Cumberland Hotel/TK Plaza – Bankstown, NSW
There isn’t much call for an old English-style hotel pub in Bankstown these days. This particular part of the city, Old Town Plaza, is especially bereft of watering holes thanks to the enormous Bankstown Sports Club around the corner.
Yes, there’s the Bankstown Hotel and the RSL on the other side of the train line, but down here it’s the Sports Club (not to be confused with the Bankstown Sports Hotel nearby), the Oasis Hotel (or the Red Lantern depending on who you ask) or you’re going thirsty.
Those two venues, while fine, are very much products of today’s Bankstown. The Oasis looks like the kind of place you’d hit up to dump some cash into the pokies and have a smoke outside, while the Sports Club has a monopoly on the family friendly crowd. Neither enjoy the kind of maturity conducive to sitting around and making a beer last many hours.
And then there’s the Cumberland Hotel, a proper glimpse into the suburb’s past. If you know Bankstown, you’ll know this venue stands out like the proverbial.
The locals have done their best to incorporate the Cumberland into the street’s mix of fresh food wholesalers, dollar shops and mini marts, but the top half speaks of a time when the working class would need to cool down after a hard day’s work; when a night at the Cumberland might even result in a cheap room upstairs; when Mr. Zhong was still afraid to play with matches.
From what I can gather, the Cumberland has its origins in 1929, when William Hoyes, the licensee of the notorious Rydalmere Hotel, transferred that pub’s licence to his newly purchased hotel in Bankstown. The ruckus at Rydalmere, and Hoyes’ hasty escape, seems to have originated in 1907, when a Dundas policeman disturbed a cadre of dudes drinking illegally – at midday! – at the Catholic Church beside the pub.
For his troubles, Constable Howard was bashed quite severely, but got his own back when he shot at the four pissed louts, injuring one of them. Turns out one of them was the hotel’s licensee, while another was the church’s caretaker. You’d think they could have had a quiet one at the hotel itself, but perhaps they had to wash down a communion wafer.
The incident left its mark on the Rydalmere Hotel to the point where even after 22 years, Hoyes opted to take his licence and start over in a suburb less tarnished by violence… for now.
In 1930, the Cumberland was up and running under the watchful eye of Tooheys. Hoyes made way for O’Regan in 1933, who gave it up to O’Reilly in 1934. The names give a clear indication of Bankstown’s cultural background at the time.
Vincent O’Reilly held onto the Cumberland until 1950, by which time the lay of the land had changed quite a bit. The following year the Cumberland Hotel fell under investigation of the Royal Commission on Liquor, which had put old mate Abe Saffron in the hot seat.
Honest Abe had apparently made some licencing deals with several hotels, including the Cumberland, the Morty in Mortdale and the Civic in Pitt Street, that had not impressed the authorities. At the heart of the matter was the improper funneling of booze between pubs under Saffron’s influence, grossly in breach of the Liquor Act.
While all this was going on, the Cumberland endured another parade of licencees including Mr Kornhauser, Mr Norman, Mr Blair and Mr Geoghegan, the latter of which applied for – and received – a 12-month dancing permit in 1957.
During Geoghegan’s tenure, on a momentous November afternoon, a meeting took place that would change New South Wales’ taxi and golf landscapes permanently.
“In November of 1954, three disgruntled members of Campsie Taxi Drivers Golf Club, while having a drink at the Cumberland Hotel in Bankstown, discussed forming a breakaway group of golfers. It wasn’t until after Melbourne Cup Day of that year that a group of up to 10 cabbies decided to form a Taxi Social Golf Club. The first game was held at East Hills Golf Club on the first Tuesday in January 1955.
The foundation meeting was held that day. A foundation committee was elected and Bankstown Taxi Drivers Golf Club was born. Tuesdays were chosen as golf day because back in those days, they were deemed to be the quietest day of the week for cabbies.”
NSW Taxi Golf Association
There it is, folks. Wonder no more. I shouldn’t think there was too much licenced dancing going on that day.
As the 1960s dawned, things changed even further. Geoghegan was out, and in his wake came Masman, Martin, Conlon, Light, Monkey and a switch to decimal currency.
The Oasis had sprung up around the corner, as had the “Bankstown Bowling Club”. In another sign of the times, a TAB in Fetherstone Street, on the other side of the train line, was seen to be impinging upon the Cumberland’s bread and butter. Blair, Heffernan, Davanzo and Lynch would endure this incursion and take the Cumberland into the 1970s.
The beginning of the end came in the 80s, however, when that old undercurrent of pub violence would again raise its ugly head. By that time, Bankstown had become home to two distinct groups of refugees fleeing overseas wars: Lebanese and Vietnamese. They didn’t always gel.
As is now well understood, youth gang crime became an issue for these two ethnic groups. One night, in July of 1986, tensions boiled over in Bankstown. A brawl started outside Bankstown Station and became so violent that wooden palings were torn from fences to be used as weapons.
It’s not hard to imagine these guys hearing of the brawl during a night at the Cumberland and rushing to the aid of their friends. By then, the Cumberland had become “a seedy old watering hole, with a cast of colourful characters, Viet gangsters being shot on the doorstep, topless barmaids, great beers and lots of laughs”. It couldn’t last.
Somehow, the Cumberland staggered into the next decade, which was awash with even more gang violence. Names like 5T and the Madonna Boys should be familiar to anyone who was around at the time. 5T was particularly notorious not only for its violence and clout in the bustling Sydney heroin trade, but for the ridiculous age of its leader, Tri Minh Tran, who took over the gang at 14.
Tran was shot dead in 1995, and gangs such as Red Dragon and the Madonna Boys, led by “Madonna” Ro Van Le, sprung up in the resulting power vacuum. Madonna himself had been convicted of murder in 1989, and a decade later had only just been released from prison when he visited the Cumberland Hotel one Friday night.
It was Madonna’s last. As the drive-by shooter’s bullets entered his head and chest on the footpath outside the Cumberland, they ostensibly ended the hotel as well.
The shooting helped prompt owners Bill and Mario Gravanis to abandon the Cumberland in favour of the Bankstown Sports Hotel further down the road.
Today’s Cumberland is a mix of smaller outlets that have carved up the spacious interior. One must first cross the fruit-laden threshold of TK Plaza…
What was once Madonna’s beloved VIP lounge is likely Skybus Travel, itself no longer in operation if the room full of mangoes and canned squid is anything to go by.
And perhaps the table favoured by those disgruntled cabbie golfers is now a part of Anh Em Quan’s Hot Pot BBQ restaurant. If they’d settled their grievances over a bowl of spicy prawns that day, who knows what kind of world we’d live in now.
Around the back, it’s hard to imagine this was ever a pub. The mural places the Cumberland firmly in the every-second-shop’s-a-fish-market vibe of Old Town Plaza, while the back alley is full of Hiaces rather than getaway cars.
It’s unlikely the Cumberland Hotel will ever serve a cold schooner of beer again. The world that defined the venue is gone. Tooth, Madonna, Constable Howard, the Geoghegans of Bankstown – all are now memories.
At 324, just under the Cumberland’s south wing, the ‘Cumberland Professional Suites’ carry on the name. They probably occupy the rooms upstairs as well, but even they have the sadly familiar For Lease sign outside.
Perhaps the next tenant will take a look at the building’s history and look to maintain some kind of continuity in a way TK and Mr Zhong did not. As I departed fully intact, much to the late Madonna’s envy, I noticed this sign in one of the front windows.
Rest in peace, Cumberland Hotel.
McDonald’s/The Eye Piece – Sydney, NSW
It seemed like a match made in heaven: a Mickey D’s right outside upper George Street’s Metropolitan Hotel. A greasy fast food basin would have been – and for many years, was – the perfect catchment area for empty stomachs hoping to dilute the copious amounts of alcohol they were about to ingest over the course of an evening out.
So what went wrong?
As a name, the Metropolitan has stood on this spot since 1879. Before that, this part of old Sydney town wasn’t so metropolitan. Prior to 1834 this was a lumber yard: thirsty work, so that year it was released from its status as Crown land for development as a hotel, originally the Castle Tavern, and later as the preposterously named La Villa de Bordeaux.
Publican P. Wilson’s continental experiment didn’t bring the boys to the yard, and by 1867 the building, which included a dispensary, a tailors and a drapers shop, was empty. 1879’s drinkers were more amenable to the idea of a pub on this corner, and thus the Metropolitan was born.
Once the shawl of sophisticated metropolitana fell over the site in the middle of the Victorian era, it wasn’t easily lifted. As with so many Sydney pubs, a brewery took ownership – in this case, Tooth & Co. The excess real estate attached to the building was employed, in 1910, to transform the Metro into a new breed of 20th century super pub. Thus Tooth’s dispensed with the dispensary and tailors, a bottle shop was added to the ground floor, and the neighbouring terrace, built at the site’s inception in 1834, was incorporated into the metropolis of George and Bridge.
In the last century the hotel has changed owners a few times. In the 1930s it was the Bateman’s Metropolitan. In the 60s, it was part of Claude Fay’s hotel portfolio. Today, it’s back to the plain old Metropolitan. This lack of ownership qualifier perhaps distills the idea of a ‘Metropolitan hotel’ to its purest essence – it belongs to no one, to everyone.
Or perhaps we should stick to talking about the ground floor.
McDonald’s and a night on the plonk used to be synonymous, but over the years there’s been a move by imbibers away from processed junk and kebabs, and toward a traditional pub feed. Pubs have seized on the move, providing eateries and “classic” menus in newly renovated wings of what were once snooker rooms or smoking lounges.
Even the trusty kebab has been elbowed out of contention by the schnitty. Where did my country go?
So in a rare move, this McDonald’s beat a hasty retreat to less discerning pastures. You don’t often see the Golden Arches admitting defeat, let alone leaving up scads of damning evidence of their tenancy here.
Poor form too, the Eye Piece, which has opted only to invest in the ubiquitous trend of the pop-up store rather than a real shopfront. As Sydney rent prices continue to accelerate towards Uncle Scrooge-levels of ridiculous money, shop owners have fought back by negotiating shorter terms. This means there’s no need for a total shopfront fit out, which in this case has laid bare the failure of Ronald and associates.
Funny choice of location for an optometrist though, isn’t it? Specs downstairs, beer goggles upstairs.
It seems like a match made in heaven.
Hotel Cecil/Cecil Apartments – Cronulla, NSW
The Hotel Cecil, era unknown. Image courtesy Cronulla Surf Museum.
What’s in a name? The name Cronulla inspires certain imagery: beaches, beer and brawls. With its vibrant social life and strong sense of community, Bondi’s brother from another planet provides the kind of rough-around-the-edges seaside fun that’s expected of Australia, just with less backpackers.
Which is strange, because there’s never been a shortage of places to stay and get tanked. If you weren’t a local (in which case, what were you doing there?), you were spoiled for thirst-quenching options after your day in the sun, and one such option was the Hotel Cecil.
Tell me this now: what kind of names do you associate with Cronulla? Mark, Kai, Tyler…Cecil? Has anyone named Cecil ever set thonged foot into the Shire, let alone Cronulla Beach?
SMH, Aug 31, 1927
The answer is yes. In 1927, Cecil J. Munro was the president of the local shire, and owned a block of flats by the beach. Needless to say, when you’re the president your ego can run a little wild. Don’t ask why his name is spelled Monro in the pics and not in the history…as we all know, when people get rich they lose their minds.
Monro Flats, 1920. Image courtesy (in case you couldn’t tell) Historical Photographs.
Munro/Monro converted his block of flats into the Hotel Cecil. By the end of the year, the 70-bedroom bungalow-style hotel was ready for action.
Holiday-makers and locals alike enjoyed the opportunity to cecil down so close to the beach (You’re fired – Ed), but a problem soon became apparent: where were the balls?
Never one to miss an opportunity to stroke that ego, Cecil had a ballroom and cafe built beside the Hotel Cecil, right on the beach.
Cronulla Beach, mid-1940s. Image courtesy NSW Archives.
Today, cafes strive to be as tiny as possible, so as to maximise the saturation of lattes throughout the land. Take a look at this, and revel in the decadence of another era:
The Cecil Ballroom and Cafe as seen from Cronulla RSL, 1940s. Image courtesy Cronulla RSL.
For decades to come, the Hotel Cecil played host to debauched nights, hungover mornings, sandy feet padding across ratty carpets and vinyl flooring, and of course tall, cool schooners of Tooths.
That’s right – Tooths. The brewer purchased Hotel Cecil in 1936, and funded an expansion in 1940 that doubled the Cecil’s size.
Check out that second article! FAKE NEWS! SMH, Feb 13, 1940.
By then, Munro/Monro was long out of the picture, but his enterprising spirit had ensured Cronulla was branded with all of his names. Just two streets away from Hotel Cecil is Monro Park.
All it takes to solidify an identity is a dip of the toes into the pool of popular culture, and for Cronulla, that process of galvanization happened in 1979, with the release of the novel Puberty Blues.
The novel, by Gabrielle Carey and Kathy Lette, depicted the suburb’s surf culture through the eyes of two teenage girls. It instantly struck a nerve, and acted as a kind of rite-of-passage for teenagers all over Australia – such was the broad appeal of the tenets of Cronulla.
A film version followed in 1981 to great success, cementing the sights and sounds of 2230 for all time. That image has persisted in the decades since, and will likely persist until the world ends, but Cronulla seems quite happy with that.
That said, the Cronulla of Puberty Blues doesn’t quite resemble the Cronulla of today. Like many of its residents, the suburb has undergone facelift after facelift, and certain corners are almost unrecognizable.
Cecil Hotel, 1970s. Image courtesy Sutherland Shire Historical Society Inc.
Like the Hotel Cecil, for example. It was neutered in the late 1950s, when the ballroom was demolished, and at some point along the way it swapped the words of its name around to suit the wider transition from hotels to pubs.
But the hotel didn’t completely close until 1988, when licensee (and Cecil’s descendant) Shane Munro (that’s more like it) sold it to a property developer. By then, Tooths was long out of the picture…but that’s another story.
Demolition began in the early 90s, and I think you know where this story is going.
The Hotel Cecil facade, mid-1990s. Image courtesy Cronulla Surf Museum.
I can’t help but think the final night of the original Cecil would have been a wild one. A balmy March evening when hundreds of people, each of whom had forged personal relationships with the hotel over the years, raised their Tooths (or equivalent) one last time. By the end it was, along with Joe’s Milk Bar and the Cronulla Workers Club, one of Cronulla’s landmarks.
Today, it’s that old, bland story so often told in the pages of Past/Lives…
Yes, it’s another one of those “Let’s give it the same name was what was once there to try to capture some of the spirit and let the legend live on” situations, but you’re not fooling anybody. It’s a completely different, impersonal building, and the only drinking going on here is when rich loveless marrieds drink alone.
But what’s in a name? Around the back, in the oddly named Ozone Street, is the sweet spot: the original facade incorporated into the new Cecil.
I know this sort of thing is always meant to be a respectful tip of the tam-o-shanter to the original, but look at the imagery.
It’s overshadowed.
Then & Now – Beverly Hills Hotel
Time to try something new: think of this as a game of spot-the-difference writ large across decades. I’ll occasionally throw a few of these up just to spice things up a bit. To kick things off, let’s take a look at the Beverly Hills Hotel as it was back in 1981…
Beverly Hills Hotel, 1981. Image courtesy Hurstville City Library
This photo, taken from what is now a car park across the road, shows that the Beverly Hills Hotel was once called the Hotel Bennelong, that there was some kind of Coke-sponsored diner next door to it, and oh, what’s that tall sign on the far left? I can’t quite read it. And if you think the BHH is rough these days, imagine how it must have been back then. There’s a reason those guys are wearing hard hats.
Of greater interest is what’s happening in the foreground: the council is hard at work putting in the stormwater canal that now runs parallel to the East Hills train line all the way from here to Wolli Creek. On the far right, caught in the midst of all this progress is some dude’s house. As he makes his way to and from work, then to and from the pub each day, little does he know that in a matter of years his home will become the local baby health centre…but that’s a story for another day. To the future!
Beverly Hills Hotel, 2014.
In this context, 2014 sounds much more futuristic than it does as say, the expiry date of your driver’s licence, doesn’t it? The most striking aspect of the futurescape is the abundance of palm trees, installed to help lend Beverly Hills a Californian vibe. Counteracting this vibe is everything else pictured, especially the intrusive presence of the cameras. I know they’re there for our safety, but still – very Orwellian. It’s interesting to note that the hotel and Hepburn Court beside it remain largely the same as they were 33 years ago, and at this point I’d like to repeat that for any readers born in 1981 – 33 years ago.
The Family Hotel/The Duck’s Nuts/The Silk – Newcastle, NSW
It’s 1999. Hunter Street, Newcastle. Pubs aplenty. Peter Wansey has just bought one, the Family Hotel.
“NEWCASTLE rock stalwarts THE SLOTS have been familiar faces at the Family Hotel for the past 15 years.
While the Slots, which play the Family on Saturday, are likely to remain on the hotel’s books, a new range of bands will be introduced by the new owner.
PETER WANSEY, who recently bought the hotel from GARY WATSON, is planning to bring in a new style of music to the pub.
Currently renovating the venue, Wansey said he would be changing the hotel’s entertainment to attract the surfie/rugby union crowd.
The revamped hotel is rumoured to undergo a name change as well.
Calling your pub band The Slots is only slightly less genius than calling it The Pokies. Anyway, Wansey believed that the pub’s new name should attract a new, younger demographic, and what better way to do that than with a 1930s colloquialism.
Low and lazy – the Duck’s Nuts Hotel, 2004. Image courtesy Jon G/gdaypubs.com.au.
After 10 nutty years, the hotel’s name was changed again to the Silk Hotel. Yawn.
Nutted out. The Silk Hotel, 2013.
I’m wondering what demographic they were trying to capture with this name change, and all I can think of is haberdashers.
Like most of Hunter Street, the Silk is a pretty quiet place these days. I’d suspect most of its clientele wander in on a sense of ballsy nostalgia, or maybe because of the outrageous name still visible from certain angles outside.
For best results, be lying on your back in the gutter if you’re not already.
Staying in the Silk may sound like a luxuriously comfortable notion, but think again:
Courtesy tripadvisor.com.au
Ooh, that ain’t too silky! How about a second opinion?
Courtesy tripadvisor.com.au
Ouch, that’s a kick right in the duck’s! If this wasn’t bad enough, Newcastle police had the cojones to close the Silk for 72 hours last October after a spate of violent incidents at the pub. In the wake of such misfortune, maybe it’s time for another name change, something maybe a bit less deceptive? Might I suggest the Plastered Bastard?
Past/Lives of the Near Future 