Thanks so much for this footage. I can’t believe some of these commentators complaining about the quality or videography in general… people are so hard to please. I just wanted to say THANK YOU! I was 15 in 1997 & it was a wonderful time to grow up in our city! ❤
When I came to MELBOURNE in 2007, Melbourne was still the same quiet and calm and not many people and we all had Nokia phones / Skype phone in our hands . Ticket prices and food prices were soo cheap. Today all prices are increased due to Heavy rich Chinese people investing and buying 90% of Melbourne 😣
@@ArtVandelayOfficial Some people had them. I wouldn't say many. After all, public phone boxes were still all around. And phone cards for use with public phones were still very much available in '97.
I was 17 back then. Born in Sydney but visited Melbourne from time to time, so I would have walked those streets during that era. It feels like a long time ago, but at the same time only yesterday. What's amazing is I'll likely say the same thing 40 years from now, if I hopefully manage to be around that long. The passage of time can really mess with your head that way. I mostly enjoyed my teenage years, though like most people I wish I could go back and enjoy myself just that little bit more knowing what I know now about myself as a person. Just goes to show that as the past is forever inaccessible, the next best time to start living as your most true and authentic self is the present!
I was in Grade 6 in ‘97 but I still remember this like it was just yesterday. This was the Melbourne I will always remember for the rest of my life. Wonderful memories.
@@DC-Aust well the world is just proving globalisation is nothing but a failure so.. yes I am a racist. Just like the paletinians, Japanese, isralies, chinese, english, south Africans, french, Germans, the Russians. Oh wait, basically everyone on the entire planet. Go read a book or smth more ron
Only the minds have changed. Melbourne used to be so cool, homogeny was anathema. Now it’s a place where everyone must think as one. Boring and dull, derivative and self-congratulatory. Even under the grey sky, all was vibrant, alive. Nothing was assured.
It might just be the film stock or the poor quality medium it was shot on. NO offense to the videographer, but its a bit ordinary visually, and that's partially what gives it its sense of distance.
@@thevannmannIt’s not rose-tinted glasses. It’s objectively shittier now than in the 90s, and it wasn’t that great back then. Note the lack of vehicle blocking bollards out the front of Flinders Street Station, 5:25 . Image that, pedestrians taking it as a given that drivers wouldn’t deliberately try and run over them.
It's a little ironic when you take random video like this and think not that much about it at the time. But, years later you keep thinking back to those times. I remember when I was young and took some random photos from a window overlooking a main street. I got in trouble for wasting film, LOL. Back in the days when you countered how many photos were left on the film ?? Only recently family members were going back through old family photos. And my random waste of film, photos turned up in the pile of photos. Different family members were reminiscing about those days. I couldn't help myself and remind them I got in trouble for taking those photos and now you guys are looking at them dreaming about the past 😁
Yep, you’re right. Ok so we did have problems back then, but the problems back then pale in comparison to what we got today. The world is ruined, just have a look around.
@@garyyoung2061 So say those who lived in the 50's, 60's and 70's about the 90's, lol. It's always the same. Everything was always better before. Most of those people stopped going out into the world at a certain point and just assume it's all garbage now. It was always garbage and it was always glorious and it remains the same today.
@@Secretlyanothername You mustn't live in the Ukraine And regarding Melbourne now, it's a totally ruined by the new wave of immigrants who don't treasure it Selfish mainland Chinese, Indians and Midde Easterns
I still have the CD from the two guitar-playing guys. You notice how clean things were compared to the disgusting mess of today, and with all the homeless people along Swanston St. So sad to see how far our standards have dropped.
Utter nonsense, i was there in 97, its a city, it is as dirty/clean now as it was then, youre just suffering nostalgia, there is zero actual difference and um hobos did exist in the 90s stop the crap.
The current Crown casino had only opened a month before and Jeff's shed the year before, the seeds of redevelopment had been planted along with docklands after the new stadium opened
@@nulinf nah man you must be thinking of another southbank, becuase the one I live in us always busy, the pizza restaurant downstairs is always busy, there's always people at the park, and fuck tons of people at the promenade each night. There is a even a nightclub that seems seems go off 2 days a week on City road.
right before the big H drought came n the 2000's came rolling in n everything sadly went down the shi t hole 😝😜🤪..And sadly just like Sydney 'Melbourne is nothing like this now or am i wrong bc i no sydney isnt anything it was like in the 90's io no that much 💯 ...!
i was a principle dancer and we were working on a show with the Australian Ballet..its like it was yesterday i can still remember the choreography and being in aw of the city then as i am now.
I was 15 and in Year 9 in 1997, it was the sweet spot of my teenage years before the stress of VCE and getting older took over. Life was a lot simpler back then, no social media and before mobile phones got welded to people's hands, and the home grown Commodores and Falcons ruled the roads, McDonalds burgers were bigger and tastier, and there was no Dan Andrews in power either.
Oh, please. Homeless people were always around then and long before then. People conveniently forget them very often sitting on the steps of Flinders St station, sleeping along the banks of the river, etc. They weren't "everywhere", just as they're not "everywhere" today.
It is very sad. I worked at City Toyota on Elizabeth st in 97. So many Aussie built cars we had. All gone. People used to chat on the trains and trams. Now they just stare at their phones. It's become a little sad.
Soutbank is the stand out here and every second car is a falcon or commodore sedan. Although, looks like everyone was buying their car from the wreckers 😂
Melbourne has become a joke. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s going out in the CBD at night was fantastic, it was packed and venues were rocking. How far has this city fallen, when it's now the last place you would go out in because it's dangerous and stinks like piss
i was working on the corner of bourke swanston street at politix rarity mens wear that day sad you didnt get footage of the 3 en statue right at the front would have seen me haha int he shop
@@Secretlyanothername Agree. So many comments idealize the previous decades like the 90s as if Melbourne was so clean and safe compared to today. It's not true. Crime rates were actually higher then than they are now, there was already graffiti and if anyone remembers getting those Hitachi trains in the 90s, they were often covered in graffiti with seats all ripped up and were very unclean. The blocks around Bourke & Russell where all those arcade places were was pretty much an open air heroin market in the 90s, where even as an innocent 15 year old I'd get accosted by drug dealers 2-3 times on the one block, that just doesn't happen anymore. I love looking back with nostalgia at the city I grew up in as a teen in the 90s. I miss the green & gold trams, I miss a lot of the small indie stores that are long gone, some of the live venues and old school pubs that closed up, and some of the grimier elements of the city that have been gentrified too. But we've also gained a much better food & coffee scene, much improved public transport, the air is cleaner (less car exhaust & cigarette smoke), Fed Square is undeniably better than the Gas & Fuel Towers, more of the dead laneways have been activated with cafes & bars, and while parts of the city temporarily look like a construction zone at the moment, once the Metro Tunnel stations open in a couple of years those impacted areas will be so much better too. Times change. You lose some stuff and gain others, but you'll always have people who just want to harp on about "the good old days" and pretend like today's problems never used to exist. Spoiler alert - they did, and some things were worse. Fact is, a place needs to change to adapt with the times - technology, population, changing needs, etc. If Melbourne today looked the same as it did in 1997 it wouldn't be fit for purpose. ...and I bet there were people saying "It's not what it used to be" back in 1997 too.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh gosh I thought this was city until I watched it growing. I was still absorbed by what I found beautiful timeless classic and elegant Melbourne Architecture is rather amazing mix of historical times Gothic is a t its best if you look 😊
a lot has changed. The cars, the fashion, the trams, many shops have closed down and been replaced, many more skyscrapers now, and also the foot traffic has increased probably by 3x
Thats what happens when nobody controls population, it just keeps on growing unchecked, then everyone suddenly panics when price of living goes up as a result of too few resources for the endless new people being produced.
Commenters saying the CBD was wonderful in 1997 are full of 5h1t. Equally, commenters saying the CBD is so much better now are even more full of 5h1t. This video was on a Sunday afternoon in winter, it's far less crowded and quieter than a normal workday so this is not what most workers would remember. But I do agree the things that made the CBD interesting / unique have today given way to endless corporate and half empty student apartment towers, overpriced pretentious cafes, phone shops, and luxury brand shops. Can you believe that in 1997 there was actually a hardware shop on Bourke street (McEwans at 0:39), these days that building contains massage parlors and a failed Chinese signed business. Nothing sums up the change in the CBD and the people that work/live there better. On a side note, this video quality is pretty poor, it makes it look like this might have well been in the 60s/70s. 1997 was not so different from today (mobiles and the web where already huge in 1997).
Back when Melbourne city council actually cared about the City and they did their job. Now they just care about being political and not doing their jobs.
In 1997 I was 14 when this was shot and used to go into the city every weekend, fun seeing all those shops that don't exist anymore like McEwans and Sanity. Brings back memories. Keeping with the Melbourne stereotype too, look how many people are dressed in black!
Sadly, Melbourne has become a hollowed out shell of its former greatness thanks to Dabiel Andrews and Labor turning it into a practice version of the Soviet Union. I haven't been to the City in 5 years. COVID Lockdowns stabbed Melbourne in the heart and its never coming back. What a tragedy.
@@sutherlandA1 Kennett didn't wreck an entire State. Nice try though with your "Whataboutism". No Premier was perfect but Dan Andrews is overtly corrupt and destructive.
@@dmw798John Cain and Joan kirner made Victoria broke so Jeff Kennet had no choice to make councils (municipalities) bigger and cut public oversupply of clerks and sell schools with no population numbers in the classroom. I recall in the years ( of Joan K and John C) the trams were blockading Bourke St and some were so faulty ( due to maintenance strike) they were being pushed by trucks back to the tram depots
Depending on the time of the vid, I probably walked right past on my way to work at the top end of Elizabeth st. Was much quieter back then. Less people. Great seeing conversation on the trams. Now its just heads buried in phones.
This was filmed on a Sunday. In the 90's the CBD was a virtual ghostown on weekends as few lived in the actual CBD. Compare that to now, there is little difference between a weekend or weekday, always busy.
Man i miss these days ..i was always hanging out in the city in the 90s catching up with a friend , walking around the shops, having a meal and enjoying the buskers.. i still remember those guitarists and i purchased their CD that i still have ... we never had any fear of cars bowling us over or anything like they have today. Im so glad i got to experience it
5:23 Is that Melbourne's central train station, or how ever you call it down that way plz?> #Justwondering ..? ps. Melbourne CBD looks like it gets alot more light in it than Sydney's CBD 'well just by going of this n a few other uploads. 'Oh n is that Russell st is it? 'Also wat tower is that one plz my child 13:07 'yes the one your in? please?
13:34 Someone forgot to Change the time for Rome... Seconds later you see it is 5 (must be PM), so if it is 5pm in Melbourne it should be 9am in Rome... Not only that... Rome and London are only one hour apart so it should be 7:55 am and 6:45 in London... (London being one hour behind)... Either way I came to Australia in September of 1999 and this was trip down memory late, so thank you for posting!
Could you please make a video of the Melbourne to wanthaggi railroad because the last time it was in operation I was still inside my mums tummy at the time in 1977 I born two weeks after the railroad shut down for ever! And maybe another one of the Melbourne to lake eldon railroad because both of these places are now rail trails! I was born in the late seventies and that is when both of these railroads shut down for ever!😭😔🥲
I was at the top of the rialto myself in the 90s as a teenager on a school trip, cant remember what specific year but mightve been 95, i wouldnt say melbourne has changed a huge lot, pay phones gone ofcourse, trams all modernised and no federation dump as i call it with its awful design but the rest is much the same.
Atleast you've come up with a somewhat nuanced comment. Reading all these depressing comments from nostalgia-driven NIMBY's on this video is downright depressing.
Yes indeed it does, from memory I think i used a brick of a video camera from the early 80's. Looking back i wished I had taken more video of Melbourne.
Wow Melb before the communist takeover…it will never be the same. The city is lost, the state is lost. I will get out of here one day, would leave now if I didn’t have responsibilities
Watching this now, how times have changed. Aussie cars ruled the roads and not a single homeless person / druggie to be seen. The downfall of Melbourne is now truly complete. Interesting to see how far backwards the city has gone. I was in my mid 20's at this time, the city was so amazing at the time.
The homeless / druggies were there but you did not fall over them every 20 feet. And they were only ever in certain areas. Now the whole city is a shambles, that was my point.
Looks similar to provincel English 🏴 city's of the time yet so near yet so far Not a smart phone zombie In sight utter heaven Reminds me of my younger days great video 👍
It's only moments ago, yet it's still noticeably Melbourne, still good, and NOT the crowded, 'diverse', nightmare which Melbourne has been turned into more recently. In which we're being made a minority.
I moved here as Kiwi about 7 years ago... I had to double take at the sheer numbers of short dark haired people flowing like a river... Only a handful of other 'diversities'... Which makes me wonder about what is so 'diverse' about that? Lovely footage though!
i was born 7 years after this but i still remember taking the old route 78 W classes up and down chapel street. shame they’re just reduced to the city circle but i guess it’s necessary.
![FendiDa Rappa - Clock Dat ft. Shamar Marco [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3NBU8KHdxYY/mqdefault.jpg)
Amazing footage. You did a great job of anticipating where to aim the camera, to predict what we'd want to see 25 years later.
Thanks so much for this footage. I can’t believe some of these commentators complaining about the quality or videography in general… people are so hard to please. I just wanted to say THANK YOU! I was 15 in 1997 & it was a wonderful time to grow up in our city! ❤
No suvs. Interesting. In the early 90s we thought cars would get smaller but they got bigger.
I mean it is the years and billions of dollars on marketing that SUVs are now ubiquitous in the car market nowadays
I wish Melbourne would still look like this till today
I know, it's been utterly destroyed by over development and mass migration nobody asked for. Evil.
Some good years way before Afghanistan and the twin towers .
The future seemed bright and trouble free back then .
Yes the 70's, 80's & 90's were a great time. Now everything has gone pear 🍐 shape ☹️
The future and present have literally never been better.
@@Secretlyanothername lol, no longer the 'lucky country'
@@1greenMitsi nostalgia is a hell of a drug
@@Secretlyanothername you do realise today is the worst era of all time?
When I came to MELBOURNE in 2007, Melbourne was still the same quiet and calm and not many people and we all had Nokia phones / Skype phone in our hands . Ticket prices and food prices were soo cheap. Today all prices are increased due to Heavy rich Chinese people investing and buying 90% of Melbourne 😣
What a time, I was in my late 20s, the best times in Melbourne!! God, I could go back if there was a time capsule. I'd leave skid marks!! Lol
Fantastic to see no mobile phones even though they existed! People actually looking around at the real world.
Many people had them but only for texting and calls ,not obsessing over them taking selfies and glued to social media
I had just purchased an Ericsson GH217. I may have been in the video some where having lunch or walking past as I worked in the area.
@@ArtVandelayOfficial
Some people had them.
I wouldn't say many.
After all, public phone boxes were still all around. And phone cards for use with public phones were still very much available in '97.
Might just park the Magna on Swanston St for an hour and grab a polywaffle and pick up the CDs I ordered a month ago at Sanity.
You mean JB on Elizabeth st? I used to go there like 3 times a week.
whoever filmed this have no idea that one day more than 20 years later, people will watch this on youtube worlwide. amazing
I was 17 back then. Born in Sydney but visited Melbourne from time to time, so I would have walked those streets during that era. It feels like a long time ago, but at the same time only yesterday. What's amazing is I'll likely say the same thing 40 years from now, if I hopefully manage to be around that long. The passage of time can really mess with your head that way. I mostly enjoyed my teenage years, though like most people I wish I could go back and enjoy myself just that little bit more knowing what I know now about myself as a person. Just goes to show that as the past is forever inaccessible, the next best time to start living as your most true and authentic self is the present!
I was in Grade 6 in ‘97 but I still remember this like it was just yesterday. This was the Melbourne I will always remember for the rest of my life. Wonderful memories.
Geez man, you talk like you’re 80 years old.
Before it became an overcrowded cesspool with no soul. I guess that means I'm racist
No, just patriotic and don't want just literally 10,000s of migrants monthly just here to suck the country dry of it's natural wealth...
Well if you think you are...
@@DC-Aust well the world is just proving globalisation is nothing but a failure so.. yes I am a racist. Just like the paletinians, Japanese, isralies, chinese, english, south Africans, french, Germans, the Russians. Oh wait, basically everyone on the entire planet. Go read a book or smth more ron
1997 wasn't that long ago, but looking at the video seems like it was prehistoric!
Wasn't that long ago eh? Yeah ONLY 26 years ago!
Only the minds have changed. Melbourne used to be so cool, homogeny was anathema. Now it’s a place where everyone must think as one. Boring and dull, derivative and self-congratulatory. Even under the grey sky, all was vibrant, alive. Nothing was assured.
It might just be the film stock or the poor quality medium it was shot on.
NO offense to the videographer, but its a bit ordinary visually, and that's partially what gives it its sense of distance.
Read my mind
@@Tester-sh1mn That does NOT count anymore, time's over!
Wow look no vegans gluing themselves to the tram tracks
The CBD was an enjoyable place to be back in the day. I loathe going in there now.
But it's "progressive" 😄
Yeah watching this really took me back
I used to go to the CBD daily and it did seem simpler and more beautiful
@@ArtVandelayOfficial It's called rose-tinted glasses
@@thevannmann Are you seriously trying to say it's not different now and worse?
You're either trolling or in denial
@@thevannmannIt’s not rose-tinted glasses. It’s objectively shittier now than in the 90s, and it wasn’t that great back then. Note the lack of vehicle blocking bollards out the front of Flinders Street Station, 5:25 . Image that, pedestrians taking it as a given that drivers wouldn’t deliberately try and run over them.
My old man used to take me to the city in the mid 90s when I was a little boy
It's a little ironic when you take random video like this and think not that much about it at the time.
But, years later you keep thinking back to those times.
I remember when I was young and took some random photos from a window overlooking a main street.
I got in trouble for wasting film, LOL.
Back in the days when you countered how many photos were left on the film ??
Only recently family members were going back through old family photos.
And my random waste of film, photos turned up in the pile of photos.
Different family members were reminiscing about those days.
I couldn't help myself and remind them I got in trouble for taking those photos and now you guys are looking at them dreaming about the past 😁
Yes so true and i wish I had taken more videos around that time.
Way before all the monstrosity towers took over
Before the Immigration Dept destroyed it. A once beautiful city gone forever.
Just here for the things were better back then comments.
Yep, you’re right. Ok so we did have problems back then, but the problems back then pale in comparison to what we got today. The world is ruined, just have a look around.
@@garyyoung2061 The world is magic right now.
@@garyyoung2061 So say those who lived in the 50's, 60's and 70's about the 90's, lol. It's always the same. Everything was always better before. Most of those people stopped going out into the world at a certain point and just assume it's all garbage now. It was always garbage and it was always glorious and it remains the same today.
@@Secretlyanothername You mustn't live in the Ukraine
And regarding Melbourne now, it's a totally ruined by the new wave of immigrants who don't treasure it
Selfish mainland Chinese, Indians and Midde Easterns
I was 19. Melbourne was pretty good back then, but it’s a LOT better now. Unless you want to buy a house, in which case it was a LOT better back then.
When people drove cars not 4WDs
… most SUVs are 2WD. 😅
I’m truly not interested in semantics.
@@latenightlogic or are you just a loser who can’t stand correction?
I still have the CD from the two guitar-playing guys. You notice how clean things were compared to the disgusting mess of today, and with all the homeless people along Swanston St. So sad to see how far our standards have dropped.
agreed, we should build more housing
Utter nonsense, i was there in 97, its a city, it is as dirty/clean now as it was then, youre just suffering nostalgia, there is zero actual difference and um hobos did exist in the 90s stop the crap.
Bonacci and wood I think it was. My dad has the CD. I was with him around this time when he bought it.
I remember the old Gas and Fuel building where Fed Square is now. Already demolished when this was filmed. Stuck out like dogs balls.
I wish time travel is real. Who on here wants time travel to be an ultimate reality?
@@lachlan1245 Daimaru was wonderful. I still miss it.
Southbank before it became the tallest skyline in Australia. Incredible.
The current Crown casino had only opened a month before and Jeff's shed the year before, the seeds of redevelopment had been planted along with docklands after the new stadium opened
@@nulinf nah man you must be thinking of another southbank, becuase the one I live in us always busy, the pizza restaurant downstairs is always busy, there's always people at the park, and fuck tons of people at the promenade each night. There is a even a nightclub that seems seems go off 2 days a week on City road.
@@mickanvonfootscraymarket5520 yeah, I was thinking of Docklands my bad
@@nulinf that I agree on
right before the big H drought came n the 2000's came rolling in n everything sadly went down the shi t hole 😝😜🤪..And sadly just like Sydney 'Melbourne is nothing like this now or am i wrong bc i no sydney isnt anything it was like in the 90's io no that much 💯 ...!
Wish the city was like this today. Now its just a cesspit full of crime.
It was bad back then too. It's gotten much worse now.
@@Jaydenloa2003 Yes it has. It has gotten much worse and so has most other cities in Australia.
What a city it was...if only we knew what it was going to become only two short decades later.
yes, if only we knew how much better it was going to become
@@mattcowgill No. How much it's going to be ruined! Overbuilt, overcrowded, with MASSIVE numbers of non-White foreigners being brought in!
@@mattcowgill You must ride a pushbike, yeah?
@@mattcowgill how is it better today?
@@dallasr8555 he's trolling for sure
Poor bastards. Had no idea of what was coming…
Yep tyranny, and war on freedoms of Australians.
I was just turning 17 back then...
I remember the Queen Victoria Hospital site looking like that (a vacant block) for years and years until the QV building was built…
i was a principle dancer and we were working on a show with the Australian Ballet..its like it was yesterday i can still remember the choreography and being in aw of the city then as i am now.
I was 15 and in Year 9 in 1997, it was the sweet spot of my teenage years before the stress of VCE and getting older took over. Life was a lot simpler back then, no social media and before mobile phones got welded to people's hands, and the home grown Commodores and Falcons ruled the roads, McDonalds burgers were bigger and tastier, and there was no Dan Andrews in power either.
No Dan Andrews was the biggest advantage
Don't know about Mac Donald's burgers being bigger and tastier🥴🤔😀
Before everyone was driving ford Rangers and rams in the cbd 😂
Used to spend my lunch hour in the McEwan's back then.
Mid 90's is still pretty good..
Much better than today!
Yes cant see all the homeless people everywhere
@@mrbrown7224 really? Never noticed many homeless people at all. I guess I think of homeless people like in San Fran...
Oh, please. Homeless people were always around then and long before then.
People conveniently forget them very often sitting on the steps of Flinders St station, sleeping along the banks of the river, etc.
They weren't "everywhere", just as they're not "everywhere" today.
Watch closely. Most of those things moving on the streets are called Australian-built cars.
It is very sad. I worked at City Toyota on Elizabeth st in 97. So many Aussie built cars we had. All gone. People used to chat on the trains and trams. Now they just stare at their phones. It's become a little sad.
They may have been put together on an assembly line in Australia.
Yet, the vast majority of the parts were still made and imported from overseas.
@@mebeme007 FG Falcons were 90% Australian components. Transmission and tyres were about the only imported parts.
@@rustysworldofentertainment850
And they weren't around in '97.
@@mebeme007 No, but the XH ute and EL and AU Falcons were, and they were also 90% Australian.
Back when buskers were talented in Melbourne
Soutbank is the stand out here and every second car is a falcon or commodore sedan. Although, looks like everyone was buying their car from the wreckers 😂
DUAL CABS...
Melbourne has become a joke. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s going out in the CBD at night was fantastic, it was packed and venues were rocking. How far has this city fallen, when it's now the last place you would go out in because it's dangerous and stinks like piss
It was beautiful back then. What a shithole comparatively it has become.
i was working on the corner of bourke swanston street at politix rarity mens wear that day sad you didnt get footage of the 3 en statue right at the front would have seen me haha int he shop
Loved it then. Whenever visiting Melbourne I'd just spend hours looking at motorcycles on Elizabeth street.
That was my favourite too, all gone.
A LOT LESS INDIANS AFRICANS AND MOSQUES :)
Contrast the level of vandalism (i.e graffiti) that's rampant in Melbourne CBD today ....
Are you kidding me? Graffiti was wild in the years before the 2006 Games when they scrubbed the city up. Zoomers won't ever know what that was like.
@@Secretlyanothername Agree. So many comments idealize the previous decades like the 90s as if Melbourne was so clean and safe compared to today. It's not true. Crime rates were actually higher then than they are now, there was already graffiti and if anyone remembers getting those Hitachi trains in the 90s, they were often covered in graffiti with seats all ripped up and were very unclean. The blocks around Bourke & Russell where all those arcade places were was pretty much an open air heroin market in the 90s, where even as an innocent 15 year old I'd get accosted by drug dealers 2-3 times on the one block, that just doesn't happen anymore.
I love looking back with nostalgia at the city I grew up in as a teen in the 90s. I miss the green & gold trams, I miss a lot of the small indie stores that are long gone, some of the live venues and old school pubs that closed up, and some of the grimier elements of the city that have been gentrified too. But we've also gained a much better food & coffee scene, much improved public transport, the air is cleaner (less car exhaust & cigarette smoke), Fed Square is undeniably better than the Gas & Fuel Towers, more of the dead laneways have been activated with cafes & bars, and while parts of the city temporarily look like a construction zone at the moment, once the Metro Tunnel stations open in a couple of years those impacted areas will be so much better too.
Times change. You lose some stuff and gain others, but you'll always have people who just want to harp on about "the good old days" and pretend like today's problems never used to exist. Spoiler alert - they did, and some things were worse. Fact is, a place needs to change to adapt with the times - technology, population, changing needs, etc. If Melbourne today looked the same as it did in 1997 it wouldn't be fit for purpose.
...and I bet there were people saying "It's not what it used to be" back in 1997 too.
Mate, Melbourne in the 90's was arguably a lot worst than what it is now.
Exactly as I remember - shortly after 1997 I moved to Sydney.
The city before it was ruined by Greens and cyclists 😂
Wow a long time ago 1997 Melbourne it was a lifeline ago I was young with hair and no grey I'm 52 nowadays in 2024
Those docks, and those raves... :D What memories.
Peak years. 😀
Nostalgia, what a great place it was. Its quite a different vibe now.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh gosh
I thought this was city until I watched it growing.
I was still absorbed by what I found beautiful timeless classic and elegant
Melbourne Architecture is rather amazing mix of historical times
Gothic is a t its best if you look 😊
a lot has changed. The cars, the fashion, the trams, many shops have closed down and been replaced, many more skyscrapers now, and also the foot traffic has increased probably by 3x
the "population".
Thats what happens when nobody controls population, it just keeps on growing unchecked, then everyone suddenly panics when price of living goes up as a result of too few resources for the endless new people being produced.
@@johnb1150 It's not "growing"; per se, it's not "new people being produced". It's the government bringing in hordes of foreigners.
resembles a blend of shanghai and dehli now.
So many people looking up and not down at their phones, and no homeless assholes in every fn doorway or lying down on the footpath.
RIP melbourne
Yep... Headstone reads, Here lies a great city once!
It's still great, even better imo
Commenters saying the CBD was wonderful in 1997 are full of 5h1t. Equally, commenters saying the CBD is so much better now are even more full of 5h1t. This video was on a Sunday afternoon in winter, it's far less crowded and quieter than a normal workday so this is not what most workers would remember. But I do agree the things that made the CBD interesting / unique have today given way to endless corporate and half empty student apartment towers, overpriced pretentious cafes, phone shops, and luxury brand shops. Can you believe that in 1997 there was actually a hardware shop on Bourke street (McEwans at 0:39), these days that building contains massage parlors and a failed Chinese signed business. Nothing sums up the change in the CBD and the people that work/live there better.
On a side note, this video quality is pretty poor, it makes it look like this might have well been in the 60s/70s. 1997 was not so different from today (mobiles and the web where already huge in 1997).
The CBD was better in ’87 than ‘97…but it was still worlds apart from today.
Back when Melbourne city council actually cared about the City and they did their job. Now they just care about being political and not doing their jobs.
So true
Look at Southbank, no high-rises at all!
In 1997 I was 14 when this was shot and used to go into the city every weekend, fun seeing all those shops that don't exist anymore like McEwans and Sanity. Brings back memories. Keeping with the Melbourne stereotype too, look how many people are dressed in black!
Well done, i enjoyed this
Sadly, Melbourne has become a hollowed out shell of its former greatness thanks to Dabiel Andrews and Labor turning it into a practice version of the Soviet Union. I haven't been to the City in 5 years. COVID Lockdowns stabbed Melbourne in the heart and its never coming back. What a tragedy.
Remember in 1997 Jeff Kennet was going at regional Victoria with a wrecking ball so nostalgia isn't what it's cracked up to be
@@sutherlandA1 Kennett didn't wreck an entire State. Nice try though with your "Whataboutism". No Premier was perfect but Dan Andrews is overtly corrupt and destructive.
@@sutherlandA1and closing down schools like there was no tomorrow.
@@dmw798John Cain and Joan kirner made Victoria broke so Jeff Kennet had no choice to make councils (municipalities) bigger and cut public oversupply of clerks and sell schools with no population numbers in the classroom. I recall in the years ( of Joan K and John C) the trams were blockading Bourke St and some were so faulty ( due to maintenance strike) they were being pushed by trucks back to the tram depots
Thats what you call a City, not the shit its become now.
Depending on the time of the vid, I probably walked right past on my way to work at the top end of Elizabeth st. Was much quieter back then. Less people. Great seeing conversation on the trams. Now its just heads buried in phones.
How easy it was to drive around Melbourne back then compared to now, its a nightmare.
Was thinking the same thing, how much space you had around you driving on the roads unlike now.
I find it really sad that people would prefer a CBD that's tailored to cars over one that's better for pedestrians, bikes and PT
This was filmed on a Sunday. In the 90's the CBD was a virtual ghostown on weekends as few lived in the actual CBD. Compare that to now, there is little difference between a weekend or weekday, always busy.
Petrol still cost 61 cents per liter!
When i saw Sanity i remembered that i forgot how huge they were.
And brashes
Man i miss these days ..i was always hanging out in the city in the 90s catching up with a friend , walking around the shops, having a meal and enjoying the buskers.. i still remember those guitarists and i purchased their CD that i still have ... we never had any fear of cars bowling us over or anything like they have today. Im so glad i got to experience it
5:23 Is that Melbourne's central train station, or how ever you call it down that way plz?> #Justwondering ..? ps. Melbourne CBD looks like it gets alot more light in it than Sydney's CBD 'well just by going of this n a few other uploads. 'Oh n is that Russell st is it? 'Also wat tower is that one plz my child 13:07 'yes the one your in? please?
I loved Melbourne !!!!! Now I don’t think I would
Go back to live there….
I was 3 years old back then. I can’t remember any of this 😂
Going down to Melbourne Saturday on 15.27 train from traralgon lot has changed now I believe
Oh good, a place I know! Those New York ones are so overdone, it's nice to see something I have a little bit of connection to.
13:34 Someone forgot to Change the time for Rome... Seconds later you see it is 5 (must be PM), so if it is 5pm in Melbourne it should be 9am in Rome...
Not only that... Rome and London are only one hour apart so it should be 7:55 am and 6:45 in London... (London being one hour behind)...
Either way I came to Australia in September of 1999 and this was trip down memory late, so thank you for posting!
Could you please make a video of the Melbourne to wanthaggi railroad because the last time it was in operation I was still inside my mums tummy at the time in 1977 I born two weeks after the railroad shut down for ever! And maybe another one of the Melbourne to lake eldon railroad because both of these places are now rail trails! I was born in the late seventies and that is when both of these railroads shut down for ever!😭😔🥲
it's interesting to see how jaywalking was way more common back then.
that's not a complaint, just an observation
Very pretty guitar music on 2:36 👏
Today it's like a dystopian city they show in movies that glorify China.
I was at the top of the rialto myself in the 90s as a teenager on a school trip, cant remember what specific year but mightve been 95, i wouldnt say melbourne has changed a huge lot, pay phones gone ofcourse, trams all modernised and no federation dump as i call it with its awful design but the rest is much the same.
Atleast you've come up with a somewhat nuanced comment. Reading all these depressing comments from nostalgia-driven NIMBY's on this video is downright depressing.
And no one suffering from Schizophrenia when you scan the camera past them
Wow, the traffic flows so well. So much nicer back then.
Melbourne had its peak mid 80's.
I hate the horse a carriage in Melbourne yucky it's so bad
And in 13 year's time, wokeness hit the town and look at it now...
The quality of recording looks like its from 70s
Yes indeed it does, from memory I think i used a brick of a video camera from the early 80's. Looking back i wished I had taken more video of Melbourne.
Digital camera was still very pricey in 1997, let alone video camera. Being able to afford one back then was a blessing.
Nowadays it looks like downtown Shanghai or Mumbai. And it’s only getting worse.
Yep ... so many !!
when this city was fun to visit.
It still is, if one's not a miserable fuddy duddy.
Wow Melb before the communist takeover…it will never be the same. The city is lost, the state is lost. I will get out of here one day, would leave now if I didn’t have responsibilities
No electric scooters no bike lanes nobody holding any electrical devices talking and not looking, how smoothly everything went back then. Nowadays 😢
Why is it so much busier now, how did that happen?
Pretty simple, population growth, immigration
Immigration. Same reason housing prices have gone up.
Watching this now, how times have changed. Aussie cars ruled the roads and not a single homeless person / druggie to be seen. The downfall of Melbourne is now truly complete. Interesting to see how far backwards the city has gone. I was in my mid 20's at this time, the city was so amazing at the time.
First time I visited Melbourne was 1997 and there were syringes in the gutters so I think this film doesn't tell the whole story.
There were homeless people back then. They just were not very common and were not everywhere like they are now.
Lol, i was in my 3rd year at Melbourne uni in 1997, plenty of homeless and druggies back then, record heroin overdoses in the 90s if you recall.
No druggies or homeless ha that’s rubbish mate
The homeless / druggies were there but you did not fall over them every 20 feet. And they were only ever in certain areas. Now the whole city is a shambles, that was my point.
Looks similar to provincel English 🏴 city's of the time yet so near yet so far
Not a smart phone zombie
In sight utter heaven
Reminds me of my younger days great video 👍
before sally capp... what a dream!
There is millions of Melbournes in the program
It's only moments ago, yet it's still noticeably Melbourne, still good, and NOT the crowded, 'diverse', nightmare which Melbourne has been turned into more recently. In which we're being made a minority.
I moved here as Kiwi about 7 years ago... I had to double take at the sheer numbers of short dark haired people flowing like a river... Only a handful of other 'diversities'... Which makes me wonder about what is so 'diverse' about that? Lovely footage though!
Wow
The 90s even though I had a shitty upbringing, and times were difficult then I still miss them.
The last few years of the glory years. Now Melbourne is crap. Glad I left.
No it’s full of Pajeet
i was born 7 years after this but i still remember taking the old route 78 W classes up and down chapel street. shame they’re just reduced to the city circle but i guess it’s necessary.