Crown Street - Woolloomooloo - Darlinghurst - Surry Hills

Crown Street is a roughly 2.3–2.4 km north–south thoroughfare through Woolloomooloo, East Sydney, Darlinghurst and Surry Hills — from near Sir John Young Crescent south to Cleveland Street. It sits on the sandstone plateau that Dictionary of Sydney writers treat as a spine of Surry Hills topography, between the Woolloomooloo valley and the old Sandhills toward Central, and became one of the main early north–south roads as the Riley and neighbouring estates were subdivided through the mid-nineteenth century.

Along the Surry Hills stretch it’s still a mixed retail and terrace corridor (Crown Street Public School, Surry Hills Library / Community Centre, corner pubs). Two landmarks bookend the story without owning the whole street: the Crown Street Reservoir block (completed 1859, bounded with Reservoir, Riley and Campbell Streets) and the former Crown Street Women’s Hospital at Crown and Albion — founded by Dr James Graham in Hay Street in 1893, moved to Crown Street in 1897, closed 31 March 1983 when maternity services shifted westward (including to Westmead). An electric tram once ran from Oxford Street to Cleveland Street until the late 1950s; traffic one-way patterns south of Campbell Street changed after the Eastern Distributor opened in 1999.

Treat this as a continuous inner-east spine rather than a single building note suburb segment and landmarks where they’re visible.

Zink & Sons Tailors Since 1895 - Oxford Street - Darlinghurst

Some Oxford Street shopfronts come and go with the fashion cycle. G.A. Zink & Sons is the opposite — a Darlinghurst tailoring firm founded in 1895 by German immigrant Gustav Adolph Zink, who first traded at 112 Oxford Street. When the street was widened, City of Sydney auctioned new leasehold shop sites; Zink took 56 Oxford Street and commissioned architect John Dunstan to design a four-storey Federation Arts and Crafts building, erected about 1911–12 by G.T. Brown. The firm has occupied that purpose-built premises ever since.

In 1938 Frank Zink installed a bold Art Deco shopfront and entrance porch by shopfitters H. & E. Sidgreaves — still the signature of the Oxford Street elevation. Mezzanine alterations in the late 1920s had already expanded fitting and cutting space. The GA Zink & Sons Building, including the Art Deco shopfront and significant interiors, is listed on the NSW State Heritage Register. Tailoring continues on the site more than a century after the move to number 56 — one of Oxford Street’s longest-running specialist retailers.

Photographs here show the Oxford Street façade and shopfront detail of the Zink & Sons building.

Zink & Sons Tailors - Oxford Street -  Since 1895

 G. A. Zink & Sons was established in 1895 at 112 Oxford Street by Gustav A. Zink. The purpose-built premises at 56 Oxford Street were built around 1912 on a new block formed by the widening of Oxford Street. The building was later substantially renovated by his son, Frank, with a new shopfront & entrance porch designed by the shop fitting firm of H. & E. Sidgreaves and installed during 1938

 

Flinders Street - Taylor Square To Moore Park  - Darlinghurst - New South Wales 

Flinders Street runs south-east from Taylor Square toward Moore Park / Anzac Parade, forming the Darlinghurst–Surry Hills edge of the old South Head Road junction. Taylor Square itself was created in 1907–08 when widening of Oxford Street demolished corner hotels and the fruit mart at Bourke / Flinders / Oxford; the new civic space was named for Lord Mayor Allen Taylor, champion of early-twentieth-century street widenings. Mortimer Lewis’s Greek Revival Darlinghurst Courthouse (early 1840s) still anchors the sandstone civic presence on the square, with the former gaol complex behind.

Along Flinders Street, large estates such as Melrose (corner Flinders and Albion; demolished 1902) once faced the ridge villas and churches; later terraces, pubs including the Flinders Hotel (South Dowling corner), and tram-era commercial fabric filled the corridor. Further Flinders Street widening (c.1917–19) and, much later, the Eastern Distributor (opened 1999) again remade traffic and erased some corner buildings. The street remains a parade and transport hinge between Oxford Street and the parklands.

Images here walk Flinders Street from Taylor Square toward Moore Park — caption estates, hotels and square views carefully.

“Melrose” - This Magnificent Estate Was On The Cornr Of Flinders Street And Albion Street, & Sat Directly across From St Johns. 

It Was Demolished In 1902

The Back Lane Of “Melrose” On Flinders Street 

Taylor Square 

Wow. Looks like One big roundabout. Really hard I couldn’t make a tonne of them and some of the traffic could go under to the east and some of them could’ve gone down backstreet but that’s neither here nor there now I guess it would’ve wrecked Busbys all of it still runs along Oxford Street to Hyde Park

The Flinders Hotel. 

Corner of Flinders Street and South Dowling Street. Now there is nothing there it’s all been demolished that when they were making the Eastern distributor

Oxford Square – Cnr Riley Street & Oxford Street – Darlinghurst – New South Wales

 

Oxford Square  - Corner Riley & Oxford Street - Darlinghurst  - New South Wales 

Oxford Square is the named junction of Oxford, Riley and Burton Streets in Darlinghurst — on the old South Head Road / Oxford Street high street that climbed from colonial track to one of Sydney’s principal shopping strips by the late nineteenth century. The southwest Oxford–Riley corner was long dominated by Buckingham’s department store (drapery origins with William Buckingham; store presence on this corner from the 1890s; major emporium into the twentieth century). After the business was sold in 1967, the partly emptied building went up in the spectacular Anzac Day fire of 25 April 1968; the cleared site later became a shopping complex still known as Oxford Square / Oxford Village.

Opposite and around the junction, the Oxford Square Group of Victorian and Edwardian buildings — former Family Hotel, former London Bank / ANZ chambers at 52–54 Oxford Street, G. A. Zink & Sons at 56 Oxford Street, SILF Company building — remains a registered heritage streetscape. Those Neo-Classical corner compositions still frame the views into Riley, Burton and Oxford. Nearby Burdekin Hotel (Liverpool & Oxford) marks the western entry to the strip but is a separate landmark.

Photographs here survey surviving façades and the retail setting of the former Buckingham’s corner. Don’t confuse Oxford Square with Taylor Square further east.