the building complex which johnson designed for the metropolitan meat market company was an ambitious one, which it was proposed to complete in stages. the initial contract work, completed between september 1879 and december 1880, was to include the market hall itself for a length of thirteen bays from courtney street, with two additional bays projecting to the north; the offices fronting courtney street; and the hotel fronting both blackwood and courtney streets but extending along blackwood street only so far north as it does at present, not up to the entrance gate.