Editors Note - Many of the business buildings in Tay Street (back in the day) had amazing facades and construction techniques used as well as interesting tenants - I have just listed one below to "wet" your appetite to discover more yourselves.
8-14 Tay Steet - Watson's Building https://www.invercargillcentral.nz/heritage
Watson’s building at 8-14 Tay Street was constructed in 1877 for ironmonger Abram Watson. The two-storey brick shop with Ōreti bluestone foundations had two shops on the ground floor and an apartment above that could be used for accommodation or office space. The eastern shop was occupied by Watson and his ironmongery business, while the western shop was leased out.
One of the first tenants to take up residence in the western shop was hairdresser Edwin Pearl, who expanded his business in 1879 by adding public baths at the rear of the property. The western shop continued to be used as such by various owners until the 1890s when the baths were demolished. Other tenants included fruiterers, drapers, a bootmaker, civil engineers, tea merchants and a ladies’ domestic agency. Watson continued to run his ironmongery business from the eastern shop until he retired in 1891, at which point his son John took over the business and shifted the focus towards plumbing services, which he operated from the rear of the property. Watson’s building continued to be leased out to a variety of commercial tenants throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. The original 1877 façade was updated and brick parapet removed in the 1960s, and the buildings at the rear demolished in the 1990s.