Convenience Store/Nothing – Enfield, NSW
I have to say, there’s nothing very convenient about this store.
British General Electric Company/Encore Sewing/Residential – Camperdown, NSW
Picture this: a suburban street full of small terrace houses…and then suddenly, this behemoth.
SMH, 26 Dec 1951
In the 1950s, it was home to British General Electric, manufacturer of consumer electronics that spent the war years making radios and lamps for the war effort. Through a series of mergers, British Electric found itself far removed from the consumer electronic market that it had built its reputation on, and it fell out of favour in the Australian market (along with all things British) in the early 1960s. At that time, Encore Sewing took the stage.
I can’t begin to explain the world of sewing and the fascination it held for so many throughout the 60s and 70s, but through another series of mergers, Encore was eventually engulfed by the Singer empire. As everyone knows, if you leave a heritage former industrial building unattended in Sydney’s Inner West, it’s gonna get occupied FAST. These days it’s residential, or ‘a creative space’ in the carefully chosen words of the building’s real estate agent. The biggest mystery is what the sign below Encore Sewing said. I look at these kinds of things all the time and even I’m stumped. If you know more, feel free to share.
Hairdresser/Sellick’s Newsagency/Newsagency Gallery – Petersham, NSW
Whereas some new owners of an address are quick to disguise the place’s former life, some embrace it. Exhibit A: the Newsagency Gallery at Petersham.
Occupying the former Sellick’s Newsagency on Stanmore Road, the Newsagency Gallery allows artists to rent the space for weeks at a time to display their work. They’ve left the outside almost entirely untouched…
…which is fine, but by using the shell of one to attract people to their gallery it’s almost making the statement ‘newsagents are dead, come and see what’s inside now’. But newsagents aren’t dead, despite the best efforts by Fairfax and News Ltd to make newspapers unreadable. Anyone seeing this familiar shopfront is likely to wander in hoping to grab a Daily Mirror and a couple of Scratchies. Interesting tidbit: in 1947 this shop was a hairdresser. Strange but true.
Corner shop/Mortgage Industry Association of Australia/Residential – Earlwood, NSW
Unlike a lot of places featured here on Past/Lives, this corner shop has had some real effort put into it to try to disguise its past. Reader Jill believes that her parents ran a corner shop along Riverview Road, Earlwood in 1956, and given a lack of extant corner shops, this could be it. Of course, it’s undergone a few changes: the shopfront facing the main road has been noticeably bricked up, and the colour scheme makes it look like the Joker’s hideout, but it’s still easily recognisable as a corner shop.
Also noteworthy: this address was once home to the jokers of the Mortgage Industry Association of Australia, which is apparently now defunct. These days, it’s clearly just someone’s house, a house on which they probably have a mortgage. Unless it really is the Joker’s house. He wouldn’t have a mortgage, that guy’s rich.
KC Beauty Centre/Cut and Comb Hairdressing – Hurstville, NSW
Hurstville’s KC Beauty Centre is one of those places where you walk in an ug-mo and walk out a glamour. Pity they aren’t so concerned about their building’s appearance…but not a pity for Past/Lives. Look up (below)!
Before KC appeared on the scene, this place was home to the rather no-frills Cut and Comb Hairdressing. Did they call it that so as not to give people the wrong idea? Would the Shear and Shave sound too working class? The Crimp and Coif too hoity-toity? There’s a similarly named Cut & Comb Hairdressing at Penshurst now, so either this place moved or there’s a huge market for no-frills. I’m going with the latter; just ask KC – they didn’t even bother to invite the Sunshine Band.
Past/Lives of the Near Future 