A former corner grocery in Seddon reminds itself about its past, then forgets again

Back in September 2012, I started my inner-west signwriting exhibition project by cycling to 50 locations where the former Lewis & Skinner company had once painted a sign, as recorded in the  records I found and turned into an online archive: www.lewisandskinner.com. 

At each location I dropped off a photocopy of the Lewis & Skinner job sheet for that sign, plus a customised postcard inviting the residents to come to my forthcoming exhibition.

The first building I visited on my rounds was a former grocery in Seddon where a Fishers Wax sign had been painted in 1952. I still pass that building every morning on the way to work. On that morning I left the job sheet in the door. (I tell the story of that first day of dropoffs here: http://findingtheradiobook.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/today-my-first-lewis-skinner-document.html)

This is what the grocery looked like at the time:

...and here's the job sheet, taken from: http://www.lewisandskinner.com/items/show/874

I didn't get any follow-up from the owners, but earlier this year, I noticed this in the front window - a cool little nod to the building's history:

Then the other day I went past again, and the sign had vanished once more:

I enjoyed the quiet intervention while it was there, but also don't so much mind its removal, which is much like the ephemeral character of the actual ghost signs it emulates or reproduces. Must get back there sometime and interview the owners if they're up for it :)

An old friend has left the building...

....actually it's the entire building that's left the building, including the wall that was home to one of my favourite ghost signs in Melbourne.

I've been passing this Bushell's Tea sign for years. It's opposite my kids' primary school in Reynard Street, Coburg.

As it looked in 2012

Reynard Street used to have one of the best collections of local grocery ghost signs in Melbourne, and this was the best of those. I've written about the Tea Wars of Reynard Street on this blog before, but now the Bushell's sign and the Robur sign have both gone.

A couple of days ago: going...

And today: gone.

 

The Bushell's sign was a local feature and highlight, large and at eye level when walking (as would have been intended by the painters): a venerable senior citizen. The sign told you in its own quiet and charming way that Reynard Street had a young life as a bustling local shopping hub, its parade of 1920s-1940s single-storey shopfronts full of activity. In fact the sign has had a series of lives - the Bushell's sign is not one, but at least three signs, painted on top of one another over years. It was Sam Roberts from ghostsigns.co.uk who first appreciated these layers when I took him to see it on a scorching hot February day in 2013. Obviously this was a prime spot because Bushell's chose to keep paying for the space and the signwriting.

Now, most of the old shops are dwellings - that is, until they're knocked down and replaced with fugly 'brick down the bottom, plasterboard above' units. You can't blame the owners - the shops were small and dark and the now-desirable locale of central Coburg have put a premium value on space. But still I do wish that the humbler remnants of a community's everyday history could be given a better chance of survival, even if this means enacting regulations or incentives to encourage the reassembling of walls or working them into new building designs. Somewhere, this stuff does matter. The market is not always the arbiter of what is wisest in the long run.

So I'll say goodbye to a reliable friend, a presence that was always able to brighten my morning  drop-offs. I'll miss you. I do have a piece of you though - actually 14. Because this afternoon I backed my car into the driveway next to the demolition site, climbed up on the pile of bricks and picked out a bunch with your yellow, silver, cobalt blue and green paint on the surface. Now a small reminder of you is stacked up at home:

Postscript: I wrote this post last night. This morning, when dropping the kids at school, I drove past the Reynard Street milk bar near the school with the Tarax window sign. A For Sale sign had been erected on the awning.

A few from Kew...and Balwyn and Surrey Hills

A couple of weeks ago, I took the bike for a jaunt around the leafy surrounds of Kew, Balwyn and Surrey Hills. Tomorrow I'm giving a talk on ghost signs at the University of the Third Age in Kew, and I wanted to see what I could find. Also, in June I'm talking to the Surrey Hills Ephemera Society (what a good name) and so I checked out that suburb too - plus Balwyn in between.

As expected, there wasn't a lot to see compared to the parts of town that used to be poorer, and that so saw less repainting. But I did find a few - here they are:

This fomer Briquettes dispensing shed is on the site of the bridge over a former railway line that has since been turned into a linear park:

The coin-operated dispensing system

And the rest in Kew/Balwyn:

Had to take this one from the middle of a busy intersection

Only remaining remnant

Layers of stylists' signs

Largely disused suburban shopping strip (and following).

Saw this dry cleaning firm pop up a couple of times - see below

Pick of the day - layers of signs on Union Road in Mont Albert. The sign superimposed on the Braemar heating sign is a Mobilgas one. Exciting for me since Lewis & Skinner had the contract for much of the Vacuum Oil Company's signs.

Not a ghost sign technically, but a brilliant old-school milk bar in Balwyn.

...and down the road, another milk bar straddling eras.

Union Road, Surrey Hills - it's still there, across the road from the superb Lewis & Skinner uncovering of 2012 (see: http://findingtheradiobook.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/for-limited-time-onlymelbournes-best.html)

This is what the site of the 2012 Surrey Hills ghost sign cluster looks like now: hidden for another few decades.

...and in the same Surrey Hills stretch: adorning the old theatre that's currently being stripped and transformed.

The next lot are from the cute little shopping strip adjoining the railway station in Mont Albert:

The old sign in Chatham, stuck to the window of the still-running milk bar

Fabulous layered sign in Koo Wee Rup's main street

Today I was dropping off furniture to store in a shed on my beloved's family farm near Koo Wee Rup. We went for a walk down the main street, Rossiter Road, and found a brilliant painted palimpsest. It's on the wall of a set of shops...the Wendore milk bar is still there, possibly referred to in the sign layers. The painted letters also hint of fish suppers, fresh milk and lots else besides.

These days, this part of the street is a shadow of its former bustling self as the town's main shopping strip. Even in the recent Google Street View pics, which show the ghost sign clearly, most of the shops have departed: (See: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@38.199261,145.490897,3a,37.5y,13.89h,88.02t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s8rhzK5_OmZHmjl_N5kwXZg!2e0)

 And just for good measure, here's a fab street sign for the local bowls club in nearby Lang Lang:

A group of others' sign pix from here, there and everywhere

First one from New York (thanks Darren)

And one from Italy, in the town of Menaggio on Lake Como. It's been painted over now that a supermarket has taken over the old train station (thanks Rocco):

Fernando has sent sent through some beauties too.

First of Fernando's is another typically grand Indian Root Pills sign (see this post for some context), on what looks like a chicory kiln in Bacchus March in the Victorian country:

 A brilliant sign from the regional centre of Bendigo, where I've been meaning to go myself for a sign hunt:

And lastly, Fernando's Albert Park discovery:

Here's one Geoff shared with me, taken by Pete Garfield in Echuca on the Murray River:

And other shared (with info below) by Geoff via Darren. This one's also from Bendigo:

Old Cohn Bros. painted sign on the side of 69 Bridge Street, Bendigo as painted by Fank Barr back in the 1950's. One of the last two 19th century shop buildings left in Bridge Street, Bendigo which was once the main street of town. All the others have been pulled down and replaced with more modern shops or houses. 67-69 Bridge Street, Bendigo.