Even as we've returned to the lockdown from which we were tentatively emerging, the finishing touches are being applied to an old part of the city made anew. Recently, the scaffolding and hoardings were removed from the Flinders St extension west of Spencer St to reveal the heritage listed …
History & Heritage
Staying at home – then and now
Tired of the reproachful pile of library books that will be returned partially read, I turned to the bookshelf instead to find Port Stories - a collection of transcribed oral history recordings taken at the Port Melbourne. Neighbourhood House around 2000. I was arrested by the accounts of life …
#Stayathome reading
Staying at home, the pile of library books is calling. They must be read before we are released from isolation, though that uncertain time undermines my determination to read them all. Top of the pile? Sir Laurence Hartnett's Big Wheels and Little Wheels. I retrieve this chatty book quite …
Making it
Malcolm Moore Engineering Works started manufacturing in Port Melbourne in 1927. The factory covered 2.5 hectares and operated over several sites, the largest of which was on Williamstown Rd. Malcolm Moore made massive machinery - cranes, locomotives, and mechanical handling equipment for the mining …
‘Living Water’
The Yarra River downstream of the Westgate Bridge flows between neatly constructed boulder banks before opening out into Port Phillip Bay. The River's course has been massively changed since first settlement. The River banks were once diffuse, blurring into the wetlands of the estuary. From time …
Narrative of progress 2
On Monday 17 February, GM announced the end of the Holden. Six hundred people will lose their jobs by June. The promises made of ongoing commitment to the brand when manufacturing ceased in Australia did not materialise, and were never likely to. Holden and the Australian story are deeply …