Police Citizens Boys Club/Police Citizens Youth Club – Burwood, NSW
According to the Police Citizens Youth Club website, the organisation is “about young people”, but it wasn’t always that way. This year, the PCYC is celebrating its 75th anniversary of “getting young people active”, “developing young leaders”, and “protecting young people”, but if you were a girl back in 1938, you could pretty much get bent as far as the cops were concerned.
According to the side of the Burwood branch, it’s about boys. Who knows, in another 75 years, it may even include old people.
Byers Meats/Awaiting Demolition – Rozelle, NSW
First of all, dear readers, Happy New Year and all that. For Past/Lives, all this means is that the glory days of our subjects are buried under yet another year. There’s plenty coming up, including something fun for the blog’s first anniversary in March (where did the time go?), but for now…
Byers beware! At least, anyone with the intention of buying meat from this long-defunct butchery along Darling Street, Rozelle. What started life as a bootmaker’s shop came into possession of butcher Hugh Byers in 1918, who hawked dead animals from this location while leasing out the shop next door, which he also owned. This tradition carried on for the next 87 years, until the Byers family sold up to Balmain Leagues in 2005. Balmain Leagues…doesn’t that ring a bell?
Anyone familiar with the surrounding area and an interest in this sort of thing (all three of you) would have noticed the decaying Balmain Leagues Club on Victoria Road. If you don’t know it, don’t worry – we’ll take a closer look soon. The impending development of that site will include the Byers building as well as a fair few others along Darling Street when they finally get around to it. Unless of course it turns into another CBD Metro debacle, which left Rozelle with some mighty blue balls.
Oatley Radio Theatre/Oatley RSL Youth Club – Oatley, NSW
Oatley Radio screening The Wonders of Aladdin, 1961. Image courtesy reader Carmen and Mr W. Collins
It may surprise you, especially if you’re an Oatley resident, to learn that the tiny suburb once enjoyed its own theatre! Designed by Sydney theatre architect extraordinaire Aaron Bolot in 1940, the Oatley Radio opened in 1942 to the delight of cinephiles everywhere (in Oatley).
Throughout the 1940s and ’50s, the Oatley Radio played host to popular films of the day, including Easter Parade (1948) and An American in Paris (1951). In fairness, it probably played host to some unpopular ones too.
The final curtain, 1961. Image courtesy Mr. W. Collins
It’s unclear exactly when the Oatley Radio closed (if you know, let me know), but I’m estimating it was sometime in the 1960s, an era when suburban cinemas were discouraged in favour of the big boys in the city. It’s claimed that the Radio became part of the Mecca family of cinemas (alongside Kogarah and Hurstville), but I haven’t been able to find much on this.
Oatley Theatre foyer, 1961. Image courtesy Mr. W Collins
What is clear is that at some point, the Radio was bought by the Oatley RSL and turned into their Youth Club, which is how we find it today. It’s now named the Jack Fisher Hall, after the founding president of the Youth Club.
Behind the Radio, it’s all too clear that it was once a 460-seat cinema, despite the tiny, unassuming frontage.
The Radio survives as one of six picture theatres in the Kogarah/Hurstville area still around today (along with the South Hurstville Paramount, the Carlton Odeon, Nash’s Penshurst Theatre, Beverly Hills Cinema and the Kogarah Mecca), but it’s largely avoided the sad fates of renovation or dereliction that have befallen those others. In a strange way, a suburban cinema like this one was the video shop of its day…I doubt anyone’s ever streamed The Wonders of Aladdin (1961).
The Rawson Institute for Seamen/Bar100 – The Rocks, NSW
The snigger-inducing Rawson Institute for Seamen opened in 1859 as the Mariners’ Church, a missionary effort by the Bethel Union which followed two similar sites in Darling Harbour and Circular Quay. After initial success, the Bethel Union fell on hard times at the turn of the 20th century, and in 1895 the Church was leased to the Missions to Seamen. So wait, one seamen missionary group met financial hardship operating out of this place…and another one jumped in to take its place? Were the owners named Bond and Packer?
Sir Harry Rawson, who was appointed NSW Governor after his productive and incident-free trip to Benin, got a piece of the action once his governorship ended in 1909, proposing extensions to the building so important that the complex was renamed after him. Seamen everywhere could thank Rawson for providing them such a luxurious institute.
By 1960 things like this had fallen pretty much by the wayside, and the Bethel Union limped back to Flying Angel House, while the Rawson Institute became in 1981 home to the hitherto-unknown-by-me Craft Council of NSW, which lasted until 1990. Subsequently used as an art gallery and cafe, in 2011 Rawson’s changed hands yet again to much consternation. The new tenant, Bar100, hopes to rival that seamen’s institute of a different kind, the notorious Ivy nightclub. You’ll need a lot more than the name, guys.
Enfield RSL Club/IJK Computers – Enfield, NSW
IJK Computers have the right idea. By replacing Enfield RSL with a computer shop, they’ve guaranteed that oldsters looking for the former establishment won’t dare to come inside. It’s like replacing McDonald’s with a gym. Confusing matters is the Christian City Church, which also resides inside (or C3 to their friends, as per their mind-blowing website).
In what seems like surefire talkback radio fodder, even the memorial fountain outside has been removed, and the old RSL sign repurposed as a canvas for IJK’s striking logo. How did Alan Jones not stop this crime against Australia? As wars are fought less frequently and pokies tighten their stranglehold on clubs and pubs, we have to face the reality of a diminishing need for RSL clubs. Who knows, one day IJK may have replaced RSL as a familiar acronym.
Past/Lives of the Near Future 