Cliff Young celebrity print 1983

Summary

This concrete handprint was formerly located as a part of the iconic McEwans celebrity pavement. Between 1972 and 1994, scores of celebrities had their handprints and footprints immortalised in cement at the entrance to the McEwans hardware store on Bourke Street. The City of Melbourne Art and Heritage Collection acquired a number of these impressed concrete slabs from the original celebrity pavement in 2005.

"Cliff Young (1922-2003), a 61-year-old farmhand from the Otways, had just won the inaugural Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon. He refused the $10,000 prize money, instead splitting it among his five competitors. In a unique shuffling style, Young ran the distance in five days, fifteen hours and four minutes, besting, by nearly two days, the previous record for a run between Sydney and Melbourne." - Robyn Annear, 2023