History
Acland Street is named for Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, who owned the schooner Lady of St Kilda between 1834 and 1840. The street was named by James Ross Lawrence, who had been master of the vessel until 1842. Lawrence was the buyer of the first block at the first sale of Crown lands in St. Kilda, which took place on 7 December 1842. The block was bounded by three unmade roads, one of which he named Acland Street after Thomas Acland, who had been his employer until 1840 but who had never been to Port Phillip District. The other two roads became Fitzroy Street and The Esplanade. (A plaque at the junction of Acland and Fitzroy Streets marks the site of the block.),
In the 1930s and 1940s this part of St Kilda was one of the centres of Melbourne's Jewish community, and Acland St featured a number of shops and restaurants catering to the Jewish community. In the 1960s, Balberyszski bookshop moved into the centre and stayed till 1990s. The 1950s Scheherezade cafe was formed and lingered until 2008. However the centre of the Jewish community has slowly moved eastwards to Caulfield and Acland St lost its distinctive Jewish ambience. Some of the few great cake shops still remaining in the street date from that era.
Recently the Australian dollar, rise in shopping online coupled with high rents have been killing the centre, with many shops now vacant.
The junction of Acland St and Barkly St is known as the Village Belle, after the Village Belle Hotel, one of the oldest in Melbourne, which stands on Barkly St at the end of Acland St. Near the junction of Carlisle St and Acland St is Luna Park, one of Australia's best-known amusement parks, which attracts large crowds during the summer. Almost next door is one of Melbourne's oldest theatres, The Palais. Also on Acland St is the St Kilda Army and Navy Club, which has recently been renovated and become a popular gambling venue.
Today Acland St has many restaurants offering a variety of cuisines, including Vietnamese, Indian, Italian and Malaysian. A large McDonalds now stands on the corner of Acland and Carlisle Streets.
Read more about this topic: Acland Street, Melbourne
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)