Hotel Metropole
The Hotel Metropole, with frontages on Young, Bent and Phillip streets, was built by the Australian Coffee Palace Company at a cost of 150,000 pounds and opened on the 14th of January, 1890. At the opening ceremony, Mr McBean, chairman of the company, declared it a splendid establishment and Mayor Burdekin described the architecture, by Hennessy and Sheerin, as magnificent.
Along with mosaic tiled floors in the entrance areas and lavish stained glass windows, the building boasted a roof promenade from which, according to the SMH, guests could take in views from the Heads almost to Parramatta. There were 260 guest rooms, several dining rooms, sumptuous furnishings and electric lighting. This photograph, by Kerry & Co, shows that the hotel was conveniently located next to a city tram route.
The location as it looks today
The Metropole could accommodate more than 300 guests, and its registers recorded some well-known international visitors. Rudyard Kipling spent two nights there during his 1891 trip to Australia. Jack London also stayed there in 1917, later describing the hotel as managed by Barbarians because of the night staff s refusal to provide him with an extra candle by which to write when the light bulb in his room failed.
The Hotel Metropole closed in 1969 and was demolished soon afterwards. Text: