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If you peer into the mist, you may even see
Mighty Apollo - legs braced, a grim look on his
film star visage, pulling a tram up Bourke Street.
However, you may strain the imagination to see
the Bustler from Brooklyn, Eddie Leonski, doing
handstands outside the Royal Mail.

But if you are shopping one morning in Love &
Pollards, or Paynes Bon Marche, keep an eye
open for a small schoolboy, wearing a neat blue
school uniform (with short pants) polished shoes
and a school cap - his eyes darting around like a
rat in a cheese factory and you would have seen
Squizzy, for that was one of that lovely fellow's
disguises!

Or perhaps one evening you and the current baby
doll may be living it up in a night spot and
lingering over a Harvey Wallbanger or a Tequila
Sunrise and the door opens and in sashays a sexy
looking brunette, cloche chapeau, 4-inch high
heels and form fitting black mini and you say to
yourself, "Is it?", "Would it be?", "How could it
be?" - surely that's not Squizzy out on his nightly
jaunt from the Bijou Theatre catacombs - but
could I be wrong.

Didn't Squizzy and "Snowy" Cutmore have a
shootout in Barkly Street, Carlton in 1927 - and
they both died! So what did I see - was it a ghost
or just too much Jack Daniels? Then again, the
old timers say there are curious happenings
around here at night. Yeah Baby - that's what
we've seen "A GHOST" - Let's have one for the
road and get out of here, for I've got the shivers.
This Bourke Street at night is full of ghosts of
Melbourne Opera House (later the Tivoli) c. 1901
the past!
In the 1890s, a gruesome murder story was on the book stands - "The
Mystery of the Hansom Cab" - an extremely gory tale, so when the cheeky But patience girls and boys. I wonder what will occur in dear old Bourke
kids passed a hansom cab and its driver they'd yell out, "How many Street after the Year 2000 - who knows, maybe another "Man outside
throats have you cut today?" As they say, it wasn't all beer and skittles Hoyts" will surface or, if you are lucky, maybe another Squizzy - now
being a Hansom Cab pilot perched up so high. wouldn't THAT be top-ho? ★

In 1935, at Hoyts De Luxe, handsome Dick Powell was appearing in a
film Thanks a Million with Ann Dvorak. While all the female dollies Images: CATHS Archive
were in the flicks enjoying the movie, a pair of villains crept into the
Manager's office and decamped with the: takings and, as the papers of
the day made mention, possibly the rascals did indeed say "Thanks a
Million".
On a cold blustery day in June 1964, the Beatles hit Melbourne and you
can pencil this one into your memory. From that day on everything
changed, everything! ! The Beatles were booked into the Southern Cross
Hotel - the flashiest pub we had up till then - built on the site of the
Eastern Market and there were thousands of young girls and boys and
teenagers who stood in the gale and yelled and yelled until the Beatles
came out on the balcony and waved to them for an hour or so. Girls were
fainting and were taken into the Southern Cross to recover and maybe
get to meet their idols! The police called on Army and Naval personnel
to help control the emotional crowd. If you never saw the scenes on TV,
you missed one of Bourke Street's highlights of the century.
As we strut along to the Year 2000 and whatever may be around the
corner, all the old Ghosts of that exciting artery of our city will all be
along there with the rest of us. If you keep your eyes peeled and you are
a "Believer" (Golly, you've got to be a Believer), you may see Archbishop
Mannix sitting up the top of Bourke in his open Daimler - the Chorus
Girls from the Tivoli baring those shapely ankles and you're certain to
see the Man Outside Hoyts extolling one and all to step inside and see
the world's best movie. If you're lucky, you'll see Chief Little Wolf in his
war bonnet of eagle feathers doing a Navaho war dance outside Buckley
and Nunns during a lunch hour in August 1937.

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