Robbos Spares/Lightsounds – Campsie, NSW
Image by Andrew Martyn.
This Canterbury Road address may be called Lightsounds now, but the sign above it still features the bizarre mascot of Robbos(sic) Spares, a spare car parts company. According to Robbos’s stunning website, Robbos set up shop here in 1984.
Robbos Spares, Canterbury Road Campsie, 2010. Image from Robbos.com.
By now you’ve got that feeling like the word Robbos doesn’t make sense anymore, don’t you? Or is it just me?
Savoy Cinema/Quality House/Whitewood Warehouse/Poliak Building Supply Co. – Enfield, NSW
On the Hume Highway, Enfield stands this bright orange eyecatcher. According to Strathfield Heritage, the Savoy opened as the Enfield Cinema in 1927, but was redesigned in Art Deco style in 1938.
Enfield Savoy, 1938. Image from Strathfield Heritage.
Enfield Savoy interior furnishings, 2012.
At this point it was renamed the Savoy, and reopened to the public. In 1944 it was bought by Hoyts, but was closed as a cinema in 1960. The last film shown was Some Like It Hot.
Enfield Savoy entrance, 2012.
Julian Tertini was working as a public servant in the mid-1970s when he quit his job and started a furniture company with no prior business experience. That company was Whitewood Warehouse. By 2012, the Savoy has stood as the cartoon bear-sporting Whitewood Warehouse longer than it did as a cinema.
Tertini went on to start both Fantastic and Freedom Furniture, and is one of Australia’s richest people. The Savoy/Whitewood building is now home to Poliak Building Supplies. The foyer is a showroom for ovens and hot water systems, because some still like it hot.
QUALITY UPDATE: Thanks to reader Phil, Past/Lives can now reveal the hitherto unknown second phase of this building’s life! After the cinema’s 1960 closure, it began its long life as a furniture warehouse under the name of Quality House. Now there’s a name you can trust:
Quality House advertisement, June 27 1965
Keith Lord Furniture Electrical/Brescia Furniture Showroom/derelict – Ashfield, NSW
I remember when I was a child, I was taken on yet another tedious day trip to Brescia Furniture, on Parramatta Road at Ashfield. When we attempted to sit on one of the lounges to see how it felt, we were rudely told to get off by one of the staff. We left empty handed.
Karma’s a bitch, isn’t it, Brescia?
The showroom was built in 1975 for Keith Lord Furniture, replacing their old site:
Keith Lord Furniture and Electrical, Ashfield NSW, April 1965. Image courtesy Library of NSW.
Lord died in 1978, and by 1994 his chain was dead. Along the way, this showroom was sold to Brescia, for whom it became a model store. But in 2005 it went up in one of the worst and most intense fires in Sydney’s history. It was said that the combination of leather, varnish, wood and other flammable materials all stockpiled together in a 30-year-old building didn’t help over 900 firefighters put out the blaze over three days. I guess that’s why they didn’t want us on the lounges.
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.
Past/Lives of the Near Future 