Maps

I don't think this last YouTube clip from Map Men is their most interesting, but I've enjoyed and found many of clips interesting. I do love me a map, and I have rather a lot of them, loose maps, and as here, my street directories, which I think in England are called A to Z. I don't know what they were called in America. In Melbourne we turned the brand name Melways into a generic name. They are a bit of history now, and that's why I keep what I have. Real estate agents added a Melway reference map number and grid reference to their property advertisements. 

Just before Google maps came to the fore, with a new car we were presented a small Melbourne street directory. While not pocket sized, it was small enough to carry in my backpack when I went out. I used it a few times. Very soon, Google maps on my phone made it redundant.

So yes, I have a number of street directories. This is the oldest and it was my grandfather's I guess published in the 1940s. It is brilliant for old tram and train lines that no longer exist, along with lost streets, like the delightfully name Sloss Street that ran along the frontage of what is now the School of the Arts Dame Elizabeth Murdoch Building.

My first Melways, 1978 edition 11.

I the mid 1980s we visited Adelaide and I must have decided I needed a street directory.

The last Melways I bought, edition 39.

Melways stepped into Sydney with its Sydway. I think the dominant directory there was UBD or perhaps Gregory's. 

UBD also produced a Melbourne street directory, this being a reproduction of the 1956 edition with information about the Olympic Games, held here that year. 

This 1934 Gregory's reproduction edition is terrific as it shows Sydney tram system at perhaps its full extent. 

Edition 29 of Melways  I used to mark all of Melbourne's former tram and train lines that existed, along with the tramways in the regional cities of Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat. My step father when he was still alive checked my markings on the Geelong map for accuracy and I had done well. 

This marking shows the old inner city railway line. I walked both the inner city circle and the outer circle railway a decade or so ago and blogged about the walks on my old blog. It's strange that I can't find time for such projects now I am a retired person. 

I stapled notes on paper to explain what the lines on the map to explain what I showed. 

I thought I had a reproduction of the first Melways, 1966 but it seems not. It can be found online here. 

I began thinking about this post last week and it then occurred to me to make a second post with my Atlases, but someone beat me to it with her atlases.