Sydney Dance School/Chinois Cuisine/Pure Platinum – Sydney, NSW
The Pure Platinum strip joint isn’t exactly known for virgin talent, and the signage is no exception:
I really hope that’s not a euphemism. Anyway, the most notable previous tenant of this location was another kind of dance studio, opened by Irene Vera Young in 1937. Young had won gold in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games for dancing, and was the only non-German to do so. When establishing her Sydney studio, she claimed her goal was to make it ‘a centre of dance culture’. 75 years later, mission accomplished.
Movietek/Blockbuster Video/For Lease – Surry Hills, NSW
Yet another dead video shop, this ex-Blockbuster has the distinction of having taken over the location from another video shop before running it into the ground. Are Blockbuster stickers and signs really hard to get off or something? Did they foolishly build them to last?
Ah, neon. This is the first and only instance of a Movietek outlet I’ve come across, so it must have been one of the independents back in the golden era of video shops. Also of interest at this location is the second floor, which until around 2007 was a costume shop (imaginatively named The Costume Shop). Pardon the pun, but it’s fitting, given that Movietek put on a Blockbuster costume to try and swim in the deep end.
Denny’s Travel Centre/Nothing – Dulwich Hill, NSW
As you can see, Denny’s Travel Centre at Dulwich Hill looked after ‘all your traveling needs’. Evidently, one of those needs was Denny’s own need to travel to Earlwood, where the business currently resides. This building dates back to at least 1929, and seems to have once featured the same arch window as the building beside it. Whether Denny was the one to brick it up isn’t known, but he did take advantage of more wallspace to apply his indelible mural, without which his legacy would not live on in the area today.
The Hartee’s Saga, Part IV: The Shocking Conclusion – Bankstown, NSW
Continued from Part III…
In mid-1975, Willesee, a current affairs program on Channel 7, received a tip-off from Bankstown Council garbagemen that a hamburger restaurant at Bankstown had, on a regular basis, some very odd items in its dumpsters out the back. When reporters from the program went down to the Bankstown Hartee’s to investigate, they found that the bins outside were full of dog food cans. Further investigation revealed that the dog food was in fact being sliced into patties and used on the burgers at this particular location:
The Hartee’s at Bankstown, now a BottleMart, sits opposite Bob Jane T-Mart, and beside a KFC.
The devastating report went to air, cripping the Hartee’s brand in the public eye. Despite there being no evidence that such a practice went on in other Hartee’s locations, Kelloggs quickly and quietly abandoned its fast food venture. No official comment was given other than a generic ‘the venture was no longer profitable’ statement.
The scene of the crime.
Almost overnight, all Hartee’s locations were closed and sold. Today, almost nothing remains of the Hartee’s legacy except the stores documented in this series. The Bankstown location subsequently became a Chinese restaurant and a variety of bottle shops. Other locations, such as Hartee’s Liverpool, Manly Vale and Kogarah, have since been demolished.
Hartee’s Kogarah, November 1973. Now part of the St. George Hospital car park. Image by Jack Hickson/State Library of NSW.
As previously mentioned, Kelloggs planned to open more than 100 locations around the country, but only 17 were ever opened. It wasn’t until Red Rooster, and even more successfully, Oporto, that an Australian-owned fast food brand managed to establish itself.
Had the scandal not occurred, Hartee’s may have emerged as the primary fast food outlet in Australia today instead of fading into obscurity, but thanks to the actions of some goofballs on minimum wage, it’s a world we’ll never know.
HEARTY UPDATE: There’s more. Always can do one more.
Pizza Hut/Curves Gym – Bankstown, NSW
There’s a sick sense of humour lurking behind the decision to turn an old Pizza Hut into a gym. It used to be that you’d walk out of the Bankstown Hoyts 8 cinema and straight over to Pizza Hut for all you could eat, but now you’re faced with a reminder that if you have that plan, you more than likely also have a few curves.
Sadly, for those hoping to undo the damage of years of pizza abuse at Curves, you’re out of luck. The building appears to be empty now, further adding to the wasteland feel of this part of Bankstown, and with his ad-hoc adjustment of the number of years he’s been in Bankstown, Frank isn’t helping.
UPDATE: The Curves gym is still in operation, functioning as a kind of Masonic secret gym society for women only. It’s rumoured that an angry husband of one of the members caused a fuss inside the gym once upon a time, and ever since, men have not been admitted…maybe the guy was just peeved that Pizza Hut was gone. Whatever the story, this sign awaits anyone with the balls the enter (so to speak):
Image courtesy Irmgard Heap.
Imagine a Pizza Hut toilet, and then imagine how many times that manager must have been notified. Thanks for the tip, Irmgard!
Past/Lives of the Near Future 