Today I went to the dentist, the final instalment on a long root canal/save at least a little bit of a dead tooth foray, it was fine. On the way out I walked through to Ridgway Place and noticed the above, which I suppose slightly intrigued me, I don't know why, I mean obviously people with names once ran businesses in streets like Ridgway Place and indeed still do.
I bet that in the Melbourne of the mid-20th century a person working in footwear with the name Barfoot probably raised a lot of laughs.
I looked him up in the newspapers and was interested to see that in 1947 he was at 29 Little Collins and then in 1967 he had moved around the corner but on the same block, to 22 Ridgway. The below ad is from 10 May 1967 (p. 36). I don't know I guess he lived there too?
This actual house, the only one I think in Ridgway, is 20 and the place to its left is 22, obviously not the same building that was there in 1967, but it might have been similar. I wonder.
In other news the building where my dentist is, the Coates Building, is in a bit of a state butand I also noticed this, which I like:
The PMG was rebranded Telecom in mid-1975, so this door has sat there with this designation on it for just over half a century now, apparently unchallenged. Kudos.
