For this assessment, we were required to present 6-10 images that the title “Memory, Identity and Neighbourhood” evoked for us. I was unfortunately unable to attend class for the presentation, so I’ve instead outlined here why I chose these photos and their relationship for me to the concept of neighbourhood.
I decided to go with a bit of an overarching theme for my selection, as you’ll see I’ve tried to capture several (in my opinion) iconic locations within a block radius of my house in both daylight and nighttime. The area of Thornbury I live in is simultaneously very residential, filled with daytime cafes and locations and also a nightlife hub. Different locations play a different role and present a different face depending on the time of day. What is overlooked during the day can become a hub of activity once the sun sets, and vice versa.
The High St/Hutton St 7-Eleven is Thornbury High St’s pivot point. Hutton St is a residential street used as a thoroughfare by many travelling east-west, so people are constantly turning into or just past the 7-Eleven during rush hour. However, during the daytime the convenience store mostly fades into the background of your mind. It’s not something that I “notice” when I travel up and down High St in the daytime; it’s somewhere you might stop for petrol or a snack but, positioned as it is back from the main street, its significance is overtaken by the cafes, restaurants and bars that open up and spill onto the sidewalk along High St.
Once night falls, however, 7-Eleven becomes a hub of activity. It’s a compulsory stop on one’s drunk walk home from the train station or tram stop, the only place left open past 1am on the strip and abrasively bright compared to the dim street lights and low-lying, darkened shop fronts. On a strip that is becoming increasingly gentrified and “inner city”, it has the character of a distinctly suburban petrol station and convenience store.
The unnamed, unmanned laundromat is another vestige of an era passed. Its blue paint job renders it more visible during the day than the aforementioned 7-Eleven, but it’s almost always empty and thus remains mostly unnoticed. It’s one of those businesses that you’re never quite sure if anyone uses until you use it yourself. Again, once night falls, the laundromat becomes a beacon. Its opening hours are very loose (its official closing time is 10pm, although despite the fact I took this photo just past midnight on a Tuesday you can see two people inside) and the lights almost always remain on throughout the night, meaning again as you pass the various darkened shopfronts, the laundromat really stands out.
A similarly mysterious business, which I was unable to photograph due to the wise guys sitting out the front, is the plainly-named Night Cafe just across the road from the laundromat. Its exterior (and interior) is as old world and out of place as the laundromat, as in it sort of blends into the background next to all the hipster graphic design fronting all the other business. Inside there’s an innocent round table where old Italian and Greek men play cards, then a very empty cafe-style area. The actual register and counter hosts only a coffee machine and a small selection of cakes, although hardly anyone ever seems to order coffee. Its real intrigue comes at nighttime, when on hot nights the front door is left ajar and you can spy inside. There you see a faint late emanating from another room behind the main space, except your vision is blocked by a barrier made of green felt. My Italian babysitter in Coburg taught me this means a less-than-legal card game is taking place in the backroom. This is an aspect of my neighbourhood I’d love to be able to delve further into, although it may prove difficult.
These two photos display the entrance to an alleyway just a few houses down from my house, which seems fairly innocuous and suburban, but forms part of an arterial route through Thornbury’s laneways and backstreets towards the South Preston Shopping Centre. On the right side, as you can see from the greenery in the first picture, is a very old, run down house with an overgrown front yard full of junk. Further in the laneway is a mechanic with a slightly sketchy feel to it, so there are always equally sketchy characters and cars coming and going from the area. At night time, the laneway is a favourite of those heading home or waiting for an Uber after leaving the various bars in the area, and becomes a favourite spot for a quick drunken piss. You can see clearly in the second photo the local residents haven’t reacted well to this development. I think this photo best illustrates how difficult and nuanced the gentrification of a neighbourhood can be; you get all this great food and culture (ideally) on one hand but on the other there is a very tangible impact on the original residents, even if this one is particular gross and obtuse.
Thornbury to me is a wonderful neighbourhood, because it extends all of the great culture and nightlife you find in Fitzroy and Northcote, yet it still maintains a healthy dose of “old world” charm and quirk. You can also feel the resistance from both parties as they encroach on each other’s space, as old business stubbornly survive and thrive in the evolving environment.