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Convergence
Last week, Fiona Richardson, Victoria’s first Minister for Family Violence Prevention died from cancer. She was 50. Last week in the US, statues and monuments commemorating slave owners came down and...
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US Navy in Port
The amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) spent six days in Port from August 28 after training exercises in our region to enhance ‘warfighting readiness’ and to prepare for any...
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Litter report 2017
Litter collecting on the banks of the Yarra River under the Westgate Bridge was more random, less systematic, than in previous years. I went down there when I could and set the timer for thirty...
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Review of 2017
Living with the Port The year opened with Victoria International Container Terminal (VICT) receiving its first vessel, the ANL Woomera, at Webb Dock East on Friday 6th January 2017. It closed with a...
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Port Houses in 2016
Observations on Port Houses in 2016 The median house price in Port Melbourne was $1,380,000. In 2015 it was $1,145,500. The median price of a one bedroom apartment was $455,750.1 Fire in the Borough...
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Port Houses in 2017
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored … (T S Eliot, East Coker) Observations on Port Houses in 2017 The median house price in Port Melbourne was $1,505,000. In...
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Birds
The morning begins with the wattlebird in the banksia. The golden autumn day invites a walk to Lagoon Pier is at the end of the street (apart from the interruption of Beaconsfield Parade). Lagoon Pier...
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The Picture Tells a Story
Stories of transformation and transition are at the heart of Port Places. Sometimes I come across an image which really brings that home. This photograph shows the South Melbourne Gasworks and...
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Bringing the market home
When we came to Australia in 1987, we rented a house opposite the South Melbourne Market. It was nothing to do with the market, we knew nothing of it. It was just that it was affordable. our first home...
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A Port place
North Port is stop 127 on the 109 tram service. Not just a tram stop – a place. Could it be the best on the Melbourne tram network? Step off the 109 at North Port straight into Port Melbourne’s...
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Unease in the village
Over the last twenty years Albert Park shops became ‘the village’. Albert Park has been the poster child of a successful neighbourhood shopping centre. It was the place to go for coffee long before...
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David Nicholas is a filmmaker and facilitator. He has supported, taught and enabled people in Port to film and edit documentaries. This is one of a series of films made about community organisations in...
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Elections
Writer Gideon Haigh warns that “fossicking in the basket of past events”1 is not history. Through making old newspapers available online, Trove2 makes such fossicking an almost irresistible...
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Station Pier
A recurring complaint in Port Melbourne is that Station Pier is off limits to locals – even though that is only partly true. It is open except on cruise ship days – the number of which increase each...
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Sharing Stories
Saturday’s Piers Festival centred on Station Pier. Twenty years ago, storyteller and refugee advocate, Arnold Zable wrote about Station Pier ‘If there is a site in our city that I would call sacred, it...
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PS – Sharing Stories
Since writing the post Sharing Stories, I have been reading Beautiful Balts: From Displaced Persons to New Australians by Jayne Persian. I was attracted to the book by its cover which features that...
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Bruce
A lean black cat has moved into our street. He throws himself into your path demanding to be known. Meet Bruce, the prompt for this post. Stanley Melbourne Bruce was Prime Minister between 1923 and...
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From Nature 2018
The heart and soul of this year’s From Nature exhibition at Gasworks Arts Park is Albert Park Pre-School’s exhibit The Butterfly Effect. It’s in the foyer. The children have created an exhibit both...
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Remembrance Garden
It was the day after Hassan Khalif Shire Ali killed Sisto Malaspina and injured two other people in Bourke St and the eve of Remembrance Day. Sadness was close to the surface when people gathered to...
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Year of the Dog
Bay Street is often said to be the heart of Port Melbourne. It can be hard finding that elusive heart on such a long street that runs all the way from the Bay until it curves towards the City. With...
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