Shell Petrol Station/Vacant Lot – Beverly Hills, NSW
Sitting beside the former Four Seasons Chinese Restaurant in Beverly Hills is a vacant lot, but based on the position of the driveways and the remaining infrastructure, it’s clear this was once a petrol station.
Someone has left several large boulders on the site. Oddly positioned at the corners of the site, they appear as makeshift paperweights, holding the lot down so it doesn’t blow away. Good thinking, guys.
HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT UPDATE:
New information has come to light revealing this vacant lot to have been a Shell petrol station as recently as 1992. Don’t believe me? Check out the evidence (sourced from the fascinating OzRoads.com.au) below. Note the fully operational Four Seasons Chinese restaurant in the background!
Shell servo, Beverly Hills, 1992. Image courtesy OzRoads.com.au.
Four Seasons Chinese Restaurant/Glass Wool Insulation Wholesale/For Lease – Beverly Hills, NSW
A fixer upper.
Before the M5 sapped the area of its thoroughfare traffic, Beverly Hills was once a cutthroat restaurant circuit. Culinary competition was fierce, with even the road’s primary supermarket eventually converted into yet another restaurant. The strip along King Georges Road is still home to a surprisingly wide variety of cuisines for south-west Sydney, but the glory days are certainly behind it.
That’s a Ming Dynasty automatic door.
Chinese restaurants are well represented on the strip, so it’s no surprise to see a corpse of a fallen rival rotting on the sidelines. The Four Seasons Chinese Restaurant, on the corner of King Georges and Stoney Creek roads, has the distinction of having maintained its chintzy Oriental decor even through its time as a “GL S FOOL INSU ION Wholesal” establishment.
The facade is in surprisingly good condition, but the restaurant itself is empty. The signage is pretty tattered, none moreso than the light-up sign above the shopfront.
The nearby footbridge acts as a Texas School Book Depository with which we can solve this mystery:
Back and to the left.
Despite the restaurant’s outwardly ramshackle appearance, we can at least take comfort in the fact the building must be well insulated.
EXPOSED UPDATE:
In a development only I could care about, the owners have apparently torn down the rinky-dink Oriental decoration, revealing more of this shop’s history. Behold:
Big John. That’s the big reveal. Once upon a time, Big John either owned or operated out of this place, and the only way they could hide his involvement (and why should they want to do that, hmm?) was by covering him up. But now he’s back, and the secret is out. If you ARE Big John, get in touch.
Greater Union Pitt Centre/ANZ Tower construction site – Pitt Street, Sydney NSW
The Greater Union Pitt Centre in better days. Image by Ken Roe/cinematreasures.org.
In 1999, I ventured into town to see Star Wars Episode I. My elaborate plan was to see it at the Pitt Centre cinema, which I’d always noticed tucked away behind the flashier George Street cinema strip. However, when I got into the city I found the cinema complex had been recently closed. My plan, my day had been ruined. Thanks, Greater Union Pitt Centre.
Opened in 1976, the cinema stood nearly derelict from 1999 to 2011, when construction work began on some sort of ANZ-themed skyscraper. It was in this condition that I found the site today:
To the left sits the former Bank of NSW, a future entry on Past/Lives.
From street level, there’s now nothing to suggest that the Pitt Centre or the neighbouring Chinese restaurant and courtyard were ever there. However, the view from above betrays an odd and long-forgotten secret:
You can’t buy that kind of advertising space.
SHEEPISH UPDATE: it seems as though the above image is actually the rear of the Greater Union-owned State Theatre (see below). This revelation marks the second time the Pitt Centre has ruined my schemes. Thanks, Ellena!
Image from Google Earth.
Advance Bank/Interflora/For Lease – Kingsgrove, NSW
The Advance Bank brand lasted only ten years, from 1985-1995, at which point it was rebranded the Bank of South Australia. This fascinating tidbit aside, we can see that after the Advance Bank went south (haw haw), the shop became an Interflora florist, but above all this post exists to prove that not every shop in Kingsgrove has ‘King’ in their name.
Louie’s Fruit Market/King’s Fruit Market – Kingsgrove, NSW
Pretty simple explanation here: looks as if Louie established his fruit market before his coronation.
Past/Lives of the Near Future 