ANZ Bank/MPA/Closed – Homebush, NSW
Reader Dave gave me a hot tip about this place: “It was the ANZ Bank that I used to go to. It was closed up and never used since. Look through the front window and you’ll see all the teller’s benches with glass partitions between covered in dust, as if the bank was suddenly deserted and locked up as a time capsule. Even for me it’s spooky frozen in time.”
Needless to say, I couldn’t pass that up. Unfortunately, someone tipped them off because the blinds were drawn when I got there, allowing me to see absolutely nothing. I looked for any hint (apart from the obvious design of the shopfront) that it was ever a bank, but instead came across something much more ridiculous. If you look closely, you can see the letters MPA on the front of the building. Here:
And on the building’s sign, the acronym reveals a shameful secret:
Yes, MPA is Master Painters Australia NSW, a fact available to us through this masterful painting job. Well done, guys.
John Storey Memorial Dispensary/Clinic 36 – Chippendale, NSW
Dwarfed by the apartment towers around Regent Street is this strange little corner building that looks almost medieval.
Closer inspection reveals that it was once the John Storey Memorial Dispensary, opened in 1926. Storey was a former NSW Premier who died in October 1921 after a lifelong battle with nephritis. No sooner was he in the ground than rumblings began about how best to honour his memory:
SMH, 31 Oct 1921
The paper alludes to the dispensary’s clientele as the city’s ‘sick poor’; what a diplomatic way of putting it. Today, the building is home to Clinic 36, and you’d be forgiven for thinking it might be a trendy bar. Nope, it’s a methadone clinic. Even after the deal was done to erect the Dispensary, the city officials weren’t satisfied that Storey’s name had been honoured enough:
The Daily News (Perth), 4 Apr 1922
I’m not exaggerating when I say that this letter goes on for a page and a half longer. They just didn’t care! Anyway, the point of the article is that a playground should be made to keep kids off the streets and out of crime’s way – a good cause, but as far as I can see the playground never materialised. But that’s okay, because even though it’s not quite as innocent as it was to begin with, Storey’s dispensary still looks after those children who’ve encountered the ‘evils of the street’.
Take Away Food/Nothing – Leichhardt, NSW
Someone certainly took away the food from this pitiful row of shops along Parramatta Road at Leichhardt. It’s hard to see, but beneath the BEEFBURGERS sign, it says ‘Millions of Varieties‘. Wow, what a boast, considering they’ve already chosen the very specific ‘beefburgers’ to promote the shop. By the look of the building, this middle shop might have been the jewel in the crown of these three businesses once upon a time, but those days are long gone.
Take away shops on busy roads like this tend to die off when surrounding businesses start to close down, because it’s not like motorists can easily stop and run in for beefburger variety #6,546,500. Parramatta Road anywhere is not really the right environment for this kind of place, but that doesn’t deter them. Nor, clearly, does it deter the button shop next door. That’ll work.
The Liquidators/Coco Express/Fruit market – Rockdale, NSW
By remaining nameless, this relatively new Rockdale fruit market is presumably hoping to avoid the fates of its predecessors. First we have Coco Express, a women’s fashion outlet with a meaningless name. Seriously, does Coco Express evoke any thoughts of women’s clothing whatsoever? And if it does, what kind? Coconut bras and hula skirts?
Going back even further we can see this was once the domain of the Liquidators discount variety store, a Reject Shop reject. They’re all gone now so it’s safe to talk about them, and I’d like to say that for a business called the Liquidators, they left themselves open to a lot of ridicule by not completely covering their tracks and liquidating. I like that they got a ladder happening to paint over the higher instance of their logo, but ran out of liquidation for the awning. Budget indeed.
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…
Past/Lives of the Near Future 