Their passing indicates… the demolition of a building that was once looked upon as a comparative skyscraper in the locality.

(Letter dated May 1939 SLV/WW, 65/2) 39/5 Liquor signs that twinkled from the wall of a city building at travellers journeying across Princes Bridge along Swanston Street will be seen no more. (Sun, 9/1/32) 39/5 WW tendered for demolition (£300) of ‘the buildings known as “Alexanders”’ tender accepted. (Herald, 1/1/32) 32/1 Then came… Monahan’s building in Swanston Street, where the Nicholas building now stands, and hundreds of others in various parts of Melbourne. 3) 32/1 Mr Whelan said that the demolition work on the site of the Nicholas Building was a bigger feat than for his team. Because of the high cost of steel in Melbourne, reinforced concrete has been employed from the third floor, where the column thickens to 3ft.

The present building, constructed in steel framing to the third floor, has columns of 2.5in base, with little or no wall between them. 146-7) 1930 Monahan’s Building, which stood on the site of Nicholas Building, had base walls six feet in thickness. (Argus, 10/3/25, p.9) 1926 Buildings of the 1920s include Nicholas Building in Swanston Street (1926) by Harry Norris… (Wilson & Sands, Building a City, pp. ALEXANDER’S/NICHOLAS BUILDINGS 25/3 Pic Demolishing Monahan’s Buildings Humorously referred to by their employer as ‘Whelan’s Birds,’ the men who are now engaged in demolishing Monahan’s Buildings, Swanston street, seem to have no ‘nerves’, but fearlessly pick the bricks from under their feet, four stories above the pavement.

Bearbrass by Robyn Annear