Trinder’s Produce Store/Frontier Signs/Mixed Business/Nothing – Hurstville, NSW
Along the long and lonely Kimberley Road, Hurstville sit numerous husks of shops. A quick search on the amazing Trove reveals that today’s entry on Past Lives was once ‘Trinder’s Produce Store’, and was used as a voting location from 1930 to 1948.
Image from Sydney Morning Herald, 24 Oct 1930/Trove.
Built in 1926, no evidence remains of Trinder’s Produce Store. The shopfronts appear to have been out of business for years.
The awning reads ‘Frontier Signs’, but the sign itself has been fractured.
Oddly, there’s a very faint but still visible company name beneath Frontier Signs. It’s hard to read, but it certainly doesn’t say ‘Frontier Signs’. You’d think a sign company letting something like that happen would be like Dulux selling paint in Berger cans.
Gottlieb Electronics/All Electro Sales and Wholesaler/Unknown – Belmore, NSW
It’s hard to imagine now, but there was once a time where pinball was so popular that Gottlieb Amusements had an Australian subsidiary. It closed down sometime after 1995, which is in keeping with the decline of the pinball industry itself.
Google indicates a company called Sibercom (or Sybercom) operated out of this address for a time, so this must be where they built all the Terminators. There’s scant evidence to indicate what might be operating out of the building now, and the sign outside gives few clues:
Ask for us by name.
Presumably, this is where bored hipsters worked in a time before JB Hifi.
Corner shop/nothing – Belmore, NSW
Great, the time machine worked.
Quick! It’s 1953 and I’ve forgotten my kid’s birthday! Where will I be able to get her a…gift…maybe something…I dunno, popular…at the last minute?!
Yung thugz take note, this is how graffiti tags looked a hundred years ago.
Thank goodness! Call off the search!
The Keg/Vaby’s/Bonfire Brazilian Grill – Beverly Hills, NSW
On the corner adjacent to the Four Seasons Chinese Restaurant is the new Bonfire Brazilian Grill, but even during its recent past as Vaby’s Mediterranean Grill, the restaurant has never shaken its original name – the Keg. The boom in rooftop advertising in the area must have coincided with the opening of Kingsford Smith Airport’s third runway.
EXTINGUISHED UPDATE: As of late 2012, the fire is OUT. The Bonfire Grill has left the building, but it won’t be long until someone else gets in there and tries to make a go of another restaurant. Good luck…
ROCKY UPDATE: Aaaaand it’s Pancakes on the Rocks. Although in this case it’s a bit more like Pancakes 20km south-west of the Rocks.
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.
Past/Lives of the Near Future 