Where Are They Now? 2015 Edition
As the sun sets on another wonderful year of staring longingly back into the past and more often than not wondering “why?”, it’s time to turn our attention to some of the places previously featured on PLOTNF. In the twilight of 2015, this terrible trio (or terrific trio, if you work there :D) are of interest entirely because they’ve all lost reason for being interesting.
Yes, if they’d have made these changes from day one, we might never have known the surprisingly philanthropic tale of Australian Plastic Fabricators…
THEN
We were attracted by its charitable red nose, and certainly not by its colour scheme. Perhaps sensing this, the APF crew sent around a collection jar of their own and coughed up for a new coat of paint.
NOW
They’re really married to that colour pairing, aren’t they? I wonder how it went down as they rediscovered the red nose during the painting. Did someone recognise it? Was there anyone left from 1995’s management team to say “Oh, that bloody thing’s still up there”? Did anyone make a joke about the boss having a redder nose than the building? Only the building knows for sure, and walls can’t talk – especially when they’re covered in a new coat of paint.
We might never have gone from A to…A with A Helen and her Pavalova Palalice…
THEN
Helen bought too many vowels.
NOW
For reasons we may never know, although perhaps tied to some kind of customer service trouble, Helen has decided to call it a day. Well, actually, if Helen was calling it, it’d be A A Day, wouldn’t it? Or A Aday. Or Daay. Hee hee, I could milk this all daay.
Props to you for finally showing some restraint, Helen, but alas, it’s too little too laate.
And perhaps saddest of all, we may never have known the story of the suburban movie house that became a…suburban movie house.
THEN
Formerly the Padstow Star, a cinema dating back to the early 1950s, Civic Padstow and its team of minimum wage teens serviced the entertainment needs of the area for over 30 years before finally shutting its doors last month.
NOW
The closing down sale was so drastic that even the shelves were cleared out.
Seeing this sad, empty lobby makes you wonder about the thousands of people who would have made their way up those steps over the decades, eagerly anticipating a few hours lost in a celluloid world of fun and excitement. And now that feeling will never exist there again.
Put your hand up if you’re the reason they had to add those disclaimers down the bottom. C’mon, you know who you are. Oh yes? You? Congratulations, you’re an idiot.
The light’s off, the plug’s been pulled, the register’s empty and overdue fees will be waived.
Goodbye 2015, hello 2016 and all the wondrous stories of past livin’ ahead of us. Happy new year, folks.
Padstow Star Cinema/Civic Video – Padstow, NSW
These days, we know it as Civic Video (or just Civic, if you go by the shopfront sign. I bet they’re dying to be able to remove the word ‘video’ from the rest of their signs, despite how cost ineffective that would be), but prior to 1984 this was the Padstow Star Cinema:
Padstow Star Cinema, 1964. Image courtesy Joe Simiana.
Built in 1952 as the sister cinema to the not-too-distant Panania Star, the Padstow Star was one of many suburban cinemas of old. It’s a concept you can barely imagine now, unless you live in Beverly Hills. In 1985 the cinema closed, with Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure being its last screening. See, Ewoks do ruin everything.
Ever since, it’s been a house of movies in a very different way:
The interior has been refurbished, but it’s still quite easy to see what it originally was. The screen is a dead giveaway:
The projection booth remains as well, and is now the manager’s office judging by the angry, managerial eyes staring out at me when I tried to take a picture of it. Given the impending death of video shops, it’ll be interesting to see if this building gets yet another lease on life in Civic’s wake, or whether the residents of Padstow will have to start drinking for entertainment on a Friday night, like the rest of us.
Past/Lives of the Near Future 