I wish Melbourne would still look like this till today

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 😣

whoever filmed this have no idea that one day more than 20 years later, people will watch this on youtube worlwide. amazing

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.

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! ❤

Fantastic to see no mobile phones even though they existed! People actually looking around at the real world.

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

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!

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.

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 😊

My old man used to take me to the city in the mid 90s when I was a little boy

Mid 90's is still pretty good..

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.

Southbank before it became the tallest skyline in Australia. Incredible.

Loved it then. Whenever visiting Melbourne I'd just spend hours looking at motorcycles on Elizabeth street.

The CBD was an enjoyable place to be back in the day. I loathe going in there now.

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.

I was just turning 17 back then...

Just here for the things were better back then comments.

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

What a city it was...if only we knew what it was going to become only two short decades later.

No suvs. Interesting. In the early 90s we thought cars would get smaller but they got bigger.

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.

Those docks, and those raves... :D What memories.

I wish time travel is real. Who on here wants time travel to be an ultimate reality?

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 😁

Much better than today!

Exactly as I remember - shortly after 1997 I moved to Sydney.

Some good years way before Afghanistan and the twin towers . The future seemed bright and trouble free back then .

I was 3 years old back then. I can’t remember any of this 😂

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!

I remember the Queen Victoria Hospital site looking like that (a vacant block) for years and years until the QV building was built…

1997 wasn't that long ago, but looking at the video seems like it was prehistoric!

I loved Melbourne !!!!! Now I don’t think I would Go back to live there….

Thank you for this video, I spent some Years there,was amasing, that time

Poor bastards. Had no idea of what was coming…

Well done, i enjoyed this

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!

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

Used to spend my lunch hour in the McEwan's back then.

when this city was fun to visit.

Very pretty guitar music on 2:36 👏

2:22 That tram goes right past my front door, along Plenty Rd. 😜

RIP melbourne

I remember the old Gas and Fuel building where Fed Square is now. Already demolished when this was filmed. Stuck out like dogs balls.

Apart from the trams, it looks exactly like Pitt St in Sydney, even including the Sanity Records and Myer. Sydney brought it’s trams back only recently, but they run one street down in George St.

Wish the city was like this today. Now its just a cesspit full of crime.

i remember 90s melbourne was born in 91 but remember vividly of the times going to the city but where fed square is now looked so different lol

Watch closely. Most of those things moving on the streets are called Australian-built cars.

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.

The 90s even though I had a shitty upbringing, and times were difficult then I still miss them.

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.

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 😂

Best times back then

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 👍

Going down to Melbourne Saturday on 15.27 train from traralgon lot has changed now I believe

How easy it was to drive around Melbourne back then compared to now, its a nightmare.

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.

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?

Before everyone was driving ford Rangers and rams in the cbd 😂

before sally capp... what a dream!

No electric scooters no bike lanes nobody holding any electrical devices talking and not looking, how smoothly everything went back then. Nowadays 😢

Back when buskers were talented in Melbourne

Was looking for a bar i worked in cashed The Stork. Remember it?

Thats what you call a City, not the shit its become now.

Petrol still cost 61 cents per liter!

Looks like the princes gate towers demolition was completed by then. It felt like yesterday that the rialto towers were still the tallest in the state and the pride of Melbourne

@4:50 are you standing in the MIDDLE of the intersection at swanston and lonsdale, just panning around with the camera? 🤣🤣

When i saw Sanity i remembered that i forgot how huge they were.

Way better then!!!!

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

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.

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!😭😔🥲

When people drove cars not 4WDs

sanity Elizabeth Street i always want there

Why is it so much busier now, how did that happen?

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.

There is millions of Melbournes in the program

Back then we don’t have the airport train yet. . . . Oh wait…

Way before all the monstrosity towers took over

Look at Southbank, no high-rises at all!

those trams are still in service lol

back when trams just went along the same walking path as the people walking down Bourke street

The quality of recording looks like its from 70s

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.

That motorcyclist is no longer with us .

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 💯 ...!

And now in 2023 we’ve reached parity with the population in the cbd.

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.

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.

And no one suffering from Schizophrenia when you scan the camera past them

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).

Before it became an overcrowded cesspool with no soul. I guess that means I'm racist

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.

Melbourne was a hole back then and Melbourne is a bigger hole now.

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

This is what ethnic replacement looks like in a time graph

No it’s full of Pajeet

It was beautiful back then. What a shithole comparatively it has become.