Category: The Melbourne Files

In 1976 Willi Koeppen, a Melbourne celebrity chef and owner of ‘The Cuckoo’, disappears without a trace. The case has never been solved.

Salvatore, the Yarra Seal, is currently frolicking around the river in Richmond and Abbotsford. He has been visiting, on and off, for 7 years.

In 2003, a world famous musician played a secret gig at a small Melbourne night club. This is Prince at Bennetts Lane.

For 70 years, Wirth’s Circus stood where the Arts Centre is now, and was one of Melbourne’s top attractions. It was destroyed by fire in 1953.

In 1911, an American philanthropist gifted a library to Melbourne. Northcote’s ‘Carnegie Library’ still stands on High Street, and is now used as council offices.

The Degraves Street Subway is a thirty metre underpass, providing an underground entrance to Flinders Street Station. It has a long, and varied, history.

From upmarket apartments, to a low budget boarding house, and back again: this is the story of The Gatwick Hotel.

In October 1938, a plane crash on Mount Dandenong became Australia’s first major air disaster. The aftermath would change aviation in this country.

The Bendigo Street Studio has a long history: it was a piano maker’s, a Heinz factory, and the most famous TV location in Australian history. 

Bayside Williamstown is one of Melbourne’s oldest suburbs. Until the 1940s, it was home to one of the city’s most popular racetracks.