William Street, Northbridge. This is the best street in Perth. The view changes daily. If I miss a daily visit, I miss seeing a view for the last time. Today I saw some demolishing going on, and thought - shit, I don't remember what was there yesterday. In the background is evidence of Perth leaving the comforts of two dimensions, and finally moving to the unknown - the third dimension.
I have always thought someone needs to document the old, hand drawn, signs around the city. Its been a few years since I had that thought for the first time, and one by one, all the signs I remember are gone. Hollywood Caterers - Willam Street, Perth - the sign hangs on, the Hollywood chef left long ago.
Easter for atheists. William Street. Shades of Amsterdam, in PVC.
Living in Perth 6000, a city of 1.6 million, there is only a small handful of residents in the city itself. Soon, for the first time, I will have a local supermarket - Coles Tyne Square (Beaufort Street, above). The pharmacy is open now. Fuck I hope a bottle-shop opens up here, for so many reasons.
The thing about this view of Perth, is that there are at least five separate cinema complexes that no longer exist, or no longer operate. Cinema City was one of Perth CBD's best example of eighties architecture and design. A geometric, chocolate coloured, glass, box. The interior featured a soaring chrome space framed ceilings, lashings of velour, and of course, plenty of mirrors. External signage was brushed aluminium. Back in the day, it featured a large number of arcade machines. This isn't misplaced nostalgia, the building really was special. It was demolished in 2008. Hoyts Cinema, in the Hay street mall, had an amazing interior. You can still see the Hoyts building in the pic above - its the white trapezoid. I stole the photos below.
The chocolate box.
Hoyts. How fucking awesome. Gone. While I'm showing stolen photo's, heres an old one of the last cinema in the Perth CBD, Piccadilly.
William Street view - tomorrow, it will all be different.
7 comments:
You've made me fall in love with this one horse town all over again...Top stuff pal. D
Thanks chief, really appeciate the feedback. There's more interesting stuff on it's way.
Cinema City - it was a great building for its time and didn't it have the first McDonalds in the city? Such fond memories. Thank you, the site is excellent, especially the stolen photos. They add a little spice to the walk down memory lane.
Big Al's not Maccas...best fries ever
Sigh.. I saw all the great movies of my childhood there, Ferris Bueller, Tron, Back to the Future and so many more.
Perth loves to trash its recent heritage - anything under 50 years old is rubbish and needs to be torn down is our attitude, and unfortunately Cinema City never got heritage listing :(
Hey, i've got a pic of the old milk shop hand painted wall that is now underneath the glitz of that overpriced handbag shop on King/Hay Street corner (while they were remodelling it) if you want me to send it to you.
Hey GW - yes please, send the photo. Email address is on the "about" tab. Thanks!
Those cinemas really are grand, sigh i miss cinema city the shit they replaced it with just doesn't cut it.
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