Looking Smart In Tweed

Nifty Knick Knacks are back!

It has been a very long hiatus from sifting through all things nifty and from blogging in general - but that's life - it happens when you least expect it.

While the updates have dried up, the collecting hasn't. While Nifty Knick Knack postings will be a little less frequent than before, there will be at least two updates a week.

One thing which has been lovely is discovering that we have no where near exhausted the supply of Gold Coast souvenirs. There's at least another four in the collection and they'll be profiled over the next few weeks.

This one is the most recent in our collection thanks to a last minute eBay bid.
It's a candy dish with what seems to be a 1930s view looking north-east along Wharf Street across the New South Wales border town of Tweed Heads to its adjoining 'twin', Coolangatta in Queensland.

From the Gold Coast City Council's local studies library is the photograph on which this transfer print is based.



Of course, none of the buildings found in this picture exist any more but that's just par for the course on the Coast.

Here is a Google map reference for that street.

There used to be a Myer store on that street, just on the New South Wales side of the border but that closed down in the late 1970s when Tweed Mall, now Centro Tweed was opened.

That Myer was the only one for 120km and in the days before Pacific Fair Brisbane or Tweed were your only choices for upmarket furniture and household items not quite as upmarket or as old money as David Jones mind, but very flash for a working class family all the same.

My mother bought this in the mid 1970s from that very Myer. Here's some info on it from one of our links, Retro Select.



I don't recall the occasion, except as a child a trip aaalllll the way into NSW was a day-long adventure.

I do remember is being fascinated by fabulous coin operated carousel dappled horse that sat outside the store.

According to the pillar box red coin box was sixpence a ride, even though pounds, shilling and pence had gone a decade earlier.

What a bargain I thought, it used to be sixpence now it's five cents!

Maintaining Focus

Last week we showed a street view of Surfers Paradise and the newly opened cylindrical Focus building.

Here from Alexander McRobbie's unsurpassable history of the city, The Fabulous Gold Coast, we see the Focus still under construction in an aerial photograph taken in 1975 looking down The Strip, heading south.

The Focus was part of the 1970s construction boom in the city that attracted Nora's grandparents to the region. The boom continued until the late 1980s when Australia's parlous economic state brought the ambition plans to an end for a good decade.

Over the past eight years the big, ambitious high rise developers have returned to Surfers Paradise to create the iconic Q1, the rather interesting Circle on Cavill trio of buildings, Chevron Renaissance and the upcoming Soul building.

Experienced developers such as Jim Raptis have also turned their eyes to other parts of the Gold Coast, such as neighbouring Southport to help redevelop the city's tired CBD to create Southport Central.

Just as it did in the credit crunch of the 1960s, the down turn in the 1970s, the near bankruptcy of the late 1980s and the recession of the early 1990s, the start of low part of the economic cycle is here with Raptis exposed to the volatile US finance market and now forced to call in an administrator.

Hopefully this will be just for the short term and that projects such as the re-re-re-redevelopment of the part of Surfers Paradise that once had Cathay Cafe before it was torn down as part of the Dolphin Arcade Development which was torn down as part of the upcoming Hilton Hotel development will go ahead as scheduled.

'77 The Strip

Channel 9 launches The Strip, the crime drama filmed on the Gold Coast tomorrow night.

The Charles household is in two minds whether to watch or not.

On the one hand there's a bit of voyeuristic pleasure is watching familiar landmarks on the other hand, the majority of Australian drama is awful.

So, if you're planning to watch, just spend a minute or two in the way back machine to view the Surfers Paradise strip from 1977 (click on the image for an extra large view:



Here's 'The Strip' today, courtesy of Google street maps. (Well it's not really the same because the picture above from this book is has been foreshortened thanks to a zoom lens.)


View Larger Map

UPDATE: The verdict is in and it's not good.

While the city looked lovely, as one might imagine, the show was let down by dreadful writing - not only in the dialogue but also in the police procedurals - as well as stiff, uncomfortable acting (which describes the majority of Australian TV performances).

Railroaded

Queen Street, looking north scanned from the 1954 Courier Mail Annual.

Queensland Transport Minister John Mickel is touting the return of the Brisbane tram - today known by its less romantic name of light rail.

While it represents a return to something old and familiar, it also marks the end of an era.

In our corner of south-east Queensland cars have ruled since the end of WWII. The 70km stretch from Brisbane to the Gold Coast lost its admittedly antiquated rail system in 1964 and got it back again in the mid 1990s.

Now personal private transportation is on its way to being demonised.

But enough social commentary. Click for a day-time view looking south down Brisbane's busy Queen Street circa 1948 complete with the tram network.

A Brief Moment In Time

Nick and Nora took advantage of Lifeline's outstanding annual book fair in July to rummage through some literary treasures and went away with four books about the Gold Coast.

This book, naturally enough entitled the Gold Coast was certainly a must have.

Published in 1977, like many titles bout our city is very Surfers Paradise centric. The front cover showing a rather uncluttered skyline with the newly constructed fully circular Focus Apartments, the Q1 of its day, dominating the scene.


But that's okay, especially when they reveal gems like this picture looking south on what is now Surfers Paradise Boulevard.

In this neon wonderland, you can see The Walk Arcade (at the far right of the picture), an arcade incorrectly identified by Nora, previously as being on the beach side of the street but as this picture clearly shows, it is on the western side of the street, looking south.

Don't forget to click on the picture of a larger view.

Sadly, all of that stretch has since been redeveloped, which translates to razed, recomposed, realigned.

Here's today's view thanks to the incomparable Google maps:


View Larger Map

In a way the loss of the buildings is nothing - it's ephemera such as the charming and innocent animated Coppertone billboard, on which a child at the beach is losing her pants, that one really misses. The photo captures the moment at which the little girl's bikini briefs, tugged by a terrier, are at half mast.

Try getting away with a sign like that today.

The Harder They Fall

It's often heartbreaking visiting James Lileks' site.

He currently has a collection chronicling Minneapolis' finest buildings. As he leads readers through its history and architecture the pay off comes with a photograph or a Google Earth image showing the building in situ today.

Sadly there's not going to be that much history of our city, the Gold Coast, left to explore as the very thing that made the city in the first place - property development - becomes the very thing that destroys it.

It was with some sadness that one read that one of the city's earliest hotels, The Iluka is destined for demolition and 57 storey skyscraper put in its place. The link is to the Iluka web site - destined to last as long as its hosting one presumes.


Yes, one does appreciate the irony of lamenting the arrival of a new high rise because it does away with another one, but you'd have to be a Gold Coaster to understand.

The first generation of Surfers Paradise hotels built between 1965-1980, are in danger of extinction and so to the unique charm and character that made the beachside suburb the unofficial capital of our fair city.

Where it might have been true once that the tall buildings were a major tourism driver, it would be fair to say replacing mid-20th architecture with 21st design is not going to solve the problems that Surfers Paradise has at the moment - no matter how nice the seashell inspired monolith that will replace The Iluka looks.


And that raises a fascinating observation that has been made here before - every notice how old buildings with highly detailed facades look much much better close up than modern buildings?

Modern buildings are designed to look good as scale model 'off the plan' sales aids, or viewed at a distance. Once you get up close they're all the same - vast sheets of cold, soulless glass.

You never really engage with a modern building, they're museum pieces before their time - you can look, but don't touch.

Pity.

Nick and Nora took some photographs a couple of weeks back of a few of the older buildings around Surfers Paradise to have at least some photographic record before they too succumb to the developer's wrecking ball.

Those photographs and what history we can glean will be featured here over the next few weeks.

BTW apologies for the extra small picture of The Iluka when it was new. It's been taken as a thumbnail from the National Library of Australia's web site. There is a larger picture available online from the Gold Coast City Council web site, but that site's image server has failed. If the site is back online in the next few days, I'll replace it with a larger image. Don't forget to click on the first to images for larger pictures you can view in detail.

The Queen's War

It didn't take long for Brisbane to recover from World War II, judging by this photograph of Queen Street.

The reaction to the ceasing of hostilities in the Pacific was celebrated by people getting back to their lives.

As it should be.

But the influence of the war and particularly that of General Douglas MacArthur remains in the city centre today.

During the war Queen Street became more or less a garrison.

The National Mutual Building that dominates the left third of the photograph was commandeered for the war, the tiny building dwarfed next door is Brisbane's general post office and it leads out on to Post Office Square.

The flat topped, deco building next door to that was built in 1934 was the AMP building and it is better known today for its most important temporary tenant - MacArthur Central, named for the American five star general who made the building his headquarters for the south-west Pacific operations.

There's a museum on the eighth floor which originally housed the boardroom where MacArthur conducted operations.

Queen Street, between George and Edward Streets was closed to traffic and turned into a mall in 1982 as part of the Commonwealth Games redevelopment. Today Queen Street serves an army of shoppers and office workers.

Click for a larger image, photograph from the 1948 book, Queensland.

Story Time

Nifty Knick Knack's Sunday Drive goes a little further north - 70 kilometres in fact - to the state's capital of Brisbane.

This aerial view comes from the book Queensland, written in 1948 by Frank Hurley whose work we referenced here.

It's intriguing shot. Do click on it for a larger view

From this vantage point the city looks still, deserted - something that the Government and war strategists had considered five years earlier.

The Brisbane Line - all points north to be abandoned in case of a serious Japanese invasion from the north.

Dominating the shot is the city's iconic and graceful festoon of steel, The Story Bridge, completed in 1940s and whose history can be found here.

Scrolling down to the bottom quarter of the shot is the Brisbane City Hall, a lean and lovely elegant 1920s building, which its distinctive sandstone clock tower.

As you can see from the shot, Brisbane's CBD is a very tidily laid out district with long straight streets named, appropriately enough for Kings, Queens and Regents.

It's very easy to find your way through town as long as you remember that the 'Queens' run east-west and the 'Kings' are north-south.

The view to the top of the shot shows the Brisbane River wending its way into Moreton Bay out to the Harbour.

Here's what the city looks like today (don't forget to click) from roughly the same vantage point.

The Story Bridge is the centre of the shot, below it is the strong, straight, uncompromising Captain Cook Bridge which brings south side residents and Gold Coasters directly into the city via the Riverside Expressway.

Brisbane is a beautiful capital city this will be the first of a series of Sunday Drives taking a look at Queensland's capital.

River of Memories

Some of the Gold Coast's history is subtle unlike the sometimes confronting and brassy image the city sometimes projects.

Take Cascade Gardens, for instance. Located just south of Surfers Paradise on the way to Broadbeach, the 13 acre gardens hug the Nerang River and stand about three blocks back from the beach.


View Larger Map

It was developed by the Surfers Paradise Rotary Club in the late 1960s as a drive-in picnic spot and quickly became popular. In addition to a large grassed picnic area, many of the trees and original rain forest were kept, interrupted only by a string of man-made slate waterfalls connected by walking circuit to its southern boundary.

Above right is an infant Nora pictured in 1969 with her mum watched carefully by grandma.

The fact the park still exists in the face of the city's growth is remarkable in itself, but that's not where the history ends.

The site was a popular picnic and camping site for the Kombumerri Aboriginal tribe before European settlement. It's also the last resting place for Edmund "Neddy" Harper, a city pioneer who arrived in the region in about 1842 as part of gang of cedargetters who created the city's first industry.

Harper built a wharf on the site and ran a ferry service across the Nerang River and died in 1896. According to one web site:

When he died in 1896, aged seventy, he was buried on a rise nearby.

Today Ned Harper’s land is overshadowed by Jupiter’s Casino and the giant Pacific Fair shopping complex in what is now Broadbeach, but his grave survives. It stands in the middle of the Cascade Gardens, a popular picnic spot. Over the years there have been isolated reports of the ghost of old Ned Harper taking his exercise among the flowerbeds and man-made waterfalls.

Streets Ahead

Did we say that last week was the last of Nick and Nora's porcelain Gold Coast souvenir collection?

Indeed we did.

But fortunately we were mistaken.

Featured here is the definitely the final piece in the collection.

It is a view looking east across what is now Surfers Paradise Boulevard.

See anything that looks familiar?


Here is a larger view of the print on the ash tray.

Right in the centre is the Cafe Cathay that we featured just a few weeks ago.

In that post we included a photo which has some other elements that are visible in this souvenir including the cinema on the left and the clock.

Greener On The Other Side

Today Nick and Nora share the last (for now) of their Gold Coast souvenirs.

The first is a Delphine trio featuring a hand tinted transfer print of Coolangatta's famous Greenmount Guest House.

The second is a glass pin dish featuring a view from Razorback across the Coolangatta-Tweed Heads townships, looking eastward to Greenmount and Pilot Hill.

The photographs are deliberately displayed small here but don't forget to click on the images to view much larger sizes.

Greenmount Guest House, named in 1904, not for its physical location but hometown of the guest house's Irish proprietor, cemented Coolangatta as the premier holiday destination on Queensland's southern coast.

Surviving storms and cyclones, the timber guesthouse, complete with its expanses of timber verandahs went the way of many local landmarks - felled by a developer's bulldozer in 1978 and in its current incarnation has quite a bit of period charm, (of a fashion).

Today's Greenmount Resort is still a popular conference venue.

Chopsticks

Nick and Nora have always held that Australia is multicultural through its stomach.

It doesn't need government programs or politically correct mandarins to tell us to accept and absorb the best of other cultures. Our taste buds are quite capable of doing that for us.

For an aspiring world class holiday destination like the Gold Coast, it is only fitting that famous restaurants also be on the itinerary. In Surfers Paradise there was a choice of two, Margot Kelly's Hibiscus Room and the Cafe Cathay a few hundred metres to the north.

Both serviced different parts of the local and holiday market, both succumbed to the developer's bulldozer in the late 1970s-early 1980s and our local history is the poorer for it.

The above advertisement is from the 1954 Courier-Mail Annual. Apologies for the water damage at the top right, we presume it is meant to read 3. Point Plan For The Perfect Vacation.

The restaurant was located between what is now Surfers Paradise Boulevard and Orchid Avenue, just one block back from the beach at Surfers Paradise.

According to notes on this photograph (sourced from the Gold Coast local studies library) the building to the left of the Cafe Cathay housed the Surfers Paradise cinema as well as an amusement parlor.

And that would have been about here on Google maps (click on the blue marker).


View Larger Map

In searching for information on the Cafe Cathay we came across this fabulous home movie taken in Surfers Paradise around 1960. It is archived by the National Library of Australia under its Australian Screen project.

The clip is silent but features the Cafe Cathay, the Beachcomber resort (which still exists in a 1970s redeveloped form) as well as other long-forgotten land marks. Don't forget to pay attention to the fabulous street signage.

Magic.

Drive Time

The rains have stopped. For now.

Nick and Nora are planning to take a drive around the Gold Coast Hinterland to see the effects of the tropical low which has crossed the coast in northern New South Wales.

Since we're driving we'll pack a bottle of lime and soda for the journey (we'll save adding the gin until we get home).

One place we will get to see is Canyon Lookout at Springbrook going via the Numinbah Valley.

The last drive Nick and Nora undertook after similar weather conditions turned the normally dry rocky escarpment below the tree line into a spectacular ribbon of waterfalls.

Magnificent.

One can drive to the lookout via the picturesque hamlet of Springbrook which is part of the world renowned Springbrook Plateau. Canyon Lookout views across to at least three waterfalls and has two quite accessible walking trails. One perfect for a short stroll, the other much longer.

At right is the only significant building in the Numinbah district - the ubiquitous small town landmark, one that is uniquely Australian, called the 'School of Arts' Hall which, depending on its need, becomes a town hall, dance and entertainment venue, exhibition centre, school or emergency services HQ.

UPDATE: Nick and Nora have just returned from their Hinterland drive not getting as far as they had hoped.

Energex crews were working to restore electricity and road crews desperately busy clearing landslips and trying to repair washed away roads.

Everything was sodden. Ground that was drought parched and cement hard just few months earlier had so much water that its excess oozed out of the ground with every step. Where it could, water answered the raucous call drawing itself closer to the Nerang Creek.

The creek is generally a genial, bubbly mild-mannered thing, hidden mostly by tall trees, thick shrubs and grasses. Today it was a gang of soccer hooligans pressed shoulder to shoulder to take all of its natural path and then some, cutting an 80 metre swathe in some places. Wholesale bulldozing would have be hardly less devastating.

It was shortly before Natural Bridge, around 1.30pm, when were were turned away. A grizzled and weary looking man wearing his high visibility yellow rain jacket walked up to the car.

You could tell he'd been answering the same question for what seemed like hours. Perhaps it had been.

"So, what's the answer to the question you've undoubtedly been asked for the 72th time this hour?" asked Nicky.

The man smiled wanly.

"Landslips, road washed away, water over the road. You'll have to turn around."

"How long have you been out here?"

"Since six this morning. Yeah, my boss phoned me and I said to him I'm on my weekend off. He said, 'c'mon, it'll only take a couple of hours'. On top of that it's my birthday."

We wished him a happy birthday and asked him if he would like a slice of the cake we had brought for the picnic.

He declined and we turn around.

By the time we'd reached the turn-off up to Springbrook, Main Roads had erected barriers barring any further traffic in.

We ended up at the Canyon Lookout and discovered a sign that we'd passed many times but had never really noticed.

The date at the bottom of the plaque reads:

Queensland Forestry Service
Warrie National Park
Springbrook
Dedicated 11th March 1937

This might give a clue to the date of the pin dish above.


So what was the view like today? Well certainly nothing like you see in the souvenir. You could barely see to the other side of the canyon but as the cloud drifted through you could see several spectacular falls.

As always click on the images for larger versions.

Surf's Up

Nick and Nora were hoping to spend their Christmas-New Year break photographing the Gold Coast's hidden historical gems but the weather has been somewhat cyclonic.

Really.

So instead we return to the city's souvenirs to uncover one of the most picturesque beachside villages in the city - Kirra.

Long famed for its surf, Kirra is just a few hundred metres north of Coolangatta and as its landmarks has two delightful historic buildings still in active use today - the Kirra Beach Hotel - completely unchanged from this picture - and the adjacent Kirra Beach Pavilion.

The first Surf Life Saving carnival was held on the beach in 1928.

There's been a pavilion along with accommodation on the site since the 1920s.


At left is a photograph taken of what appears to be the local surf life saving club members with the pavilion in the background. It's an entirely wooden series of structures the hug the point which sweeps south to Coolangatta. It's difficult to see from the picture but one would imagine the road behind it to be little more than graded gravel or a thin ribbon of tarmac.


Taken from roughly the same location is this beautifully hand coloured and remarkably detailed transfer print looking along the beach. Clearly visible is the club pennant and the iconic lifesaving reels.

The porcelain pin dish is an incongruously stylised maple leaf made in Czechoslovakia.

One cannot be certain what happened to the original building but it's not too much of a stretch to think that it may have succumbed to cyclonic conditions.

The new low-rise Kirra Beach Pavilion was officially opened in 1935.

At left is a sepia transfer on a cup, saucer and plate trio of a view taken from Kirra Hill. The view sweeps north to the seaside villages of Bilinga and Tugun. Don't forget to click on any of these images for a larger view.


At right appears to be the photograph on which the transfer print was based. The new pavilion was finished in the Spanish-inspired stucco that appears to be quite popular at the time. But unlike those Pavilions, Kirra was the biggest and housed not only the amenities but also had room for the surf club and restaurant.


But the new structure and faced its most serious test a year later when a cyclone threatened to wash the building into the sea.

The cyclone that struck in May 1936 may have spared the Kirra Beach Pavilion but it took out the Surf Life Saving Club to the north at Main Beach.

Now the issue isn't too little sand but too much.

Oh well, maybe another cyclone will change that.

Paradise Lost

The Surfers Paradise Hotel is long gone and one supposes that the equivalent iconic building on the Gold Coast today is the Q1.

As attractive as it is, it's certainly not the same.

This artwork takes a look west from the beach end of Cavill Avenue to the hotel and painted by noted artist Elaine Haxton.

Image reproduced from the 1954 Courier Mail Queensland Annual.

Grand Hotel

While much of the Gold Coast shows little sign of its past before 1970, Coolangatta's town centre still has a lot of the charm of 1930s architecture.

The Spanish Mission style seemed to be all the range at that time (not surprising one supposes when one considers the similarity in climate) so when the timber Queenslander-style Hotel Grande (that's Grand with an 'e') had to be rebuilt after a fire in 1931, the archways and stucco walls figured in the architect design.

Apparently one of the finest establishments of its type between Brisbane and Newcastle (no mean feat since it represents a distance of about 700 kilometres), the Hotel Grande had its grand reopening in 1933.

Located across the road from the beach, The Hotel Grande was, according to the above 1954 Courier-Mail Queensland Annual advertisement, under vice-regal patronage - meaning that's where the Queensland Governor took his holidays.

And what's a holiday on the beach without a souvenir? Nick and Nora aren't claiming any vice regal provenance with this ash tray but it is a lovely picture to look at while you're stubbing out your cigarette.

Best of all, The Hotel Grande is still around. Click here for the Google satellite image.

New Heights

We've profiled the long-gone Surfers Paradise Hotel in Nifty Knick Knacks before, but here is a full page promotional advertisement from The Courier Mail's Queensland Annual of 1954.

Surfers Paradise, home of Indy today, Queen of beaches at other times of the year.

Burleigh Good Times

While Southport, Coolangatta and Surfers Paradise are the three main suburbs which people msot identify with the Gold Coast, the suburb of Burleigh shouldn't fall too far behind.

Located between two headlands, Little Burleigh to the north and Burleigh Headland to the south, the area has been popular with holidaymakers for well over a century.

The large headland also contains a coastal national park and on some of its upper reaches homes with million views established in the 1920s were co-opted into being lookouts for Japanese submarines during World War Two.

The first souvenir pictured is an ashtray whose maker is unknown but it features the stamp of Southport jeweler, VR Birkbeck.

It possibly dates back to 1936 on the basis of this photograph belonging to the New South Wales state library.

Look familiar? (Don't forget to click for a larger view)

As they so often did with souvenir transfer prints, the image was touched up of inconvenient details, in this case the tent city of holidaymakers.

The next souvenir, a Staffordshire porcelain trio features the view more or less looking the other way - at the entrance of the national park looking north along the sweep of coastline which is still popular with swimmers and surfers.

Here's the view from roughly the same location today.

This souvenir is probably late 1950s or 1960s by virtue of the fact that it is captioned 'Overlooking Burleigh Heads, The Gold Coast'.

Although tourism marketers had been using the 'the Gold Coast' since the 1940s. It wasn't officially gazetted as the name of the town until 1958.


The last piece is a small milk jug. Sorry, for some reason the jug just didn't photograph well.

If you want to see what the view is click here. It's the 16th picture down but do take the time to scroll through the rest of the site's very interesting history of Burleigh.

Can't get enough of Burleigh? Can't blame you. It's Nick and Nora's favourite beach.

And if you can't get there in person then CoastalWatch.com is the next best thing.

Travelling North

With today's cheap airfares to inter-state it seems hard to believe that travelling by train was the best option for long distance travel.

Not quite as romantic as travelling by ocean liner, but almost.

Travelling more than 1000 miles from Brisbane to Cairns, The Sunlander route has been traversed for more than 60 years and it still runs today.

Our featured photograph is a half page promotional ad in the 1954 edition of The Courier-Mail's Queensland Annual

A Walk Backwards

We love our shopping here on the Gold Coast.

In fact the city boasts one of the highest retail space per capita in the country.

Such a pity they feel compelled totear down perfectly good retail spaces to builder even more retail spaces.

But that is the fate which befell The Walk sometime in the late 1980s. Great period character expunged for bland white facades - it's the story of Surfers Paradise.

The Walk was two streets back from Surfers Paradise beach and about 400 metres north of the iconic Cavill Avenue.

Built in the 1950s, the arcade provided a thoroughfare between what is now Surfers Paradise Boulevard to Orchid Avenue.

Judging by this 1960s image of The Walk, perspex covered, (source: GC Local History Library) Nick and Nora's souvenirs must date from the late 1950s.

See the mural on the building on the right? Go to the link for a clearer view) If memory serves correctly it was a tiled fresco.

Intriguing but what does it mean? It covers everything from Aboriginal dream time paintings, ancient Egypt to the industrial revolution and the space race.

How educational. Weird, but educational.

Where is it now?

Who knows, probably smashed to bits on some landfill somewhere.