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    Warehouse. 23-31 Niagera [i.e. Niagara] Lane Off Little Bourke St, 23 March 1981, by John T. Collins, courtesy of State Library of Victoria.
    Details

Niagara Lane

Niagara Lane connects Little Bourke to Lonsdale streets between Queen and Elizabeth streets. The lane was previously known as Millers Lane. In 1856, the Niagara Hotel was located in Niagara Lane. The hotel was named after the boat on which the owners of the establishment had arrived in Melbourne. In 1891, the lane was home to many residents as well as importers and merchants, dining rooms, confectioners and plumbers and gasfitters.

Weston Bate asserts that Niagara Lane boasted 'the gem of all the lanes', four three-storey buildings built for Henry Marks in 1887. The buildings were sold in 1923 for £12 000. Bate believes these buildings represented 'the pride and success of the nineteenth-century commercial city'. In 1993 they were converted into apartments.

Patricia Mcmullan

References
Sands & McDougall's commercial and general Melbourne directory, Sands & McDougall, Melbourne, 1888. Details
Sands & McDougall's commercial and general Melbourne directory, Sands & McDougall, Melbourne, 1891. Details
'Central Melbourne: Lanes N-R', in Amendment C105 - CBD Laneways Review, City of Melbourne, 2007, http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/info.cfm?top=195&pg=3065&bp=1902&coll=8. Details
Bate, Weston, Essential but unplanned: The story of Melbourne's lanes, State Library of Victoria and the City of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1994. Details