Continuing south down Hotham Street, we reached the point at which East St Kilda becomes the small suburb of Ripponlea. On Glen Eira Road are various shops and small businesses, and traces of previous ones, that aroused our interest. Two buildings in particular caught our eye, though their fates have been quite different. Continue reading
At the corner of Lennox Street and Rowena Parade is a Victorian shop (dated 1878) on which some very faded ghostsigns can be discerned. The words ‘General House Repairs’ are just about legible between the upper storey windows, and I could make out ‘Builders’ and ‘Carpenters’ above the ground floor windows, along with the now almost illegible name of the former owners, which appears to read ‘ … ETT & SONS’. Continue reading
After travelling further north than I intended, I turned east before the so-called Melbourne Circle became a circuit of Bendigo. I took a right at Buckley Street, a road that runs east-west from Avondale Heights to Essendon. It’s a journey of only a few kilometres, which we walked on a warm morning in December. Buckley Street takes you through the established, middle-class suburbs of Essendon West, Aberfeldie, northernmost Moonee Ponds and into Essendon. Instead of writing an essay, this time I’ve used photos in an attempt to capture the essence of the street, its ordinariness, beauty and strangeness. Continue reading
Something happened in Apocalypse Heights*.
A war, plague or tsunami. An explosion that killed the populace, but left the buildings standing.
Perhaps aliens landed here and took everyone to a remote planet. Some time between 2011, when the census was conducted, and now, 10,990 people were spirited away.
There must be some explanation. Because there’s no one here. Not visible, anyway. Continue reading
Maidstone is the suburb between Braybrook and Footscray, just south of the Maribyrnong river. We walked through Maidstone and Braybrook on an unexpectedly hot spring day.
You don’t see many casual strollers around here. It’s a place of truck depots, wreckers’ yards, car yards, warehouses and vacant land, some of which is earmarked for the inevitable apartments. And cars, cars everywhere, either second-third-fourth hand, or in the form of scrap. Continue reading
Melbourne Circle: stories from the suburbs 