<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/forgottenbrisbane.JPG"
The cityscape of our fine town is in constant flux, and often what’s buried by the reconstruction of the urban environment is not just memories and narratives which counter the traditional Quinceland theme of progress ever upwards but also distinctive spaces with their own cultural formations (something I related to music in the context of West End and Brisbane v. Brisvegas in an earlier post.)
I’ll have to try to dig harder to find a copy of the remarkable book of photos taken by Brisbane’s current Labor Deputy Mayor, Cr David Hincliffe (also a well known visual artist), of the Fortitude Valley streetscape and Valley people about ten or so years ago. I saw it in a library once. It was a remarkable experience to look at the photos – much as the subcultures and music and night culture of the Valley are often analysed (and sometimes in overtly romantic terms), there’s very little textual evidence of the Valley as a neighbourhood in existence. Hinchliffe’s photos and commentary in Two to the Valley captured a lot about what older Valley residents recalled about the shape of their neighbourhood experience and the trajectories of their shared lives as they intersected with place and each other. He was also all too aware at the time of writing that much of this was being swept away, not just by time, but by urban transformation.
And while you can trace lines of continuity between the dark and gaudy nights of the Vall in the 80s and the displacement of the alternative and queer scenes of the 90s in the early 2000s through a new sort of entrepreneurial commodification of entertainment, the Valley as a lived environment on a day to day basis has almost entirely been transformed into a thousand tiny apartments where hip and not so hip new urbanites only enter the written narrative through their support for, or opposition to, the “loud and proud” theme. It’s now a kind of post-neighbourhood. I’ve written a little about those nighttime continuities myself (and in romantic and late night mode!), and now I want to essay a venture into the cold light of day.
Because the forgotten Valley may be fading, but it hasn’t entirely laid down and died. Yet.
I’m aware of some academic work being done through the now tottering School of Humanities and Human Services at QUT about the problems that have occurred as the business community of the Valley (itself riven with factions and feuds) has tried alternately to display some social awareness and to drive the “seedy” Valley away. Much of this contestation can be mapped through the struggles of community organisations providing social services to the druggies and sex workers and Murris and unemployed of the inner urban landscape, whose very presence in that landscape is threatened by developers and rising rents and the distaste of property owners and businesses.
Over the past few years, gentrification and policing both have pushed the old Valley further and further West, outside the Brunswick Street Mall itself and into the long block that the railway station arcade fronts onto. That’s now where the smack deals are struck, where the pr0n is purveyed, where the remaining pool halls, strip clubs, peepshows and sex shops are, and where you really need to have a few coins in your pocket to give to those who ask for two bucks for a feed or a nonexistent rail fare.
Now, with the tizzying up of the station and its surrounding shops, only a few recalcitrant property owners stand between this liminal zone and its “revival”, and a few tweaks to the plan and some buckets of dollars will fix that. Already most of the op shops and the caffs run by social welfare organisations have disappeared.
Even the daggy Shamrock Hotel is now the “Scene Inn”. Or something.
That all brings us to the decayed industrial/warehousing/residential zone that rises from the railway line up through St Paul’s Terrace towards Gregory Terrace and the exhibition grounds, where the apartment complexes took hold of the commanding heights some years back.
While this is the area I’m characterising as a key node in “Forgotten Brisbane” (and in fact I want to imbue that phrase with multiple meanings and affects), for any observer of the changing Brisbane urbanscape, it was always on the cards that such territory was ripe for property speculation followed by a big push for more high end residential development.
Now the Council’s erection of a “Green Square” complex on the site of the old bus depot over the road from the Jubilee Hotel is giving the old a final push and a shove out in favour of the new. The planning stages of this project saw vociferous debates between prospective commercial tenants and residential developers, who unanimously objected to the plan for a methadone clinic in the precinct. I can’t quite recall how this ended, but I’d hazard a guess that it didn’t end well.
Anyway, I took a stroll last Monday from Anderson Street, where I’d been picking up a book for review from the On Line Opinion offices, and headed down Constance Street to Wickham Street. And I documented what I saw, including a house that’s talking back to the Council development over the road. I’ve uploaded the photos to my Deviantart gallery. Click through on the images and then click again for a larger view of the photos.
Forgotten Brisbane I by *phenomenologist on deviantART
A decidedly unrenovated Queenslander.
Forgotten Brisbane II by *phenomenologist on deviantART
I’ve seen what will probably happen here happen before in previous “urban regeneration” projects in Kangaroo Point and West End. A homeowner refusing to sell will either eventually leave after commercial development boxes the house in on either side, or the developers just wait out the lifespan of the elderly owners.
Forgotten Brisbane III by *phenomenologist on deviantART
This gorgeous house, over a hundred and fifty years old, hasn’t been happy for the last two.
Forgotten Brisbane IV by *phenomenologist on deviantART
For sale, and touting “the vibrant Alfred Street precinct” which so far only exists in the imaginations and desires of the developers. I wouldn’t take bets on the dole office around the corner being there too much longer.
Forgotten Brisbane V by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Abandoned and overgrown.
Forgotten Brisbane VI by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Now for some happier news. This building is a textbook example of a sensitive postindustrial conversion. There are some fascinating buildings – old factories, warehouses and stores – which have held out so long by virtue of being in streets between Wickham Street and the railway line that attract no foot or vehicular traffic because they go nowhere. One hopes they survive unmutilated. Of course, there are gains and losses here too – it’s worth lauding good conversions, but in a process with many parallels, cheap art, rehearsal and creative spaces are lost as those attracted by the area’s vibe move in and drive it out. To the credit of elements of the Council, particularly David Hinchliffe, there is at least some awareness of this and how it might be countered to some degree.
Forgotten Brisbane VII by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Forgotten Brisbane VIII by *phenomenologist on deviantART
The last in the series, as I walked down Wickham Street towards Brunswick Street. Gentrification is finally creeping over the road and getting its first foothold on the West side of the Valley. The Salvos store is one of the few such left, and you can bet that the shop for rent won’t be an op shop. The cafe serving homeless people went earlier this year. I’m sure the developers of the Valley Metro Shopping Centre, which meets the street here through its notorious escalators, weren’t displeased.
One of the tragic things about the way in which “urban regeneration” plays out is the imbalance in power between the poor and loosely organised and community groups and the developers and self-interested. No one wants to preserve a decayed neighbourhood in aspic, and I shouldn’t be interpreted as arguing against urban transformations. But the degree to which those transformations can be shaped democratically is very much dependent not just on local politics, but also on what angle such politics are written about. Unfortunately, in a one paper town, there is very little public discourse in Brisbane about the social aspects of the changing urban forms. We need more papers like The Independent (and more power to them!), but we also need to think more laterally about how to shift the “Green Square” and its consequences into the public sphere.
No one has tackled this subject yet..unbelievable!.This week on the Lismore ABC Byron Bays community centre was discussed and how it ended up owing $millions,because they kept a historical facade. A lesson that needs to be learnt about whose actions really represent an intelligent need going into the future..I like old buildings ,but if their upkeep is going to destroy by cost their reason for saving them that is hopeless.Better try to remove them ,or allow developers the right to feel friendly towards them too,by insuring they have soft low cost usage that reflects a kindly community of commercial interests intent.I love the Queenslander verandah stuff,it would be an aspiration to own one.Community interests rightfully will resist the domination of the streetscape by the competing in design… new developments,it may be a question of aesthetic taste to first insist that design fits in well with the thematics of what already exists as it replaces it.Get togethers about and with the buildings as are needs to ascertain if there is both a willingness and necessity to save the old buildings in some way.
“A homeowner refusing to sell will either eventually leave after commercial development boxes the house in on either side, or the developers just wait out the lifespan of the elderly owners.”
Next time you’re in west end, walk up mollison st from where the roundabout used to be at the West End Markets (old Tristram’s soft drink factory). Absoe’s ( (was old pauls milk factory) on left hand side, and apartments on other except…
when they re-developed the markets and the apartments, but one old guy refused to sell his house, and it’, and he, is still there, conspicuously, defiantly, in a pocket within the multistorey monolith.
He took them up on their offer of a free new coat of paint to match their build but.
Know the house, Danny. That dude was offered big $, but wouldnt pull up stumps.
Great post Mark!
I haven’t set foot in the Valley for three or four years, and for years before that my forays were confined to trips to Chinese supermarkets for supplies. But the Valley is most significant to me because I saw part of the ‘old Queensland’ I had been born into entering its death throes on a day in 1986 when I wandered down from my work in Barry Parade in my lunch break to see that ‘Bubble’s Bath House’ had closed down.
I lived in West End at the time renting a worker’s cottage (whatever happened to them? Did they all grow up and turn into Queenslanders?) Two year later, after Expo, my rent would go up over 50% and I moved. By the look of the place now, so did just about everyone else who lived there at the time.
As in Mollison St, probably. Then they’ll turn it into some kitsch retail/food outlet and pay his heirs a bucketful.
Groovy post, Mark.
The Valley certainly ain’t what it used to be. Not just in the frequently mentioned marginalisation of the grungey, the disturbing, the Indigenous, the dole recipient, the queer, the transgressive in favour of booze driven bacchanals (not that…) and excessively expensive shopping but also in the sense that as you say it’s a bit of a ghost town during the day outside the main drags while all the individualised little working folks disappear elsewhere – just like Teneriffe in that way.
The bit you’re talking about will end up like Commercial Road. You can see it coming. It just needs one James St SUV/lervely cocktails dahling! enclave to set it all aflame.
Thanks, folks.
While that’s true, there’s also a sense in which there’s a sort of sedimentation at work where different layers co-exist and build on each other, and old ones come bubbling up again, or try to. One of the good things about the Valley traditionally has been that it’s a site for a large number of reasonably discrete groups to mix and mingle, but at the same time keep some of their internal dissents internal – so while there’s always an undertone of violence, it’s typically in group. There are conspicuous exceptions such as queer bashers, and now some other forms of perhaps more random violence which may express some class dimensions.
Anyway, I wanted to talk about different aspects of the Vall, but then it’s all intertwined!
Intertwined with the Mollison Steet story is the one of the Doctor who lived on the corner of Vulture and Main Street at the Gabba who lived in his house withstanding Supreme Court challenges and objects being dropped through his roof while the Telstra building was being constructed.
Seems that it has all changed now as the place has been demolished.
The point is that the Telstra building is a weird L shape around the doctor’s former house.
I do think you were onto something last week with the cultural influence of the Americans in Brisbane, Mark. Some of Brisbane open space has been kept that way because of the historical significance of former US camps around the city. As that influence wanes then developers find less resistance to grabbing land for other purposes.
The wooded hills were considered rubbish by early settlers according to a Brisbane City Council Pamphlett, ‘Chermside Hills Reserves Track Map’ under the heading ‘History and Environmental Significance’. The former wooded hills not locked away from developers are now some of the most expensive pieces of real estate in Brisbane.
Thanks for the retrospective Mark.
There’s a sad story in here of “we told you so” dating back to the project that kicked off the whole Valley, New Farm development. When Building Better Cities (a Keating / Howe project with State govt and BCC) began in the early 90s, earnest planners consulted with residents – but the people who turned up were the property owners wanting increased values. Shelter, Tenants’ Union and NF Neighbourhood Centre and others argued for other voices to be heard, but to not much avail. A few token efforts but no real consideration.
A few years later I read a books that explained it all (and made a big impact on me). The downside of an explanation that has its drivers in the movement of capital and societal changes is that it’s hard to fight.
Indeed, as I’m now living in Erskineville in Sydney’s inner west, I’m acutely aware that I as much a part of the problem as I am a victim of it.
btw Mark – Cafe One, the cafe for people who are homeless is still there.
I was pretty sure it’d gone, Angaharad – will have a squizzy to check when I’m down there tomorrow.
I’ve always thought the premises made famous by the Fitzgerald inquiry need to be preserved, and in this context I noted the other day that Bubbles Bath House is still in fine condition just north of the Brunswick/Water intersection, although no longer catering for the carnal needs of the police force. Fantasy Photographics was still there under the Storey Bridge too, now apparently an upmarket residence.
Warren Armstrong keeps bobbing up – you obviously can’t keep a good flesh purveyor down – but does he still operate his, erm, operation up on St Pauls/Boundary do you know Mark?
Unless they’re the owner of the Wheelers Hill Hotel.
very sad – old Coburg High School facade is but a day away from complete demolishment – once public land now a tool for profit, I share your concerns http://peter.nook.com.au/
Just to get this post a little less parochial I recall as a young news roundsman doing the local council beat in Sydney City circa mid 1970′s a councillor vote to employ an archivist. The job was specifically to take photos of city architecture before it disappeared. This followed the developers boom of the late 1960′s when a lot of fine colonial/victorian stuff went under the bulldozer and union led Green bans were one belated response to concerns across several Sydney local government areas.
By Brisbane standards the Sydney Council area was tiny, the councillors invariably pro development so that actually hiring someone to record history was all a bit novel but it does suggest a universal nostalgia for what’s gone.
Makes you wonder if there aint someone in city hall being paid to try and do what you’re attempting Mark. Imagine the job description!
aml … I live in a “worker’s cottage” … in Auchenflower. All around of course it’s very gentrified, and tastefully renovated, but still a worker’s cottage. One old one two doors up, completely untouched since at least the 1970s is for sale …
Why can’t Brisbane follow the relatively successful Melbourne model and not the completely soulless Sydney one? In Sydney they are having an angst ridden debate, ten or twenty years too late about the cultural fabric of the city. Meanwhile it seems to me that Melbourne has at least managed to some degree to strike a balance. I thought the Brisbane City Council had some sensitivity in this regard?
Mark I am in the same ALP branch as many of David Hinchcliffe’s staffers, do you want me to pass your details on and arrange you a meeting or something? I am sure David will welcome policy inputs.
No, Hal9000, his last gasp was the topless car wash which made news all round the google world…
Dunno about the job description, Pablo, but there is a similar project organised by the Brisbane City Council:
http://alia.org.au/groups/quill/issues/2003.6/local.brisbane.html
http://elibcat.library.brisbane.qld.gov.au/elibcat/
That’d be great, Tyro. I was going to email David a copy of this post tomorrow, but you never know what would happen to just an emailed post when a busy staffer receives it with no context! As I said in part of the post, there are elements within the Council who are sensitive to these issues, and Hinchliffe is to be commended for the work he’s done, but other parts which are fairly in thrall to the development at all costs mentality. Let’s not forget we have a split Council with a Liberal Mayor and a Labor Council majority (though it’s a tad more complex than that… but anyway!)
Meanwhile, over at West End:
<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/westend.jpg"
Ah, Stefan’s needle, now that’s what I call irreplaceable heritage.
Poor bloke couldn’t even afford to keep it fire safe!