Category: The Melbourne Files

The first exhibition at the NGV was a bold choice: strange, cutting edge art from a group of unknown artists. Welcome to ‘The Field’ show.

Melbourne was once the home of the world’s biggest bookstore, home to more than a million books. Welcome to Cole’s Book Arcade.

You can still see the bullet holes from the Trades Hall Robbery in 1915, the remnants of a shootout between bandits and police.

Sailor, artist, businessman and iconoclast, Wilbraham Liardet was one of early Melbourne’s most unique early inhabitants.

The Saint Kilda Solar System stretches for 6 kilometres along Melbourne’s foreshore. It even includes Pluto.

Until the 1960s, Australian pubs used to close at 6pm, and getting a drink after work was a fraught experience. This is, The Six O’Clock Swill.

Overlooking a river in Footscray, in Melbourne’s west, is something unexpected; an ancient Chinese goddess. Meet Mazu, The Heavenly Queen of the Maribyrnong.

The Point Nepean Quarantine Station was many people’s first taste of Melbourne: sick arrivals were once kept in extended quarantine, before entering the city.

In 1984, Elvis Costello came to Melbourne and filmed a music video at Flinders Street Station.