rrrtheurbanists
RRR's The Urbanists – summer replacement for "The Architects" on RRR. Urban planning program about the way the modern city does (and doesn’t) work
Ghosts of inner cities past – an interesting map
One of my birthday presents this year was a set of books from the Deakin University course “The Australian City”, published in 1978 and found by Mel at the op shop. Book 2 of these is “The ‘new’ inner city”. The inner city that’s talked about is that of the writers and counter cultural university types, particularly Helen Garner and the world of “Monkey Grip”.
I was quite impressed by the mental map shown on page 9 (see below). There’s a close-up of the Lygon Street Carlton vicinity, including some establishments that remain in 2012 (e.g. Jimmy Watson’s, Shakahari, Readings), and some that are gone (e.g. The Pram Factory theatre). There’s then another map with concentric rings showing the known world as laid out by Helen-Garner-type late 1970s people: the inner city (centred on Lygon Street), then immediately the “green belt – country & seaside” with a pocket for the CBD and St Kilda, then portals to edgy holiday destinations “Cambodia/Thailand”, and “inner city Sydney”. The effect is that there is detail in some parts of the world but that the rest is thinly sketched: “The world is firmly criss-crossed by the paths of counter-cultural bicycles, and beyond them gradually falls away” (p18). The suburbs and country areas where most of the inhabitants of the ‘new inner city’ lived are anonymous, insubstantial, even if they loomed on a physically and socially much larger scale.
One obvious take-home message is that some things change and some things stay the same. Carlton, for example, remains but in remaining inevitably isn’t what it used to be – I often marvel, for example, at the sheer fanciness of Jimmy Watson’s in comparison to the toilet pictures in my “Australian Graffiti” book. I assume Lygon Street is still the centre of the universe for some people, probably near retirement age by now. Other people’s universes centre on Northcote or Brunswick, with portals to Castlemaine and Venus Bay, Belgrave, Fremantle, Byron Bay, Bali, (Elmore?). Other people exist in blissful indifference to the entire hierarchy of deified cafes and locales and bicycle paths. Real estate agents circle the whole affair eagerly pin pointing the values of these “centres of gravity” in financial terms. Anyway it’s an interesting map, let us know if you have thoughts on this or your own spatial universe!
Mental map of inner city Melbourne (specifically, the world of inner city writers), 1978. From “The ‘new’ inner city” (Deakin University 1978).
I don’t remember Prof Longhairs or the Flea Market (I was 13 in 1978). I vaguely remember when Readings was on that side of the street (but when did it split into two shops – records and books?). I thought Tamani’s became Ti Amo’s much earlier than 1978. I’ll have to check that out.
The first time I actually remember going to Lygon Street would have been around 1995, aged 15 or so. Sarah and I were on a visit, unprecedented in the fact it wasn’t parentally supervised, to our older sister Kate who was a University student and pool lifeguard at the time. Kate was staying in a share house on Kay Street in Carlton, sharing with persons of untold sophistication who read “The Age – e.g. section”. Our activities on this visit included watching “Pulp Fiction” at the now-gone cinema on Faraday Street, catching a tram to menacingly distant Northcote to buy discounted converse shoes we had seen advertised, sharing some “Dry and Dry” at Jimmy Watson’s Wine Bar, browsing at Readings, and drinking coffee. Sarah and I had been completely blown away by Kate’s allegation that in Melbourne/Carlton you could just walk down the street, late at night, and buy a coffee. There were several amazing aspects to this story – firstly that you could walk down the street at night without having to ask permission or being yelled at by guys in cars or having someone vividly describe the whole affair to your parents; secondly that something would be open and other people would be outside their houses; and thirdly the fact that what you would do with this unlikely combination of phenomenon would be to drink coffee. To test this idea Sarah and I ventured to what I recall was probably University Café. We asked for coffee and the man said “what type?” and as we didn’t know what he was talking about one of us answered “…what types do you have?” He probably gave us flat whites. Later there was much staring out of the second floor window of the corner terrace on Kay Street. In the foreground were quietly glimmering little streets, footpaths, terraces, sneaking cats, the commission flats, the neon of nearby fish and chip shops and bars, the occasional call of voices from (drunken) people wandering around. In the background were city lights punctuated by the outlines of trees and smudged with the lights of passing cars on Rathdowne Street. Nowadays, not I’m not particularly attached to Carlton or Lygon Street – mostly just shops – but I still can’t help feeling, especially when wandering alone past Kay Street late at night, like I’m at least where I would have wanted to be as a bored 15 year old from Mt Clear. Writing that I wonder – is that a good thing/benchmark??
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