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]]>Leaving everything as I'd found it, I took to the end of the block and into the sunset, obscured as it was by the terrace roof tops, their antenna reaching towards that sky from which they would receive the dross that all and sundry allow free reign in their homes.
Let's face it, ALL television distracts. What it may give in entertainment value it robs in the time one spends with humans that do not love you, humans that are dead and humans that are paid far too much to be watched by the millions they will never see, never know.
To my rear a thin lick of moon cuts through the dark blue of the near night. Six hours from now it will be dusk in Mumbai and every one would be none the wiser for it.
From this point, within the proximity of antiquated global positioning satellites, from this moment that I make conscious I am both no one to every one and everything realised to me only. From this point at which countless vectors meet the tired and labored souls of India, the once communal streets of central Prague, the rotting canvas' of Tamawan Village, the bodies of children littering the boundaries of Rio's Favelas and I on the streets of Fitzroy.
My feet fixed hard on gravel, buildings of consequence, none of significance in my life time on either side stand. One or two their doors open, others their windows flicker with the maddening phosphorescence that still bewilders the children of science.
I should be able to enter any as a friend, as a mentor of this community, but I am as far from every inhabitant in my immediate vicinity as India is from my sensory consciousness. I may as well be dead, I may as well be in Sydney or back a block or few. What matters is that I am aware of this singularity, this moment from which I am ... of an nothing, that which others will never be cogent of – such is that which we may call a community in the urban chasm of Melbourne, of any place displaced by the far reaching antenna – making of us connected by demand and yet isolated from the personal experiences of each other – the Internet, the void in which, that which has rent apart, attempts to gain conscious ground...
I want to move, change my focus, my direction but where? Home? And then what? Idle moments in reflection – dope to fill time between learning, between a life invigorated by knowledge and dying? Where is that which stimulates, makes to grow? It comes, it goes. I am in between as are those items scattered across the road. Important once, perhaps longed for now, discarded, irrelevant possessions – meaningless, only I, the thief and the owner aware of their value or relative import.
On the distant horizon I hear the faint shimmering sound of an approaching aircraft, its flat bottom dark as it turns towards the sun, its disk for a moment could be a hole in the sky, a black moon... I tap the Stick to the ground igniting its propellants, grip it firmly as I steer it left into Gore Street, over the rubble, protruding roots, fallen walls, derelict vehicles, rubbish, stagnant water – with Stick I avoid the lot, swaying, gliding, rising, twirling – the brief exercise I give my adrenalin gets me home – the sanctuary still known as Gore Core to the few left alive that find refuge there.
Andrew Garton, 26 November 2003.
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With all the advertising panels removed a tree can be seen growing near flat against the exterior walls of the corner facing buildings. Within a couple of hours the tree was once more covered by what appears to be more durable advertising panels.
Day time revealed the extent of the new advertisting structure with lights that could illuminate a sports field!
If we had a say in what takes place on Meme Corner, what would you prefer to see there?
]]>The Community Weblog Survey asks the views of those who live, work and visit the Smith Street precinct about the benefits and level of interest of a dedicated site, sponsorship and contributor possibilities, marketing and partnership opportunities.
Andrew Garton from Toy Satellite, and spokesperson for the weblog project, said that blogs are here to stay and are now common communication vehicles. "Blogs are increasingly influential with opinion leaders and trend spotters. Some of the most prominent blogs are sources of news that mainstream media overlooks, are forums for lively debate and connect people with what's happening locally". Garton went on to say the Smith Street precinct has the perfect mix of creativity, culture and commerce for a community weblog.
Garton commented that when SmithStreet.org was created last year out of a local planning issue, the group was amazed there wasn't a Smith Street website, unlike other iconic Melbourne streets. While these tended to focus on business, the vision for the new SmithStreet.org was a true community based blog. It will also embrace the concept of the Smith Street precinct, extending to side streets and bigger thoroughfares like Gertrude and Johnston Streets that are natural extensions of Smith Street’s activities.
Garton explained that it would be vital in the future to work closely with local businesses and community organizations in refining and operating the site. Part of the survey’s rationale was finding potential partners as well as hearing ideas for working together with other groups in the precinct. ‘For the site to prosper and become part of Smith Street’s cultural scene, businesses and community organizations in the Smith Street precinct should be partners’, said Garton.
According to Garton, the team working on the weblog had no shortage of ideas to revamp the site, but wanted to hear people’s views, hence the survey, "‘Ideally people will take time to complete the survey, but they are also welcome to post ideas or offer contributions on SmithStreet.org".
The survey can either be completed online, or collected and returned to these locations:
The deadline for completed surveys is Saturday 25 June 2005.
For Media Comment: Andrew Garton (Toy Satellite)
Ph: 9417 5425 or 0409 948 280.
]]>At one end, there’s Macca’s and a shonky 7-11, at the other, the Robbie Burns, the king of all eateries, beloved by both dentists and dole-bludgers, like myself. In between, there’s people beating each other up outside Safeway and developers trying to tear down Turkish grocery stores owned by the uncle of a kid that goes to school with my daughter. But the bloke at the 7-11 once sold me a lukewarm pie at 4 am. It saved my life that pie. I didn’t have enough for sauce, but he gave it to me anyway, and he did it with love. And my fiancé proposed to me outside Macca’s. Life’s like that in Smith Street.
I once met a hooker outside the Post Office who bummed cigarettes off me and told me her tale of woe. Not being St Kilda or the Cross, she didn’t even bother propositioning me, and wandered off in the opposite, sad direction, looking for her next gig. I felt like chasing after her and giving her a cup of tea, but I didn’t. Smith Street, that night, had made me too melancholy. It will do that to you sometimes.
Then there’s the tourists. Friday and Saturday night visitors from Glen Waverly and Mentone, pissing in our alleyways and whooping it up outside my bedroom window above a Smith Street shop. I don’t mind them really. Let them have their fun, I say. That’s what the volume button on CD players is for. As long as they nick off back to where they came from, like locusts. The next morning, Smith Street is quiet, like a school kid after a dressing down, and us real Fitzroy people have breakfast at Gypsies, or Gluttony, or Soul Kitchen. We marvel at the empty street, the calm after the storm, with our bellies full of soup, weird vegetables, and the world’s best coffee. Smith Street looks after its own.
I’m a writer. At least that’s what I tell people at parties. It sounds so much more interesting than pizza delivery guy, or barman. I want to write the Great Australian Novel, looking out from my desk over Japanese restaurants, digital photocopying joints, and Halal take aways. In Smith Street, you feel like anything’s possible.
It rains sometimes, in Smith Street, just like it’s raining in my soul right now when I think about the twelve story apartment blocks they want to build over Video Busters, the place where I first rented lesbian vampire movies and Gone With the Wind in a special, two tape box that looked like a small coffin. Surely there’s a law against bulldozing the shop where you first rented Gone With the Wind? If there isn’t, there should be, especially in Smith Street.
When it rains, you can often traverse from A Bar Called Barry all the way to Office Works without getting a drop on you. You need to cross over at KFC, briefly, before crossing back again at Friends of the Earth, but it can be done. There are enough shop awnings to keep you dry; you just need to think about them. And it’s a bit like that with this whole Banco development, Smith Street towers thing. The bastards can be beaten, but we need to put some thought into how we are going to do it. Smith Street needs our help now.
Every place has a horrible story to tell. Easy Street has the murders, Gertrude Street that double fatality a few years back. I met my ex-wife in Smith Street, but still I live here in relative peace and happiness. You can’t hold things like that against Smith Street.
No one rents tapes any more from Video Busters. Every one wants shiny new DVDs. Rows and rows of unwanted VHS lines the back wall of the cavernous, pink shop, like war memorials that kids don’t pay attention to. Sometimes I see that old copy of Gone With the Wind in the Guinea Pig coffin and I feel the need to go over and hold it one more time. My daughter asks me what these strange square plastic things are. I tell her not to worry about them, they’re just the remains of a dream I had once in Smith Street.
So now I rent Japanese horror DVDs from Video Busters and think it may be my last time, but I love the optimistic possibility that I’ll still be renting movies here well into my dotage. Even though my heart skips a beat when my daughter tells me she walked to my place in the dark, I still feel like we’re both safe. Even when I think that there is nothing new in Smith Street, something pops up and reminds me that, despite its transgressions, I still love it like a wayward brother.
]]>The MSS contains local strategies on land use and development in the City of Yarra. It provides a vision in key areas such as City characteristics, sustainability and the local economy. Strategies in the MSS direct Council decisions in such areas as urban design, residential, industrial, commercial and retail land use and heritage conservation. The City of Yarra needs to review and update its MSS. The City is holding neighbourhood meetings and would like to invite you to attend.
Come along to the neighbourhood meeting that best suits you.
Download for meeting dates and locations:
]]>http://www.yarracity.vic.gov.au/publications/news/graffiti.asp
]]>Smith Street's an inner city icon
Of ratty charm and whimsy
A boho style luring all types
Made it ripe for development frenzy
By investing wise and holding tight
To slabs of Smith Street land
From Grace Darling to the Old Post Office
Now comes under one command
Soon developers wept tears of joy
Thanks to government decree
Melbourne 2030 – a planning vision
Encourages high density
Smith Street's a 'Major Activity Centre'
'A place of major change'
It seems its mix of services
Can cater for a range
Of housing and business choices
All crammed into tiny spaces
Apparently massive development
Makes more attractive places
The local press first broke the news
Mid 2003
That Banco – famed for Lygon Court
Planned to super-size Smith Street
The rumour mill returned to life
Early 2004
While the people partied over Christmas
Banco'd been in Council's door
A group of locals read this news
Sick with panic and alarm
So they called a public meeting
To put out the call to arms
It was agreed to make a stand
Collingwood Action Group came to be
A committee met to plot and
Fight for Smith Street’s liberty
They met each week in dingy nooks
Issued agendas, passed resolutions
They pored all over Banco's plans
Searching for solutions
They swatted up on planning law
Targeted movers and shakers
Tried schmoozing with the powerful
And sussing out the fakers
In accordance with their legal duty
Yarra in April duly advised
The public of Banco's grand plan
'Please come view it' – how civilized
Banco's scheme of three huge towers
Thrust upwards to heaven
Had parks for over 400 cars
Its supermarket, open 24/7
Hundreds of glitzy apartments
Enjoying panoramic views
Equipped with European appliances
And chi chi designer loos
One hundred student rabbit hutches
Proved low-cost housing credentials
The glitzy mall and offices
Oh so swank and presidential
CAG letterboxed and petitioned
Sent releases to the press
They took the fight to cyberspace
Pleaded with pollies to clean this mess
In May the public had their say
Told Yarra of their view
A record 1500 objectors said 'NO'
To Smith Street renovation rescue
Thumbs down to demolition
Hands off Smith Street's history
Don't destroy our neighbourhood
And keep your planning zealotry
Meanwhile the local member says
On every occasion available
'I'm Dick Wynne, this is an ambit claim
You'll get a Win/Wynne 'cos I’m able'.
'I'll get the Minister to call it in'
Said Dick, 'the plan's a disaster
It's too big, too high and will not fly
To the planning ubermaster!'
The law says Council must decide
On all planning applications
It has 60 days to put its case
And advise its deliberations
But Banco's scheme was not the dream
That 2030 intended
While the Mayor said 'It's just too big'
Council swears it's well intentioned
So May goes by but there's no word
A cone of silence descended
Council's incommunicado
The community seems undefended
'Dear Madam Mayor' said CAG in letters
Too numerous to mention
'What's Council doing for the community?
When will Yarra end this tension?'
Meanwhile a group of planning boffins
Esteemed in Melbourne circles
Release a critical report
Says Banco scheme's too radical
The press goes wild in newspapers
2030's 'perverting planning'
The Banco proposal's a 'test case'
Melbourne's doomed from predications damning
Behind closed doors a cunning plan
Is hatched to solve the impasse
The community can negotiate
Save the authorities, stop the farce
The Council and the Developer
Want a secret deal with CAG
So they cite commercial in confidence
Slap on a confidentiality gag
The parties meet 'without prejudice'
In discussions hermetically sealed
Talk of design, heritage, amenity
But nothing can be revealed
CAG's August public meeting
Is to get word out on the street
The pollies front to put their case
The public get to their feet
The Yarra Mayor takes centre stage
And explains the Council strategy
It seems the best outcome for all
Will be negotiated by the community
'Melbourne 2030's a dud'
Claims the shadow planning Minister
The local Member counters with
State planning's not that sinister
Melbourne residents are rising up
To protest about planning
They storm the steps of Parliament
Give authorities a panning
Throughout the suburbs high rise towers
Start spreading like the plague
In Camberwell, Mitcham and Brunswick
Over-development's the rage
Then Banco's new Smith Street scheme
Is unveiled, on drawings hazy
But emerging from their diagrams
An eight storey priapic monstrosity
So CAG responds as it must do
Puts an end to all the guessing
'We have some concerns, the plans are vague
We cannot give our blessing'
CAG tells the Minister for Planning all
Asking her to intervene
Her officers say this is Yarra business
The State cannot be heard or seen
Now November's here and Yarra seems
Poised to state its position
What will it say – yay or nay?
What will be their proposition?
A warning, the end may not be nigh
Just the beginning of round two
Will Banco fight it out in VCAT?
Or revise its plans anew?
What will become of Smith Street?
What happened to people power?
Maintain the rage, don't leave it to
The system and developers to devour
Watch this space for more details.
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