Hairdresser/Sellick’s Newsagency/Newsagency Gallery – Petersham, NSW
Whereas some new owners of an address are quick to disguise the place’s former life, some embrace it. Exhibit A: the Newsagency Gallery at Petersham.
Occupying the former Sellick’s Newsagency on Stanmore Road, the Newsagency Gallery allows artists to rent the space for weeks at a time to display their work. They’ve left the outside almost entirely untouched…
…which is fine, but by using the shell of one to attract people to their gallery it’s almost making the statement ‘newsagents are dead, come and see what’s inside now’. But newsagents aren’t dead, despite the best efforts by Fairfax and News Ltd to make newspapers unreadable. Anyone seeing this familiar shopfront is likely to wander in hoping to grab a Daily Mirror and a couple of Scratchies. Interesting tidbit: in 1947 this shop was a hairdresser. Strange but true.
Pizza Hut/Network Video – Petersham, NSW
Image by Andrew Martyn.
Don’t let the graffiti, overgrown weeds and the video shop sign fool you – this location is still in operation as a video shop. But it’s a video shop…WITH A SECRET.
Image by Andrew Martyn.
Despite being bright purple, you don’t look too out of place, Network Video. You’ve got a disabled ramp there, a big carpark…strange roof you’ve got there, though. Looks like you, uh, added on the part of the building to the right of this picture much later. You know, the part without that…funny looking roof… Anyway, you mind if I have a look around the back?
Image by Andrew Martyn.
Gee, that’s a hell of a thing. Your wall there, Network Video…it’s taller than your roof. Now why would you design it like that? And you don’t look so purple back there. It’s brick… Ah, it’s probably nothing. Just my mind playing tricks. Maybe you were a house once, that wouldn’t be so special. Okay, thanks for your time, I’ll get outta your hair. Take it easy.
…
Oh, just one more thing. Can I have a look around the other side, between the building and the fence?
Image by Andrew Martyn.
Aha.
Past/Lives of the Near Future 