Burger joint/Under construction – Lilyfield, NSW
Image courtesy Andrea Cook
How common a sight is this? Even if we’re not living in the golden age of the take-away shop (and we really aren’t), you still can’t seem to swing a dead focaccia in Sydney’s suburbs without hitting one of these, or an ex-one of these.
For those readers too young (pfft, yeah right) to remember, let me take you back for a moment. In my day, you could go to these places called milk bars or take-aways, which were usually plastered in Coca-Cola advertising. Not Pepsi…never Pepsi.
Image courtesy Andrea Cook
They’d make hot food and keep it in these giant contraptions called bain maries, which made it impossible to tell how long it’d been there. Crucially, they were also trojan horses into the then-fledgeling world of ethnic food: Australians not open minded enough to actually go to a Greek restaurant might still have a souvlaki at their local take-away. Ingenious, really.
This particular take-away seems to have spent most of its early years as a residential property before taking the plunge into the deep-fry. The kind of fatty junk sold here probably filled the stomachs of the blue-collar workers who once populated the area, or the staff and patients of Callan Park Mental Hospital which is just across the road, but as times and tastes changed it was out with the milkshakes and schnitzels (mmm, together at last), and in with the coffee and rolls.
But let’s go back even earlier, shall we, to a time before deep fried food clogged Australia’s arteries…
Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate, 11 February 1939
You’d better believe Mrs. Cutting wasn’t serving up dim sims and Chiko rolls to her 50 guests. I wonder if Dubbo’s local papers still herald the homecoming of any travelling Dubbogan (Dubsider? Dubbocastrian?)
The celebrations didn’t last long, because by 1943 the Cuttings had cut loose, and the jocks were in.
As you can see, Mr. John Smith (dynamic name, no wonder he became Jock) lived right here in the mid-1940s while working as a labourer. SEE? I WASN’T MAKING ALL THAT UP ABOUT IT BEING BLUE COLLAR!
SMH 13 July 1949
Ahem. But once Jock’s labours were over, business became a little…mixed. A dynasty that would last over six decades began here for a measly 1500 pounds. I wonder if the take-away was making 140 pounds a week?
Google Street View, July 2014
As recently as last year, the newly minted Rozelle Coffee Lounge was still feeding the locals, but in a much harsher, more competitive environment. Go to Rozelle today and there are gourmet cafes on every corner, so the more meat-and-potatoes establishments face an uphill battle, and that’s probably why the Coffee Lounge isn’t around today.
Image courtesy Andrea Cook
As the suburb has become gentrified and all the blue collars have turned to ironic skivvies, there’s no longer any call for a place like this. The Coffee Lounge knew it, as it’s currently under construction, presumably transforming into something more suitable to today’s clientele.
I don’t know about you, but I’ll always find those Coca-Cola takeaways suitable. There’s something really…comforting about them. If you drive into a country town and things are looking unfamiliar and unsettling in a Deliverance kind of way, a place like this is all you need to soften the sound of the banjos.
Victory Theatre – Kogarah, NSW
It’s 1920, and in the blossoming suburbs of Sydney, people are still on a high of post-war jubilance. We won! Business is booming! The fighting spirit imbued by victory in Europe had led to a bolstering of ‘suburban pride’, as you can see in this very boastful article from the Evening News:
Evening News, May 26 1920
The suburbs were taking shape at an ever-increasing rate, giving folks more and more reasons to move away from the bustle of the city. One such reason was the rise of suburban picture theatres. No longer did you have to get on a train (if your suburb was lucky enough to have a station) and head all the way into the city just to see the latest Hollywood bioscopy – now, you could just stroll around the corner to your local fleapit.
SMH, Nov 18 1920
And so it was for the people of Kogarah, in Sydney’s south, when Mr. F. Moore and Mrs. J. M. Rainbow opened the Victory theatre in November of 1920. Not only were we victorious over the vile Hun, it was a victory for the suburbs over the cave-of-wonders-worth of amusements promised by the big city.
For those who enjoyed music, but had no way to enjoy that music at home aside from reading the sheet music, the Victory had you covered.
–
SMH, March 20 1926
Don’t just read about it, get down to one of your nearest nickelodeon and get wired for sound!
Of course, nothing lasts forever, and by 1936 the victorious buzz was starting to wear off. New owner John Wayland knew it was time for a name change.
ca. 1936. Image courtesy Sydney Cinema Flashbacks
Coupled with an extensive remodelling in the then-chic art deco style and equipped with a boss-ass organ sound system for the phattest of phonograph-style beats, the imaginatively renamed NEW VICTORY opened to much acclaim in October of that year.
Wayland and his New Victory entertained Kogarahns (?) for the next thirty years, pumping out bangin’ organ-based choons and screening blockbuster flicks into the late 1960s, when it was renamed the Avon (a sign of the times). It managed to resist the lure of the cannibalistic Hoyts and Greater Union groups, which were buying and closing as many suburban theatres as they could at the time. With the advent of television (turns out you can show organ playing on TV), picture theatres were in decline all over the city, and even Wayland’s fortunes had begun to decline. The writing was projected onto the wall for Wayland, and it was time to sell up…
We’ll continue the saga of the Mecca next time, but for now, come with me to a time not so long ago, a time far removed from the glory days of John Wayland’s Victory. Let’s revisit 2012.
Mecca lecca hi, mecca hiney-ho
The Mecca, as it was now known, had seen better days. It closed suddenly in 2003, and had been left to rot ever since. Despite the neglect, its colourful yet tacky exterior was still a familiar sight to not only the locals, but travellers on the Hurstville to Bondi train line across the road. When something so prominent sits unused for so long, suspicions begin to arise, and curiosity gets the better of some people, just as it did for my friend Andre.
Andre had grown up around the area, and had many fond memories of seeing movies at the Mecca in the early 1990s, when it boasted of being the cheapest in Sydney.
“Let’s go and check it out,” Andre said. “It’s just sitting there.” Why not? I thought. At the very least, it’d make a hell of a blog entry. (Don’t know about that one… -Ed)
As a suburb, Kogarah is sharply divided by the train line. On one side, which we’ll call the good side, there are plenty of shops, houses, people, and the St George Hospital. It feels alive.
On the other side, which we’ll call entirely terrible, it’s…entirely terrible. The Nemesis of Neglect has the place entirely in its clutches. Derelict unit blocks, useless, mouldy shops, people who seem to always be on their way to somewhere nicer…and the Mecca. One wonders how it was allowed to stay so awful for so long. It was as if the Kogarah Council had completely forgotten about that part of town, and as it turns out, that’s not too far from the truth. It turns out that this part of Kogarah falls within the jurisdiction of Rockdale Council, which may be news to Rockdale Council.
With its hot-potato status between two neighbouring councils and its no-mans-land appearance, I started to wonder why Wayland had chosen this site for his pet project. After all, placement on the other side of the tracks would have put it in company with the Carlton Odeon…but maybe that was the point? Maybe he couldn’t stand the competition? Never mind that Kogarah had another theatre in Wayland’s day, the Subway. Maybe we’ll never know.
When Andre and I got to the Mecca, it was exactly as advertised. It was just as it had been in 2003 when its staff downed tools and walked out, and it looked like they hadn’t bothered to clean up. We peered through the front window…
“Wouldn’t it be mad to get in there?” Andre suggested. I agreed that it would, and thought of all the cool, movie-related stuff that would surely be waiting: film prints, posters, memorabilia. You know, the kind of stuff no right-minded management would leave behind. But hell, we’d never know. Southern Security Alarms had the place wired, and-
“Hey, the side gate’s unlocked!” Andre shouted.
Well, shit.
He pushed the gate and it swung open, revealing steps down to a path. The steps were covered in wet clumps of fur…or hair. We stepped across the threshold and immediately looked around. Had we been seen? Was someone running to a payphone right now to call the cops?
The street was deserted. The neighbouring unit blocks were derelict, awaiting demolition. And there was no payphone. I breathed out, reminding myself it was no longer 1995, but Andre was already making his way down the path.
The path ended in a metal staircase that led up to a side door to the theatre itself. It was easy to see where the theatre’s original side windows had been bricked up, and the flimsy wooden door seemed like a late addition.
We tried to open it, but it was firmly locked.
Underneath the stairs, the side path continued down to the back of the theatre. Having been thwarted by the door, we manoeuvred ourselves under the steps and continued down to the rear. Although we didn’t know it at the time, it was the same rear that had in 1930 been the scene of some commotion:
Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, Feb 5 1930
The place had changed since those carefree days, but it seemed as if no one had been down there in ages.
Strange pieces of stonework lay at the base of the building’s rear, and a sheet of corrugated iron covered what had once been a door about 15 feet above the ground. A garage had been hastily tacked onto the rear wall. Again, the door was locked.
Around the other side, we could see the shopping complex that sat astride the train station across the road, and…that door. A small doorway covered in a tangled mess of vines.
The gate yawned open, the space beyond too dark to see. What was this place?
We had to go in.
The room was ancient, even by Mecca standards, and was peppered with a dissonant assortment of objects. How long had it been since someone had last entered? What had the room originally been? We looked around, confronted from every angle by a new and disturbing sight.
Sitting beside this smashed TV was a receipt for the very same television, dated 1999. Perhaps the most disturbing find of all was this:
Bless this house
Oh Lord we pray
Make it safe
By night and day
It was like something out of Seven.
As we explored, it became clear what the room was.
True to its smell, it was a toilet. While we weren’t sure if it had served the patrons of the original Victory, or had been tacked on later as a kind of custodian bathroom, it was still a fascinating discovery, and one that could very easily have gone unnoticed had the theatre itself been accessible. Still…
A hole in the roof provided a tantalising glimpse of the theatre above, and I knew that neither of us would be satisfied until we could get into the place. The creepy serial killer toilet had been a great find, but it was hardly the main attraction.
Before we left, I noticed something interesting affixed to the front window. I must have missed it in all the initial excitement of being able to spy on old popcorn containers.
The plot thickens…
Pizza Hut/Moo-ers Steakhouse/For Lease – Long Jetty, NSW
When someone or something beloved is replaced, it’s not unusual for the usurper to find itself under fire, the subject of blistering scorn (and never moreso than right here on this blog). In the case of Moo-ers, a steakhouse up near The Entrance, it seemed like they picked the wrong shoes to fill.
In 2008, Moo-ers maa-nagement became concerned about the quality of meat they were receiving; hogget and mutton were being misrepresented as lamb, yearling as veal. The definition of beef cuts was being stretched by local suppliers; a shipment claiming to include sirloin, porterhouse and striploin cuts would be found to contain nothing but the one generic cut of beef. I wonder if this was happening with their seafood as well: shrimp instead of prawns, carp instead of everything else.
Moo-ers raised the issue with the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee (SRARAATC *ahem* excuse me), hoping for tighter naming guidelines for meat. With most of their menu being meat, any substitution or downgrade in quality was hurting the Moo-ers brand.
Was anything ever done? Was the integrity of the Moo-ers menu salvaged? To answer those questions, cast your eyes upwards to the picture. Notice anything…for lease? My expert guess is that Moo-ers’ shipments of generic meat was in keeping with what the previous tenants had received. I mean seriously, if you can tell me what kind of “meat” the Pizza Hut “ground beef” is meant to be, then congratulations – there may be a spot for you on the SRARAATC.
Past/Lives of the Near Future 