Town Hall Tuesday

The City of Port Melbourne was absorbed into the City of Port Phillip in the 1990s. With a huge number of wharf worker local citizens, it was very much a left wing Labor dominated council. Wharf workers were once treated in the most appalling manner in the early to mid 20th century until they unionised, and some may think they subsequently went too far with pay and working conditions. City of Port Melbourne included working wharves, houses built by banks for subsidised sale to people and some public housing. You now have to be relatively rich to live there if you are not in public housing. There are highrise buildings along the seafront where a friend lives.

While there was a cable tram along its main road, Bay Street, the cable tram was not replaced by electric trams but buses. As is still the case, cable tram routes replaced by buses have quite good services. I would have to go in to town by tram and catch a bus out to see the town hall, which would be fine, but in this case we were in Port Melbourne in the car and I stopped to take photos.

A train used to run to Port Melbourne and onto both Station Pier and Princes Pier but in the 1980s it was changed to become the 109 tram, ok light rail system. In spite of route 109 having reasonably large trams, it becomes overcrowded, especially in the cruise ship season, to the point where there is a 109 bus running when cruise ships are in port. I wonder if people using the 109 bus have to pay? We were not happy recently having out route 58 tram delayed by the 109 bus using tram tracks in Queensbridge Street and loading people through the single front door at the casino.

The town hall was built in 1883 and is now used as a local library, for community events and private functions. It looks solid and dependable, without too much ostentation.

Next week will be South Melbourne Town Hall, still in the City of Port Phillip and I confess to not taking much notice, and I found something included that I have never seen in Australia but I have in England. Any British person care to guess, or local even?