Strathfield Burwood Evening College/Junk Shop – Homebush, NSW
Another relic sitting along Parramatta Road (where would I be without it), this…I don’t really know what this is.
The building itself doesn’t help, with all its allusions to great deals and hard to obtain articles. The place is full of strange old junk…
It might have sold office supplies once, before the owner went mad and decided to hoard everything instead of selling it. Some people collect vinyl records, others collect filing cabinets. At one stage, the building also appears to have housed the Strathfield Burwood Evening College:
Not…entirely sure what you could learn in a place like this, but I bet they had a damn good filing system. Still, a closer inspection of the windows proves they weren’t kidding about those hard to obtain articles:
That’s wisdom.
BARREN UPDATE: According to reader Claire, this place – that was absolutely stuffed with goods – was suddenly mysteriously empty when she passed it a few months back. This I had to see.
Not only was it for auction, but it sold, unlike 100% of the merch that once filled the room. But what of that merch? Let’s zoom in.
The boasts of discount prices and the eye-catching stained glass windows were still there, and surely added to the value of the property at auction.
Now those articles really are hard to obtain. Thanks, Claire!
For more on the history of this peculiar building, including a picture from when it was still Homebush Newsagency, check out Strathfield Heritage.
Kiwi International Airlines/DJ School – Sydney, NSW
Someone get that annoying track-like structure in the foreground out of the way.
Ewan Wilson was just an ordinary guy when he founded Kiwi International Airlines in 1994. By April 1995, he was just an ordinary CEO of an ordinary small budget airline, providing cheap airfares for trans-Tasman flights and battling with rival Freedom Air. In late 1995, Wilson was just an ordinary moronic fraudster, making false claims about his personal financial situation as he applied for a loan for Kiwi Air. This led to Wilson becoming an ordinary stupid prisoner for the next three months for having acted ‘without moral regard’. Funnily enough, Kiwi Air never got that loan, and in September 1996 became just another airline going into voluntary liquidation, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded on either side of the Tasman. Around the same time, this building ceased to be Kiwi Airlines’ Sydney office, but didn’t cease to look like it.
These days, Ewan Wilson is just your ordinary disgraced former businessman, current Hamilton city councillor, and cancer patient.
Meanwhile, DJ School and DJ Gear have gone into business as liquidators. I had no idea the DJ game was so tough.
The Bat & Ball Hotel – Surry Hills, NSW
Here’s a perfect argument for why you should take down old signs. Who’s that hosting your trivia night, Bat & Ball?
Come on down, huh? How far? Six feet? Maybe that’s why the question mark is there, they don’t know whether trivia will be on or not because the host is perpetually late. TOO SOON?
Coles Variety/Fossey’s/Bag A Bargain/Stokland – Hurstville, NSW
The Hurstville building currently featuring Stokland Furniture Depot is a bit like your old fridge covered in magnets that vary wildly in their level of ancientness. The site has put up with a variety of variety shops (sorry) since 1914.
While it’s currently Stokland Furniture Depot (at last, furniture shopping without the c—s), in a previous life the building played host to…
…Bag A Bargain, and that Escher-esque door to nowhere – a sight so crazy it’s clearly driven the Bag A Bargain mascot downright nutty. Earlier still, the building was…
…Coles Variety store (later Fossey’s), which acted as a thoroughfare to Forest Road. I hope the equivalent sign at the front of the building on Forest Road warned thoroughfare users of the doozy of a step waiting for them on the other side of the door.
UPDATE: Thanks to this Leader article from December 1989, we can finally know what caused Coles Variety to pack up and leave. Spoiler: it was Westfield.
The Leader, December 5 1989
Even if we choose to accept K-Mart as the spiritual successor to Coles Variety – which I don’t – can its champions boast that it has an ice cream parlour at the front of the store? I didn’t think so.
Fowlers Shoes/’Jo-Anne’ Ladies Wear – Bankstown, NSW
In Bankstown’s dank and decrepit Compass Centre Arcade, Fowlers Shoes once provided footwear to the populace. The sign sports the original compass logo of the centre, which appears to have never once been refurbished throughout its long and pointless existence. Fowlers dates back to the 1950s, which was a time before the Compass Centre, so obviously they knew how to sell shoes.
These days, as the arcade rots around her, ‘Jo-Anne’ has taken it upon herself to clothe Bankstown, one lady at a time.
Past/Lives of the Near Future 