Bookers Night Spot/For Lease – Surry Hills, NSW
Perched at the intersection of Chalmers and Cleveland Streets are a variety of notable buildings: the old Australia Post headquarters; the colonial era Cleveland Street Public School; that ancient backpackers hostel. The odd one out is this building, which has sat unused and for lease until very recently, when part of it was turned into a greengrocer. The other part still sits dormant, waiting for another chance at life.
Around the side we can see that it was for sale long ago. So old is the sale that the sold stickers have become partially transparent. The sign to the right has been painted over along with the rest of the building, and still myriad signs and lettering can be seen underneath the coat, some of which seems to suggest the place had a restaurant…but that’s not the lettering we’re interested in.
At some point in the past, this place was Bookers [sic] Night Spot, the only pub or club I could find attributed to this address. Half price drinks were on sale between 10pm-11:30pm. It featured two floors, and pool tables. Not the most dynamic attributes a night spot could have, but aside from the weak offerings it’s unclear when or why the club closed. The competition from the pubs down near Central Station or up at Crown Street might have played a part, and that the area is much more gentrified than ever. It’s easy to imagine this may have been yet another corner pub once, serving thirsty shift workers from Australia Post, or a tram stop on what was once a busy corner for the light rail.
ATHENIAN UPDATE: As reader Luke says, this location was once the Athena Greek nightclub/Restaurant. The only remnant of this today is the ironwork affixed over the east window:
Old Advertising – Belmore, NSW
Ice cream bricks sound like things you’d get in a Lego set.
Enfield Laundry/Mixed Business/Residential – Enfield, NSW
Yes, I know it’s another laundry, but shops like these need their due. Besides, this one put more effort into its appearance than did the last one, so its failure and eventual closure is that much more tragic.
Going by the font it’d have to be 60s-70s, and it seems to have had a seven digit phone number so it lasted awhile. Even more interesting is that underneath the colourful Enfield Laundry paint job, you can see that the site was once a produce and firewood store.
The Strathfield Council seems to have given up hope that the shop will ever be used again, and has put this bench across the door as a barricade. Presumably, this took place after council gave every single household in the vicinity their own washing machine.
I love that ‘ice cold’ font. It’s so effective. I can get a strong visual sense of just how ice cold those drinks will be, and how refreshing that temperature would be to me on a hot summer’s day. But you have to consider, the logic of the ice cold drinks font dictates that that fancy font for ‘continental’ was intended by the designer to be somehow indicative of the continental experience. Strangely, it works. Deli meat seems so much more worldly when it’s preceded by that font.
It appears that what happened here is during the mixed business boom of the late 80s-early 90s, what was once a sole deli saw in the ailing laundromat an opportunity to branch out, and seized it. The laundry was absorbed and the deli offered a literal mixed business experience to the people of Enfield. It probably even had a Street Fighter II machine. But when the boom died and Burwood Westfield was renovated, the only customers were those getting off the bus of an afternoon, and you can’t pay the rent with profits from a few ice cold cans and packets of chips. Strange that they didn’t remove the Enfield Laundry sign on the front window, though.
Incidentally, this shop sits along Coronation Parade, Enfield, which we’ll look at in the near future…
Mrs N. Prior Clothing/A1 Cut Price Flowers/Nothing – Kogarah, NSW
They don’t make ’em like this anymore. Once upon a time, a Mrs N. Prior saw an opening in Kogarah’s manchester, childrenswear and babywear market. The enterprising Prior secured this corner location, bought out Berger Paints’ supply of aqua and got to work.
But that was a long time ago, and the babies clothed in N. (Nellie? Nora? Noelene? Nancy?) Prior’s stretch nylon babywear are all grown up, or possibly dead.
Who was N. Prior? How and why did her little shop come to an end?
The building itself, slowly rotting on the corner of Rocky Point Road and Austral Street, offers few clues as to its post-Prior life.
At some point, the cut price flower community, long jealous of Mrs. Prior’s prime corner location, swooped in and established A1. Banking largely on customers looking up flower shops in the phone book and being too lazy to scroll past ‘A1’, the shop doesn’t appear to have lasted very long. Business mistake number one: they left all of Mrs. Prior’s decor up on the building. Nobody likes a lazy florist, A1.
Marble City/Corner Coffeehouse – Beverly Hills, NSW
Gee, Corner Coffeehouse, that’s an unusual amount of marble you’ve got happening there. Why–
Oh. They must have taken down the part of the sign advertising ugly brick facades.
Past/Lives of the Near Future 