1857 is one of the earliest maps the area. Useful as it includes the iownership of Crown allotments and gives an indication of the natural land formation and vegetation..

James Kearney maps were some of the earliest maps done of Melbourne which include the buildings at the time. In1855 Melbourne is in a early stage of its development.

4 maps identify the key areas of early Melbourne.

1867 Map is a very clear map of early Melbourne transport systems. Since the Sandringham line was not completed until 1959 this map is more in the way of proposed train links.

1890 The Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works has detailed maps of the whole of Melbourne from 2 time periods. The St Kilda area was mapped in the late 1890's with a subsequent update of the same areas in 1940 (not all were updated). They can be accessed on the NLV website and are identified by number. The SKHS plans to download the full set of maps for the St Kilda area with the assistance of the PROV and has a valuable and unique composite map of the St Kilda area which it plans to digitize in the near future (2022)

2021 Annual General Meeting

Image: Screen Shot - each pic linking to the interview

Find out more about the interviewees.

Though looking forward to living with William and his family, Mirka was anguished about leaving Barkly Street and devoted the epilogue in her memoir to it. ‘I felt like a snake leaving its skin in the summer, like the Christmas beetle gripping still a little longer on the tree bark. It is hard to leave a place at any time of your life; it is your memories entassées [accumulated] that you have to leave behind, but they will attach themselves to you’ (90) .She made Richmond her new home until her Alzheimers necessitated her admission to a nursing home nearby to St Kilda, in South Melbourne. She died there at the age of 90 on 27th August 2018. Her death resulted in a huge out pouring of grief from the many whose life she had touch and enriched.. 

Late in 1981, Mirka bought 116 Barkly St, a one storey, single-fronted Victorian terrace built c.1890. She wrote to me: ‘I am in the midst of moving studio so you might know what it means in my case. I wonder if I will move once more before I die...Well back to packing and selling works to get money for [a drawing of a house].  Mirka was delighted to return to St Kilda. She was also thrilled to have the security of her own home which Georges helped her to buy. (St Kilda was, at that time, very affordable.) She’d endured the unpredictability of rental accommodation since leaving the Tolarno.

Mirka didn’t move far from the Tolarno. She rented a shopfront and dwelling at 26 Wellington Street, off St Kilda Junction and about a ten minute walk.  ‘Everybody visits me’, she said. It seemed Mirka was continuing the same open house policy she and Georges had adopted since 9 Collins Street. Fashion designer Jenny Kee and her partner artist Michael Ramsden came to stay, as did journalist Mary Craig and the poet Michael Dransfield. Jean Shrimpton dropped in. But there were rules. Mirka worked solidly from 9am until 2pm, when no visitors were allowed. Then after a bath - ‘I get covered in paint’ - she had lunch, often at a nearby restaurant or cafe, and connected with family and friends. 

If Mirka had led the move to Melbourne, it was Georges’ idea to settle in St Kilda. The Tolarno Bistro and Hotel were ambitious projects for Mirka and Georges, almost too much so, making it a risky financial enterprise. Neither had skill in running a hotel, and extensive renovations had to take place before the restaurant opened in 1964. A further eighteen months went by before the family moved in. The Moras had bought the hotel from St Kilda residents Bill Roth and his wife Renee who had managed the hotel and the large downstairs dining room. Philippe had been joined by brothers William and Tiriel. All had separate rooms. Breakfast and dinner were taken in the bistro at ‘the family table’ and the boys grew up with a refined taste in food. The Moras brought a new sense of style to St Kilda, together with their celebrity clientele, and became well known local identities.