Southern Cross Hotel Southern Cross Hotel

The American-style Southern Cross Hotel was the first luxury hotel in Melbourne to depart from the traditional style of hotels like the Hotel Windsor.

Part of the American Intercontinental Hotels chain (owned by airline Pan-Am), it had vivid interior tiling decor, a 17-second room service response time, a shopping precinct, an American-style Grill Room and Melbourne's first tenpin bowling alley. It famously hosted the Beatles in 1964, but closed in 1995 and was demolished in 2003.

The site of the Southern Cross Hotel, on the corner of Exhibition and Bourke Streets, was once Melbourne's Eastern Market. One of three markets established in Melbourne in the 1840s, it operated from 1847 until 1960 when the site was purchased for the development of the hotel.

The hotel was launched with much fanfare, with the opening event broadcast live on Melbourne television. As the first American-style hotel in town, it attracted celebrity guests including Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Rock Hudson and Marlene Dietrich. But the Southern Cross Hotel is most remembered for the Beatles' visit in 1964 when the street outside was crowded with screaming fans.

The hotel capitalised on the publicity with a newspaper advertisement, slipping in that the room rates were a very reasonable £4.4s ($8.40) a day. It doesn't sound like much, but when you consider that the following year I began my first job on a wage of £10.10s (or 10 guineas) a week, it was probably quite expensive.

Who can forget The Beatles on the balcony in 1964?



Our favourite place to go Ten Pin Bowling, at the Southern Cross Bowling Alley.

There was also a The Southern Cross Hotel in South Melbourne

Great Southern Hotel is located at 44 Spencer Street, Melbourne

❊ Address ❊

 ℅ Naarm
 ⊜  131 Exhibition Street Melbourne 3001 View Map

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❊ Web Links ❊

➼ Southern Cross Hotel 

➼ australianfoodtimeline.com.au






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