Starting at the southwest corner of the plaza at Liverpool and Elizabeth Streets, this is Downing Centre, formerly Mark Foy's Piazza Store, dating to 1908.


Prince Albert isn't in a can, he's on the corner of Macquarie Street and conveniently-named Prince Albert Road. Click on the 2nd photo for a closeup of Al the Good.


Prince on the left means queen on the right, so here's the back of Queen Victoria. Archibald Fountain is dead ahead, named after some nobody (newspaper magnate) who paid for it.


Heading west, we have St. James Church on the right dating to 1824 (wow), and the back of the David Jones Department Store (#84-110 Castlereagh Street) dating to 1925 (half as wow).


The King Street Courts are on the northwest corner of Hyde Park. They were there for awhile, but this building dates to 1896, hence Queen Victoria's insignia (VRI = Victoria Regina Imperatrix, Queen of most of the British Empire and Empress of India). That doesn't explain the 1889 (you can see the 18) and 1875 (last photo), since construction only started in 1895.


St. James Station itself is historic (1926, one year after David Jones if you're keeping track.) It was built to serve a grand plan for railway lines radiating in all directions, and instead had its unused centre platforms unceremoniously filled in.


Going back to the top of the park, the 1819 (very wow) Hyde Park Barracks are at the northeast corner. Since they're so early in Australia's history, these barracks also served as a gaol, court, hospital, and kitchen. Most of the people in this gaol went on to found the country.


Moving east, the next building is that of the Registrar-General, commonly known as the Land Titles Office, dating to 1913. At its peak is the UK coat of arms.


Finally, just next to the Land Titles Office, we have St. Mary's Cathedral, completed in 1888. It has points in all the right places, and enough crosses to stave off vampire invasions for a good many years.

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