Albion Street

East Brunswick Auto

 

Brunswick is laid out on a grid, with the big streets such as Melville Road, Sydney Road, Lygon Street and Holmes/Nicholson Streets running north south. Apart from Brunswick Road (the southern boundary) and Moreland Road (the northern boundary) the streets running east west are small and narrow. However some of these are main routes in disguise. Albion Street has a bus service that takes you all the way to Essendon, so it is really quite an artery. It starts at the top of Lygon Street Brunswick East, with this wonderful old ghost garage just opposite the imposing façade of the Lyndhurst Club Hotel.

Yesterday I was out around Albion Street. It was a beautiful late spring day and I found a few more ghost signs.

Progress Cinema in Coburg

Why are there no more cinemas in Brunswick or Coburg? Surely there would be a market for a small boutique cinema? I know we can catch the 8 or 1 trams down to the Nova in Carlton, but it would be great to revive at least one of the many old movie houses that used to exist in this area.

Gainsborough Charles Parsons Building on Brunswick Road

First it was the bricks that I liked about this building. Then it was the Art Deco features above the main entrance and the back entrance, although I am not sure how old the building actually is. It spans a long stretch along Brunswick Road, and I walk past it every time I go to Nicholson Street. However, it will not be there for much longer.

Update on Countryman Clothing building: stained glass windows

The back and roof have gone, but this wonderful little building continues to be a gem – just look at the lovely sight that has come about due to the combination of demolition and street art. The midday autumn sun shining through these windows is delightful.

Here is the view from the back of the building. Through the destruction, we can still see the lovely symmetry of the front entrance and side windows.

Countryman Clothing building Brunswick Road

When I arrived home late one afternoon, Vince said: “Do you know that the back of the Countryman’s building has disappeared?”  I had to rush down and see. I knew that the building had recently been up for sale but I did not know whether it had sold. My dream of a museum of manufacture on this site had obviously not occurred to anyone else. What a pity.

So I went down and snapped a few photos. Then my day just got better:

Milano, Brunswick West

What a surprise to come across this Italianate mansion on top of the rise in Cohuna Street West Brunswick! And still with an expansive block around it. I had to do some research.

Bricks

I walk around my neighbourhood noticing the different kinds of bricks, the colours and patterns they make. This wall of concrete brick lacework is near the Aladdin's Cave (see earlier post). It makes an interesting contrast to the Victorian and Edwardian houses just down the road.

The Lady and the Moon

Recently on television there was a show about astronomy and there was a photograph of the night sky that one can see from a mountain in the Atacama Desert in South America. Due to the lack of light and other pollution, the sky seems literally ablaze with stars and the Milky Way is a veritable flood.

From the back porch in Brunswick, however, there are few stars visible. As compensation, the full moon in January was beautiful as it hovered over Our Lady. But even this will one day not be visible, if a large multistorey development of flats on the Gainsborough site goes ahead and blocks out the view of the lady and the moon.

Bricks with vanishing signage

With these advertisements on either side of the doorway, the corner shop in Pearson Street must have been a popular destination in times long gone.

Aladdin's Cave

It is rare enough nowadays to find an Alcoa Cash for Cans centre. Until we get container deposit legislation, it is only the very motivated who try to make a few dollars from recycling cans. However such a rare place is to be found along Brunswick Road, just a few doors from where the great Sydney Road begins. And when I went there, I found what looked like a treasure trove.

Pitt Street

One morning not long ago there was a garage sale in the Buddhist Centre in Pitt Street, just off Lygon Street. As well as buying a great vintage blouse there, I also had the chance to observe this fascinating little street. On the corner there is an old fashioned hardware store, then a few industrial buildings of different eras.

Brickworks

Walking or driving around Brunswick you can see many kinds of bricks. It is a suburb of bluestones and bricks. One of the biggest recent residential complexes is called Brickworks, and it is a redevelopment of the former Hoffman Brickworks which opened in 1862 and produced bricks and pottery until 1990.
In an amazing aerial photograph from 1920 the deep pits are evident. Now they are parks.

Windows on Weston

Recently I called in at Northcity4 studios in Weston Street. Inside a former factory or warehouse, with its translucent roof and exposed beams, there is a wonderful studio space for a number of artists and craftspeople. Looking at their window, now transformed into an art work, it occurs to me, why do so few of the windows on this stretch of Weston serve their original purpose of looking in or looking out? As it is, one can do neither with many of them. Some are boarded over, some are painted over. But they are all intriguing.