Then. Dupont and Christie. Looking west across Christie along Dupont. April 30, 1925. An unspectacular enough "Then" scene — I was fully expecting at least one or both of those bank buildings to have been lost down through the years, or, some sort of '60s glass pavilion replacement. Imagine my surprise...

Now. March 2012.

Here are both bank buildings posing for individual portraits by their proud portrait taker - me - below. I decided to do this instead of the usual same-old-recreated-perspective because: a) Both survived. b) The BOM has a delightful brass plaque of a scale and apparent originality which took my breath away.

Now, while many of you may be saying: stop gushing and let's see the pictures already... I will agree because it is very late as I post these.