Square is one of Melbourne’s most significant landmarks. Built in the 1990’s, the site has a colourful history, stretching back to the city’s earliest days.

Melbourne’s National Gallery Victoria (NGV) has one of the best public art collections in the southern hemisphere. In 1986, it lost ‘The Weeping Woman’ by Pablo Picasso.

April 1966: the ‘Westall UFO’ suddenly appears in the sky over the suburbs of Melbourne. Was it a weather balloon, an experimental plane, or… something else?