Cathedral Arcade

Cathedral Arcade was classified as a public arcade.

Named 1926.

Located at or near: 33-41 Swanston Street.

Probable or possible origin of name: St">https://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM01315b.htm">St Paul's Cathedral, opposite, corner Swanston & Flinders streets.

Location is approximate.

For more information, see: Bate, W., Broome, R., Davis, N., May, A. J., & Stitt, H. (2024). The story of Melbourne’s lanes: Essential but unplanned (pp. 166, 183). ISBN 978-1-875173-12-9.

"By the end of the 1990s, laneways and small streets had become a key locus for Melbourne's burgeoning bar culture, with Misty (3-5 Hosier Lane, behind the T&G building), Meyers Place (20 Meyers Place, the prototype new-school Melbourne bar, opened in 1994 by Six Degrees Architects in a defunct hair salon), Hell's Kitchen (20 Centre Place), the Gin Palace (Russell Place), Becco (11 Crossley Street, opened 1996), Rue Bebelons (267 Little Lonsdale Street, closed 2013), Hairy Canary (212 Little Collins Street, 1997-2017), Double-O (Sniders Lane), and Troika (106 Little Lonsdale Street) being touted as some of the most popular. "Tiny, hidden, 'secret, and 'intimate' were becoming the catchphrase descriptors of a new culture of reclusive or rooftop venues that signalled Melbourne's late 1990s renaissance. Bennetts Lane, the eponymous jazz club, a catalyst for local performers as well as hosting international acts, opened in a lane off Little Lonsdale Street in 1992 (closed 2017). St Jerome's, opened in 2004 on the site of The Old Swiss Café in Caledonian Lane, and closed 2009, spawned the eponymous St Jerome's Laneway Festival, a concept later expanded to other Australian cities. Similarly, fashion labels such as Alice Euphemia (Cathedral Arcade, Flinders Lane 1997-2014), often run as collectives championing young independent designers, opened retail stores in Melbourne's more discreet arcades and lanes." p. 166. 

"Can Melbourne's lanes continue to be the city's best-kept secret while at the same time being saturated with promotional material? Are the predominant historical narratives around Melbourne's lanes in danger of being fetishised into extinction? Only time will tell, but the historical understanding of their cultural significance that was so clearly articulated in Weston Bate's book will continue to be relevant. In the interim, the 'Arcades and Laneways' Melbourne walk is touted as the 'ultimate way to see Melbourne on foot, with its iconic' features and 'hidden hotspots' including Degraves Street (for street art and brunch), Centre Place ('offbeat shops'), Scott Alley, Cathedral Arcade, Manchester Lane (independent designers'), Block and Royal arcades, Hardware Lane, Warburton Lane, Whitehart Lane (for a cocktail), Rankins Lane, Somerset Place (coffee odyssey'), Driver Lane ('basement bar'), and Postal Lane (lush vertical garden). Meanwhile, off the heavily curated sections of the grid, the more humdrum and mundane of Melbourne's laneways await rediscovery and makeover, just going about their gritty business as they have for over a century and a half." p. 183.