The best ghost shop anywhere?

I'm currently in Adelaide, the city I used to live in many years ago. I'll soon be posting other local ghost sign pics, but this find deserves its own post.

Yesterday I explored around Bowden and Brompton, two old industrial inner-city suburbs that used to be down-at-heel but are now in the full swing of gentrification. I remember coming here as a student in the early 1980s in some dubious company...an edgy drifter who had stumbled into the university house I lived in and I had somehow befriended. He took me via train to his mum's house in Bowden, a tiny worker's cottage surrounded by factories,  where he sorted and weighed the pot he was selling to get by. A parallel universe.

Anyway, these days the massive factory complexes in the south of Bowden have been demolished and are currently open spaces waiting for housing to be built on them. The Victorian railway station has been cafe-fied, and the more residential parts to the north are being increasingly renovated and reclaimed.

It's here that I found this reclaimed corner furrier's shop - perhaps the most charming and intact old shop I've seen anywhere, especially with its immaculate red painted glass front. Thankfully the new owners have kept it as it was:

 

 

My ghost sign interview on 3RRR is now on Vimeo

...and here's the link:

https://vimeo.com/115965446

The worst signwriting job in the world?

The other week I was loitering in Melbourne's western industrial area of Laverton.

I came across this magnificent example - it should win an award:

And on another topic - if you're seeing the film Gone Girl at all, watch out for a number of nice ghost signs in the opening Missouri town scenes. Wikipedia tells us that: 'On September 11, 2013, the Gone Girl film crew began filming establishing shots. Principal photography began on September 15 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, U.S., and was scheduled to last about five weeks. Some scenes were also filmed in Los Angeles'.

I'll be on the radio next next Tuesday night

Next Tuesday 23rd December, I’ll be on Tracee Hutchison’s 3RRR FM’s Summerfluidity show at 9.30pm for a chat about ghost signs.

If you're in Melbourne, you can find 3RRR at 102.7FM. Streaming as well as radio on demand (where you can listen back anytime after Tuesday) can be found here: http://www.rrr.org.au/

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 :)

A northwards trip: old signs in Broadford, Seymour, Euroa, Violet Town and Swanpool

The other weekend I took off to see a friend near Swanpool, taking in a few signs along the way. Here they are. Firstly Broadford:

 Seymour:

 Euroa:

Swanpool - taken at the fabulous general store and cafe, whose owner is quite the collector of local ephemera:

A recent tyre sign uncovering in Prahran - from the 1920s

Drove past this Perdriau Tyres sign the other day - the latest of a series of great uncoverings in the arterial roads of the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. This sign is older than 1929 - the company merged with Dunlop that year: http://www.eoas.info/biogs/A000528b.htm