Showing posts with label radio street. Show all posts
Showing posts with label radio street. Show all posts

Monday, February 19, 2024

two journeys

On the weekend, there were two journeys made. One was Saturday when Laura, Perry and me to the very fringes of Gippsland. Essentially the trip had two stops: Tynong and Blind Bight (and some disappointing op shops made more disappointing by how freakin' promising they were). We went to Blind Bight first but for some reason the pictures have uploaded backwards so to speak but who cares, let's just whip through them...

Does the perspective on that bottle make you nauseous? Or just the thought of them mixing the syrups in the water and carbonating them.*
So these two signs, above, are nothing. They are attached to a corrugated iron depot that looks like the front of a building that still has a lived-in house behind it. In Tynong. There would have been some great pictures of excellent dogs at the Granite Cafe, most notably a little dog called Douglas, but he kept getting behind something whenever I wanted to photograph him. 
Above, is this even worth recording, in Koo Wee Rup a closed business with really shitty punctuation. That's all. 
Above Blind Bight at low tide, or the lowest tide we saw it at, when we got there there were some loud men, irritatingly loud, loading a boat, a fishing boat probably, onto a trailer from the water, and they apparently did it more or less just in time, because soon it was this, with billions of tiny crab holes in it and the sound of crabs, like a Slade's fizzy drink (Kola, Pyne, you name it) going flat. 

There are some ponds before you get to the nature which had these black swans in them, pretending to be I don't know what, something other than swans. 
The nature. There are 17 million ants in this picture. 
What more could anyone want but to be recognised by a bench? 

OK journey two - not Saturday but Sunday. This was a much, much less interesting journey, so adjust your expectations accordingly. 

Perry and I needed to go somewhere so we went west. This below is the radio broadcasting building supposedly in the spanish mission style I mentioned here and here. At least, it's as much of it as I could see from the gate. Big deal I hear you say, but you seem to have forgotten I told you to adjust your expectations. 

After this we kind of meandered in the car trying to find something that wasn't impossibly boring. Did we do it? Well, we got to this part of the world, Edgewater is what it calls itself though actually I think it's officially just Maribyrnong. 





Would like to come back and do a tour of Jack's Magazine sometime. I had a student a few years ago who did a really good masters thesis about it as a heritage 'problem' (hope that's not a misrepresentation) and I had long been interested in it. The surrounding high-rise is pretty interesting too. 

* I didn't notice when I took this picture but the word 'favourites' has almost completely faded out on that Slades sign. I didn't read it properly when I photographed it anyway but I guess I sort of thought it was a strange way of saying, 'the Slades family' (of flavours), but no, family favourites. 

Tuesday, January 16, 2024

radio street

So I was curious about Radio Street but all my meagre imagination could come up with was that it might be some real estate agent's idea of a groovy name connecting to a thing everyone likes. That is, twenty years later and it would have been Television Street and twenty years after that, Pong Street. But imagine my surprise twice when this:

Melbourne Age 14 October 1924 p. 9 

And also, that shed that I said I wondered what it was? Well apparently it was the transmitter building. However, the one thing I will say is that that shed as visible from Ashley st is in no way in the 'spanish mission style'. I mean the other side of it might be. But no.


braybrook and maribyrnong

Perry and I went for a long walk around the Maribyrnong at Braybrook. The bit between Ballarat Road and the Maribyrnong River is largely industrial, still, and obviously has been since at least the Second World War. I don't feel very empowered to figure out the story of this building/site right now but it is presently Peerless Holdings, which changed its name from Rothfield & Company in 1958 (according to an announcement in the Age 21 Feb 1959 p. 8). Rothfield & Company made sewing cotton and thread; Peerless also made buttons and slide fasteners. According to its website 'Peerless Foods began its life in the 1950s as a small business, recycling and rendering meat by-products in Melbourne, Victoria. Over the years, the refinery was upgraded and expanded with state-of-the-art technology and systems.' I mean, apparently, kind of. Peerless was purchased by Smorgon - which manufactured and exported canned and frozen meats and canned fruit - in late 1959 (according to an article in the Age for 23 December 1959, 'Smorgon's bid for Peerless').  
This is what's around the corner also I think a part of the same block though it's not entirely clear. This nice building...
...and this even nicer one which has the words 'String Factory' on it (this bit just says 'Factory', the word 'String' is on the other side but I couldn't even begin to find a good place to photograph it). 
This business has been Klipspringer Pty Ltd for at least my lifetime; it used to be a tennis 'gut' manufacturer. Maybe that's the 'string'? I am not sure.  
This building, which is at the corner of Evans and Ballarat Rd, really intrigues me. It appears that this was an aluminium factory of some sort, under a few different names (starting I think with the name Ocal, which the Sands & McDougall 1965p. 185 suggests is an acronym) but that doesn't explain why it has the word 'Novelty' written very plainly at the top.  

It's now a Go-Kart place as you can see, though I gather it used to be known as Fun City,* a name I would tend to take with a grain of salt - how about you. 
I don't know what this ever was or currently is - I'd like to though. 
These nice birds were hanging around a garbage truck, The one on the left is called Shitz, the one in the middle is Gigglez, the one on the right goes by Li'l Shitz. 

This is when we finally ('finally!' said Perry) got to the river and crossed the bridge. I mean, this is an amazing house. 
Can you imagine. It's like living in 15th century Italy somewhere. 
I noticed that the bridge here had a sign on it proclaiming it as from 1970, so I had a quick check on what used to be there. Interesting (?):
Now, it's:

Have to go back and retrace that old bridge line sometime.

I have to admit that by this point we were starting to wonder if we had bitten off more than we could chew as it was getting kind of stupidly hot. But we didn't actually have much choice at this point. Here one might almost feel one had reached the end of the road...
And indeed someone had clearly used this point for some kind of ritual. 
Investigation revealed we cbf finding out what was going on...  
OK now we're on the home stretch back to the car. This is Omar street, just some nice, nice houses that are ... nice
this one's nice
this one is also nice
Turn right at Radio Street
 Another nice one
And this one with... 
A nautical logo. Within minutes we were back in the (bit hot) car and heading home. Ultimately, Perry's assessment? 

* I may have got mixed up with the Fun City in Ballarat Road Sunshine North which burnt down in early 2017. I'll get back to you

a new wings compilation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

'WINGS is the ultimate anthology of the band that defined the sound of the 1970s. Personally overseen by Paul, WINGS is available in an ...