Mixed Business/Nothing – Surry Hills, NSW
This place, beside the Norfolk Hotel on Cleveland Street, Surry Hills, has been closed for a good long while. It’s hard to say exactly when it closed from what we can see. There’s a development proposal, so there might not be much time left for it, either. What amazes me is just how much you could get done at a place like this back when it was actually open and functioning. You could get your hair done while waiting for your clothes to be dry cleaned, AND buy a gift for your significant other and toys for the kids. And cigarettes. They all sold cigarettes back then.
Dunlop’s/Kim Sun Young Hair Beauty Wedding – Strathfield, NSW
Kim Sun Young provides Strathfield with its hair, beauty and wedding needs, but the dirty alley behind the shop gives us a history lesson.
I’m guessing it was a shoe shop. Why you would advertise in any way in such a dingy back alley escapes me, but I imagine that they chose to put up a Dunlops sign to discourage thieves who were perhaps expecting Nikes. That said, for all I know it could have been a golf ball shop and the sign’s there to discourage thieves expecting Titleists. And if you think I made a baseless comment just now about varying quality of golf balls, don’t think I didn’t do my homework.
UPDATE: Turns out I didn’t do my homework. Dunlop’s was actually a clothing and haberdashery store, and existed until at least 1980. Before that it was Reynolds’ Drapery. Mine was a pretty good guess though, right? Big thanks to Cathy Jones and her Strathfield History Images blog!
Past/Lives of the Near Future 