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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Paradise Found

When people talk about a holiday to the Gold Coast, typically they'll mean a holiday to Surfers Paradise.

While Southport is considered to be the city's CBD for residents, Surfers Paradise is very much the tourist capital - as it has been for more than 80 years.

At the centre of Surfers Paradise itself is Cavill Avenue, stretching about a kilometre west from the Nerang River to the Pacific Ocean in the east.

Named for hotelier Jim Cavill, the most prominent feature on the street between 1920 and 1980 was the Surfers Paradise Hotel.

Built in a typical Queenslander style, the hotel eventually came to boast a beer garden, tropical gardens, a zoo and, around the corner of Cavill Ave and the Gold Coast Highway (now Surfers Paradise Boulevard), was the Bird Watchers bar, a place where drinkers kept an eye on the birds of the non-feathered variety.


The souvenirs pictured here were produced after 1937 when this version of the Surfers Paradise Hotel was built, the original having succumbed to fire a year earlier.

Testament to how iconic the hotel had become is evidenced by the range of souvenir types its image adorned, from salt and pepper shakers, pin dishes to porcelain trios.

Interestingly, two of the souvenir items by two different manufacturers feature the same image. The earliest of the souvenirs likely to be the Hudson and Middleton Delphine China pin dish.

The transfer print looks positively photographic in its view westward towards the hotel tower.

And indeed you'd be right. The original image is above right. (Source: Gold Coast Local Studies Library).

The second is the Colclough trio of cup saucer and plate, as you can see the rendering is much cruder and the colours more garish.

Unfortunately the Surfers Paradise hotel no longer exists, it was torn down by developers in the early 1980s to be replaced by a bland, beige non-descript shopping centre and high rise hotel.

Look here to see if you must, but Nick and Nora prefer to remember her as she was.

There's a metaphor to be gleaned of course.

Surfers Paradise and its high rise skyline are a bit like the wealthy 'ladies-who-lunch' that the Gold Coast has in abundance - looks good from a distance but up close, no amount of showy bling and make-up can disguise age and world weariness.

Ah for the days when she may have been gauche but also fresh, youthful and her appeal, genuine.