SATURDAY BREAKFAST #26: MILITARY ROAD, AVONDALE HEIGHTS

Visited 10 September, 2011

During the Second World War my father worked at the Maribyrnong munitions works.  I make this bare bones statement with absolutely no way of fleshing out the story.  He never spoke of it; he never provided the context; I never asked; he died at age 45, when I was 20 and unaware of the importance of such things; and now there’s nobody left who might be able to elaborate.

My father, Gordon, was born at Korong Vale in central Victoria.  I presume that my Grandma Andrews (nee Laity) had gone there for the confinement, to be with her own mother.  My grandparents were farmers near Chinkapook, in the Mallee region of Victoria, about 100 miles to the northwest of Korong Vale, and 250 miles (420 kilometres) from Melbourne.   Gordon was a farmer’s son, and doubtless when young had worked on the farm, and – again I’m guessing – had the expectation of becoming a farmer too.  I know little of his schooling.  I’m pretty sure he went to the tiny Eureka school about a mile from the Andrews home.  The one-classroom schools of the time were creatures of the numbers of school-age children in the close vicinity, and the Eureka State School had three physical locations over its lifetime from its opening in 1915 to its closure in 1940.  On two occasions the local farmers put it on a makeshift sled, and carted it to a new site more proximate to the homes of the current enrolment – the first time dragged by a bullock team, the second time drawn by draft horses.  Gordon attended the School during the period of its second incarnation.  Later, I know that he attended Footscray Technical School.  (His two elder sisters were sent as boarders to Methodist Ladies’ College in Hawthorn.)   I think that while attending Footscray Tech he would have boarded nearby.  He later had depression-time city jobs after completing school; and it’s likely that there was a continuance of lodging and/or a work connection in the western suburbs.  I say this because he was a member of a Masonic Lodge based at Footscray.  There was a strong Freemason presence in the Mallee, and Gordon would have been recruited in his home region as a young man………………..if he hadn’t already been recruited at Footscray!

At the time of his marriage Gordon was back on the farm.  He never did but my mother, Gloria, sometimes spoke of the early years of hardship, camping in a barn on the Andrews property, remote from the house and the home block.   The Andrews house was commodious by local standards, with two bedrooms and a large sleepout, and I expect that the exile in the barn was self-imposed, and the result of a severe case of mother-in-law aversion.  I have no time line of Gordon and Gloria’s farming endeavours, except that by the time I was five they were share-farming at a location named Daytrap, a couple of miles further from Chinkapook than the Andrews farm, and a bit more westerly.  This was 1945 and the War was over.

For the War years Gordon, as a farmer, had been in a “reserved” occupation and exempted from military duty.  But this didn’t exempt him from having to make a living; and there were serious droughts and failed crops in the early 1940s.   I don’t know whether the time spent at the munitions factory was merely a way of earning money; it’s more likely that there was a wartime arrangement whereby cereal farmers were asked – perhaps obliged - to “report for duty” at the times of year when the crops didn’t require their daily presence on the farm.  It’s possible that Gordon worked at Maribyrnong for short bursts over a number of years, and on these occasions I expect that he stayed with his aunt and uncle Em and Frank Templeton, who lived at nearby Essendon from the early 1940s onwards.  [Having written the foregoing I received quite a surprise when I referred to the Australian War Memorial website on the subject of WW2 “reserved occupations”.  Farmer was not a reserved occupation……..but munitions worker was!  So Gordon could in theory have volunteered for active service at any time before he commenced his munitions work – I put that as a question rather than a statement.  And the second question:  was it his position as a munitions worker that prevented him from being called up when conscription was introduced later in the War?  Perhaps he had flat feet or was otherwise medically unfit, and this answers both questions.  Who knows?]

All this – such as it passes for family history - came to mind as we drove past what remains of the Maribyrnong factory site on our way to exploration of Military Road, and breakfast.   Let me get it said right away:  that the few shops in Military Road, Avondale Heights, are a dreary bunch, and the place where we ate is forgettable.  The breakfast itself was some once-hot bacon and egg trapped in a bun inside some cling-wrap.  The coffee, however, was strong and hot.

By the way, the route we traversed to Avondale Heights follows what is in effect the one street with multiple names.  It zigzags all over, with the differently-named sections slipping into each other, across the metropolis, rather like the so-called ring roads in Sydney 40 years ago.  Starting from Merri Creek in North Fitzroy the continuous thoroughfare from east to west is named, in sequence, Holden Street, Brunswick Road, Ormond Road, Maribyrnong Road, Raleigh Road, Cordite Avenue, Corning Street, Military Road, and terminates in Keilor East as Milleara Road.  Follow it on a map; it’s quite a journey.

The history of the munitions sites in Melbourne’s west is one of the more remarkable of Melbourne’s industrial stories.  And a remarkable military story too: it is not an exaggeration to say that for more than a century the Western Suburbs works were the centerpiece of the Australian defence industry.  Over time there came to be hundreds of buildings on the sites. 

The colony of Victoria, in early times, was not short of self-confidence.  From its 1835 beginnings through the gold rushes of the 1850s to the resultant booms in population, in community wealth, and in extravagant civic and private building, there was swagger in the air.  The term “Marvellous Melbourne” captured the astonishment of visitors who - in 1880 say – found at the end of the world a city of half-a-million people, larger than most of the capitals of Europe at the time.  Surprising, then, that there was considerable concern about potential invasion, first fear of the Russians, later fear of the French; although perhaps not so surprising, given what Melburnians had to lose.  This underlying concern triggered serious moves for the colony to become self-reliant in terms of arms.  This concern then received a substantial fillip from the repatriation, in 1870, of the last British troops from Australia.   There was, thereafter, a rapid increase in the colony’s volunteer forces, and continual public debate about the perceived need to manufacture armaments locally.  This led, initially, to the government establishing, in 1874, the Saltwater Gunpowder Magazine at Footscray – known to all as Jack’s Magazine, it is still there today, abandoned, but inevitably sturdy!  Incidentally, the formal name comes from the Saltwater River, as the Maribyrnong River was then known.  The existence of the River was a key to the location chosen for each element of the armaments and defence establishments over the next generations: available water transport down to the Port, for shipment to other parts of Australia, and abroad. 

The manufacture of basic explosives at Jack’s Magazine, was not sufficient for military purposes, so in 1888 the Colonial Ammunition Factory was established (also at Footscray), as it happens by private enterprise, albeit with a government cash incentive and a free grant of land and assurances of custom from Victoria and other colonies. 

Some twenty years later, in 1908 - after the federation of the Australian colonies - the Commonwealth established the Commonwealth Explosives Factory at Maribyrnong.  By the commencement of the First World War the Footscray/Maribyrnong area had truly become the arsenal of Australia.  It is said that 2 million .303 bullets were produced for Australian troops each year of WWII.

More was to come.  The Commonwealth Ordnance Factory was established on the Maribyrnong site in 1924.  And in 1927 the Footscray ammunition works were acquired by the Commonwealth, bringing all core defence ordnance under government control.

Little more than a decade later there was massive gearing-up for the Second World War.

What existed at Footscray and Maribyrnong during WWII was a huge integrated military industry: explosives manufacture; and bronze manufacturing and metals extruding works, with the incorporation of these down-stream products into the manufacture of small arms; plus the manufacture of the range of military paraphernalia.  The several works provided employment for most locals (and expatriate farmers!), and there developed a unique works culture.   Significantly, large numbers of women were employed (around 45% across all factories).  Overall, thousands of workers were involved, one source says 8000, another says 16000, a third says 20000 throughout the course of the War.   Clearly there was mass domestic mobilization to serve the military needs of the time.

A sense of the dangers of life in the world of munitions comes from the following extract from a study prepared by Igor Bera, a year 10 student of Footscray City College:

“Safety precautions were strictly applied at the factories.  Buildings were separated by great distances so that one explosion would not set off a chain reaction of explosions.  This resulted in factory sites being the size of small suburbs.  Mounds were created around buildings so that if an explosion occurred it would blow upwards, instead of laterally.  Mowers were not used to cut the grass, because of the fear that the vibration could cause an explosion, so sheep were allowed to graze within the factory grounds.  The buildings had very thick walls to contain an explosion if it occurred.  Not all safety solutions were as elaborate as these.  Some were quite primitive……….exposure to toxic chemicals often went unrecognized……….exposure to TNT left workers with yellow skin, nausea and violent headaches.  The solution was to rotate workers more often…………”.

Young mister Bera has managed to locate some statistics too.  Prepare to be staggered.  During WW2 the Maribyrnong/Footscray output, among a lot of other ordnance, was 9.6 million artillery shells, 1.8 million mortars, 750 thousand anti-personnel land mines, 4.3 million anti-aircraft shells, and 1845 million rounds of small arms.

Although still operational during the later Korean and Vietnam Wars and beyond, the Maribyrnong complex closed in 1994.  The Edgewater housing estate today occupies some of the site.  A few of the old buildings remain but most have gone.

By definition, history is a passing parade.  I regret that I heard none of the wartime Maribyrnong history first-hand from my father.

Gary Andrews

SATURDAY BREAKFASTS #24 AND #25: ST. GEORGES ROAD

I have hesitated over posting this Piece because I’ve found it so hard to identify something useful to say.  With our usual Saturday Breakfast I find a hook on which to hang some point of interest: I rarely dwell on the breakfast itself or the café.   But as the years go by the destinations are typically less “exciting” as the better-known streets are ticked off, and with many locations I conclude that there’s nothing I want to write about.   [Incidentally, the very next Saturday breakfast will be our 250^th.  Who would imagine that there are 250-plus different neighbourhoods to explore in Melbourne?]  With St. Georges Road the premises and businesses were so depressing that any Piece was likely to be too downbeat to bother, and even when I combined consecutive Saturdays the situation improved little.  Then when I found a hook (tattooing) I was out of my zone of experience and into a big subject.  But I have kept going…….you need not!

ST. GEORGES ROAD, THORNBURY

Visited 14 July, 2012

Melbourne and its surrounds has hundreds of kilometres of bike trails; and, a few days earlier, our weekly bike ride with a group under the auspices of a local Neighbourhood Centre had taken Annie and me along a route that showed promise for a subsequent Saturday breakfast excursion.  Our Tuesday cycling group tries so far as possible to ride only on  “dedicated” trails.  These trails are usually shared between cyclists and walkers, but they’re off-road, and automobile hazard is minimal………..which is just as well for grey-heads with little cycling experience, or getting back on their bikes after years of estrangement.

We gathered near the corner of the Yarra Boulevard and the Chandler Highway, and travelled along the Yarra Trail to Fitzroy North where we joined the St. Georges Road Path.

St. Georges Road is the result of a farsighted piece of surveying.  For the five kilometres stretch north from Fitzroy North it is what we used to call a three chain road, that is thrice 22 yards wide – think of three cricket pitch equivalents end on end – and equal in width to Royal Parade or St. Kilda Road.  The inbound and outbound thoroughfares are separated by a wide garden plantation through which runs a double tram track, and the bike path.

On its way north the path slopes gently upwards from Fitzroy North, through Northcote, Thornbury and Preston; and you can continue to Reservoir and beyond.   On that Tuesday we exited near the Preston Market, had reviving coffee, then returned the way we’d come.  As I said earlier, I noticed some shopping strips, and determined to return with son Dan for our Saturday excursion.

We explored the group of shops at Thornbury:  these are on the western side of the road only.   There is a small run-down supermarket; a laundromat that’s temporarily closed; a gymnasium that seems to be operating happily; and someone who offers “business advice and tax,” but whose window neglects to mention membership of any accounting or financial planning professional body, or that the proprietor holds any licence to prepare tax returns.  The pavement is narrow, and the ugly concrete light poles are set well in from the kerb, dangerously impeding pedestrian traffic.  There’s a ladies’ hairdresser in a premises with a remodelled frontage, but this little bit of urban renewal does not compensate for several unsafe-looking verandahs - including one whose wooden posts have rotted at ground level, and have been “maintained” with star pickets driven into the ground and simply fastened to the sound wood higher up the post.  There is a harbinger of a property springtime, however: one shop premises have been levelled, and work is about to commence on a three-storey block of apartments.  A few more of these and there might be some revival of retailing.

Not surprisingly, there is no place to have breakfast, so we retreated south to the Northcote section of St. Georges Road.  We didn’t have time to explore the nearby streetscape, but found the Breakfast Club Café at number 206. The Breakfast Club Café has retro décor, and a pleasantly cluttered feel.  It is very small: nine seats at tables, six window stools, and ten chairs on the footpath at four tables - and no takers on the day, because of the cold.  But, also because of the cold, knitted knee-rugs were folded over the backs of the outdoor chairs, expectant but unused 

The two staff were young, female, vivacious and efficient.  In addition to attending to customers they were making scones.  The coffee was to die for.  The muesli was wholegrain, a little unusual, but mixed with cranberries and nuts, shredded apple on top and a glob of yoghurt.  Very fine……..but then, on leaving, we noticed the chalkboard, and the special of orange blossom porridge, with a glut of toppings.  Yes, the porridge would still be on next week, so we made a date to return.

ST. GEORGES ROAD, NORTHCOTE

Visited 21 July, 2012

The business premises in the Northcote section of St. Georges Road are more extensive than at Thornbury, on both sides of the road, but also mostly run down.  Although there are a couple of places that seem to be prospering - a florist, also stocking knick-knacks and a range of gourmet preserves; a hairdresser; a shared premises of “natural health therapists”; and a licenced grocer that’s presumably solvent - most businesses are dead and don’t know it:  a Foodworks supermarket, on a corner location, the windows on both its frontages having roller shutters as protection against some threat real or perceived; an Indian grocery no more prepossessing; a dry cleaner and a laundromat, both of dubious cleanliness; and a second-hand furniture and bric-a-brac shop whose stock lines even the Salvos would reject.  There are several empty premises, including the substantial Windsor Smith footwear factory at the edge of the strip whose business has relocated.  Furthermore, there is a significant infestation of graffiti on the shopfronts, a sure indication of the lack of resilience in the shopkeepers and the property owners.

Strangely, despite the absence of soul, there is plenty of attention offered to body:  in this cluster of maybe 40 premises there is the aforementioned natural therapies group, medical rooms, a healthcare business, an osteopath, and a naturopath etc. practising under the Urban Sense badge.  And there is a tattooist – indeed occupying double premises, and Health Department approved!

I expect that tattooing is today rather more popular than it used to be say a generation ago, and that it’s rather more “in your face”, with extensive body coverage being more the vogue than the one-time modestly-sized forearm image. 

The word tattoo derives from the Tahitian word tatau, and its usage in Britain - and elsewhere by extension - dates from the time when Captain Cook brought a tattooed Tahitian native to London.  The practice was widespread in Tahiti, and a number of Cook’s men had succumbed.  This was the introduction of the word into Britain, but not the introduction of tattooing per se: it is thought that Anglo-Saxon kings of England had been tattooed.   In Cook’s time though (the late 1770s) the practice was no longer widespread; but because of Cook it became something of a high society phenomenon.  In the last 200 years or so tattooing has spread by a sort of osmosis down from the aristocracy and up from the seafarers.  Peer pressure has been very influential, and not only with sailors, prison inmates and bikies (the peer pressure on whom is doubtless extreme).

Notwithstanding its ubiquity, and despite its growing acceptance, tattooing remains a subject of never-ending debate.  Recently the Herald Sun ran a survey – with spectacular bias implicit in the question - on whether persons with visible tattoos should be barred from nightclub venues.  The question was clearly underpinned by the presumption that those with tattoos, and visible ones what’s more, are likely to be troublemakers, whereas those with no tatts or with tatts hidden from view, are less likely to be troublemakers.  Inevitably the poll would have produced the result that the paper had sought.  I wonder whether those who voted “anti tattoo” would be surprised to learn that Churchill had a tattoo, as did Roosevelt, George V, and Edison, and as do Beckham, Jolie, Depp, Gaga, Urban and Spears, indeed a huge number of present-day entertainment celebrities.   Does it really matter?  Who gives a rat’s?  Is tattooing just another of those issues the discussion of which generates more heat than light?

Not surprisingly, tattooing blips the radar screens of some parts of the world of religion.  At an objective level it’s hard to see how a tattoo – short of one that’s blasphemous or generally offensive – could raise religious ire, but in some communities it would.    There is a range of views in the Jewish community, with Orthodox Jews prohibiting the practice on the authority of a passage in Leviticus, but most Jewish groups having a non-prescriptive stance.  The majority of Sunni Muslims hold that, under Islamic Law, tattoos are forbidden because tattooing is mutilation of the human form that God has already perfected.   There is no Christian orthodoxy.  Adherents who disapprove of tattooing are able to cite a number of Biblical references (in addition to Leviticus) that seem to put the kibosh; others, with no particular position, don’t have the need to ferret out Biblical authority either way.  The Catholics, ever practical, have no prohibition - so long as the tattoo is not contrary to religious sentiment.  Indeed, history records an incident where a Christian with a tattoo described as being “for the sake of God” – meaning a cross, or an image of Christ or a saint – was commended as praiseworthy by a Catholic council.  The fact that this happened in the year 786 CE makes it quite a long-standing precedent.

By the way, the orange blossom porridge served at the Breakfast Club Café was not quite as good as its tantalising description, although we left none on our plates.  The poached fruit on the top – mainly figs, but also peach and some dried fruits - all sprinkled with shavings of nuts, was excellent.  There were no regrets about this visit to our only ever two-time Saturday breakfast venue.

Gary Andrews

SATURDAY BREAKFAST #23: SPENCER STREET, MELBOURNE (BETWEEN FLINDERS and LONSDALE STREETS))

Visited 28 July, 2012

There are a couple of words that Australians use rarely, but which are solidly American.   The words are “carpetbagger” and “huckster”.  

Carpetbagger is a wholly American word, originating from the United States in the late 1860s, the years immediately following the Civil War.  The American South was in ruins, and was invaded by profiteers from the North seeking to make their fortunes during the period of reconstruction.   These opportunists travelled light, typically carrying their effects in small suitcases made of carpet – hence carpetbaggers, a less than complimentary term.  Carpetbaggers, while expressing solicitude, seek to make money from the misfortunes of others.

As to huckster: the Americans have taken the word over from old English, and adapted it for their own purposes.  Originally nothing more than a peddler, huckster today in its simplest form is someone who works in advertising.  But at its most pejorative, it is one who uses aggressive and questionable methods of selling.  The 1947 movie, The Hucksters, had Clark Gable [integrity, white hat] battling the powers of advertising [unscrupulous, black hats].  Hucksterism was on show. Not attractive.

These two words came to mind as we breakfasted at the Vibe Savoy Hotel on the corner of Spencer and Little Collins Streets.  I have been to the Savoy a number of times, often as a guest of the Government of Nauru, and most memorably in 1987 on the occasion of the grand re-opening after a reported $46 million refurbishment.  The hotel was then owned by Nauruan interests.

Poor, sad, Nauru is a victim of colonial and commercial imperialism; but it is also the victim of mismanagement by its leaders – it once had the lot, and now has nothing.

Nauru is such a tiny place, 21 square kilometres only; and with fewer than 10000 people has the second smallest population of any state (after the Vatican).  The island was settled by Micronesian and Polynesian peoples more than 3000 years ago, and its remoteness from other Pacific islands has led to a distinctive Nauruan people and language.  First contacts with European seafarers date from the late 1700s.  Nauru was annexed by Germany in 1888, the same year that the Christian missionaries arrived.  The island was “captured” by Australian troops in 1914, and after the end of the Great War, it became a territory mandated by the League of Nations to the joint administration of Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom; and later there was a similar United Nations trusteeship.  Nauru gained its independence on 31 January, 1968.

Phosphate was discovered on Nauru in 1900, and the huge deposits have since been the mainstay of the Nauruan economy, although the extraction of those deposits has seen the fracturing of traditional life.  Much of the centre of the island, once a hillock with its highest point 71 metres, is now a “lunar landscape” – jagged coral pinnacles from between which the phosphate has been removed; once vegetation-covered tribal land, now uninhabitable, with the entire populace relocated to the coastal fringe.

The wealth from the phosphate accrued first to German interests, then to the British Phosphate Commission, and then – from 1968 – to the Nauru Phosphate Commission and the people of Nauru.

Where do the carpetbaggers and the hucksters come in?  Well, at one time in the 1980s there was a Nauru national investment fund reportedly valued at $1.3 billion; today that fund may be as little as $100 million, all lost through unwise investment.  Acquisition of property in Melbourne (and Sydney) proved to be a particular disaster.  Take the Southern Cross Hotel, the site of the Carlton brewery, the site on the corner of Spencer and Bourke Streets, then take insufficient resources to turn them into successful property developments, and you have inevitable sale off at a loss.  And then you have the eventual sale of the successful property investments (Downtowner Motel in Carlton, Nauru House, and the Savoy) to cover debt.  It was the seductive tales of the real estate carpetbaggers and hucksters, coupled with the naivety and hubris of Nauruan leaders, that produced this mess.  The Nauruan people are the sufferers.  One Melbourne property consultant was reported to have said that he was probably the only estate agent in the World who had sent a country broke!

Anyway, this woeful story was in my thoughts over breakfast at the Vibe Savoy.  The breakfast, by the way, was average to poor.  It was the usual hotel buffet, but very small-scale, and suffered simply from the lack of takers.  I don’t know the hotel’s occupancy rate, but would guess that there is currently a problem.  A shame, really, because the building is handsome, the rooms first rate, and the location fine.

The Savoy in Melbourne has a long history; there has been a hotel on the Spencer Street site since 1866 when Charles Alexander built and named Alexander’s Family Hotel.  Thus it remained until 1923, when renamed the Sunshine Hotel.  James Richardson, prominent hotelier, acquired the property in 1926, demolished and rebuilt, and revived the Hotel Alexander name.  The Federal Hotels group became the new owners in 1954, and the hotel was renamed the Savoy Plaza.  Then a curious twist: in 1974 the Victorian Government took over the building, and used it for some years as the training college for prospective members of the police force.  The Nauruans’ massive 1987 makeover restored it as a hotel, now named the Savoy Park Plaza. Finally, the new ownership from 2004, and the present name Vibe Savoy.

The hotel building was strongly influenced by the American architectural fashions of 1926.  Although there were art deco touches in the guest rooms it was said to have been built in the style of a 16^th century Italian townhouse.  Originally entered from Spencer Street up a wide staircase to the first floor, the Nauruan remodelling inserted a ground floor entrance foyer and facilities off Little Collins Street.  The architectural styles and touches all came together successfully, and the Savoy remains one of the most elegant buildings in the city.

If “change” equals “vibrancy” then the three-block stretch of Spencer Street between Lonsdale and Flinders Streets must be the most vibrant in the Melbourne CBD. The eastern side has a bunch of new hotels (contributing, no doubt, to falling occupancy at the Vibe Savoy); the former GPO has been converted to apartments, with a spacious restaurant in the ground floor; there are a couple of high-rise residentials; and the former headquarters of The Age is a major project under construction. 

The old Sir Charles Hotham Hotel, on the corner of Flinders Street is, sadly, no longer vibrant.  Although not so long ago a backpackers’ hostel, today it is unoccupied, and its owners are clearly aiming to demolish it by neglect………several upstairs windows are open, and exposing the interior to the elements.  In time there will be an order to demolish and that will be that.  The 1912 building, in the Queen Anne style, has clearly “seen better days”, but it doesn’t deserve such an undignified fate.  Indeed, although it has never received the official recognition of a National Trust or a Heritage listing, it is an important building in the history of Melbourne architecture.  It was designed by William Pitt, one of Melbourne’s great architects, architect of The Rialto, the Olderfleet building, St. Kilda Town Hall, the Bryant & May factory in Richmond, the Princess’ Theatre, and many others.  A number of Pitt buildings have been destroyed, including the Federal Coffee Palace, later the Federal Hotel (on the corner of Collins and King Streets) and it would be a shame to lose another.

I shall now confess to a memory lapse.  Back in the 1960s I used to attend to the income tax affairs of the Sir Charles Hotham’s owner.  Fifty years on I cannot recall his name!  It will doubtless come to me after this blog is posted.  He was a large shambling man, already in his 80s, and he lived a reclusive life alone in a remote corner of the hotel.  This is no doubt an exaggeration, but I recall his principal passion as the search for authentication of an “old master” he possessed.  I don’t remember whether he’d inherited the painting, or whether he had bought it years before, but he’d become obsessed with the thought that it was old, and that it was valuable.  He had had no luck in his search for validation and vindication, and was happy to share his dilemma with me.  The painting certainly looked old, and grimy; but the people at the National Gallery had apparently passed up the opportunity to claim discovery of an unknown masterpiece.  

Mr. X said his painting was named The Cenci.  I find now that The Cenci is the name of a play by Percy Shelley, based on the doings of a Roman family circa 1599.  The play was never performed in Shelley’s lifetime, because incest and parricide were not at the time considered nice.  But Mr X’s painting and Shelley’s play might have been set in the same era.  Who knows?  And who knows what happened to the painting after M. X’s death.  I certainly don’t.  I do know that the descent of the Sir Charles Hotham into oblivion has been inexorable.  It went from licenced hotel to private hotel to backpackers.  It flirted with cheap entertainment, including sandwich lunches accompanied by female strippers, the performers slipping back into their bank employee uniforms before returning to their desks.  There weren’t many opportunities for resurrection after that.  As our walk past highlighted, the Sir Charles Hotham needs a saviour with lots of money, and needs it quickly. 

The western side of Spencer Street has changed even more so than the eastern; but one of the most significant changes shows the least evidence of it.   I’m referring to the former Victorian Railways administration building on the south-west corner of Spencer and Flinders Streets.  To describe this building as monumental is no exaggeration.  It was built in the late 1880s, and under Railways ownership had a couple of major later additions - additions of extra floors, but totally sympathetic to the basic form and appearance of the building.  But as of 1985 the Railways personnel had been re-located, and the Government had earmarked the building for sale as a surplus public building.  Sale was effected, but the building languished in private hands, until it was reopened in 1998 as The Grand Hotel (117 apartment suites) and three floors of privately-owned Grand Central Apartments.  A splendid outcome.

A couple of blocks further north, adjacent to the old Spencer Street railway station (specifically alongside the platform where the interstate trains arrived) there used to be an extensive ground-level car park.  Now, since the latest re-modelling of the station and its emergence as Southern Cross, the parking space has been relegated to a multi-storey privately run operation quite a distance from the station.  In between the station and the car park there is the bus depot, with lots of food and other shopping on the street frontage.  All this is pedestrian and boring, and the contrast with the beautiful Savoy building and the sturdy former GPO building across the street is stark.

Then there is the Southern Cross station building itself.  Winner of awards for its design, it gets no award from me.  The undulating roofline is little more than a gimmick; and, as the storms of 18-months ago proved, it wasn’t even soundly engineered.  The station building is not there for the benefit of the trains; it’s there to make the whole experience of departure and arrival as efficient and as trouble-free as possible.  The edifice may indeed be all this, but there’s something else: it should be an amenable environment.  In this regard, in my view, Southern Cross is a failure – for one thing alone:  it doesn’t protect the public from the Melbourne winds. 

Obviously it’s not possible to protect the platforms from the wind and the cold, but by purposely leaving the building open at the Spencer Street side the architects have intentionally created a massive wind tunnel.  I can see the stylistic charm of the high roofline over the streetscape and the open space below – a very grand aperture – but in inclement weather there is no protection whatever: either the elements lashing in from Spencer Street, or the bleak wind rushing through from the platforms and out to Spencer Street.  Very innovative, and very stupid.  

One final and more positive note, although it’s a good news bad news story.   The previous station building, when Spencer Street, housed a large mural, painted by Harold Freedman (with a couple of assistants) and installed in 1978.   It was titled History of Transport, and was more than 36 metres long and 7 metres high.  I always regarded it as pretty awful, with its depictions of multiple modes of transport, not just railways.  Akin to the public art of (say) Diego Rivera in Mexico, there was plenty of colour and movement, and little subtlety.  Nevertheless, such works should never be intentionally destroyed in the name of progress.  There was no place for the History of Transport mural in the new Southern Cross complex, but it was preserved, first in storage for three years, then re-erected on the wall of the nearby Direct Factory Outlet premises.  An ignominious resting place perhaps, but a victory for the right thing, which even public authorities can sometimes do.

Gary Andrews