OK I think that's it.

Thanks for reading.
I'll leave you with this.

Epping Plaza, Epping Road Epping.

This is a fine big place, sprawling out across the asphalt up north with it's roster of heavy hitters proudly displayed at the entrance:

I like the way this entrance is framed by a KFC and a McDonalds. Even if you don't want to shop, you can still eat. I wonder if their staff members eye each other off over an invisble line down the middle?

From the outside its hard to get a real sense of scale or layout of this place. Inside, it feels massive- this is just one leg of it:

And yes the glass roof is very nice, and I know the place uses a gumleaf motif on it's signs, but this combination of the two looks like a massive floating vagina, complete with pubes:

I bet the local schoolboys love it. Speaking of local, what is it with all the Safeways over on this side of town- why haven't they all been rebadged as Woolworths yet?

And while I like the idea that entrances to different parts of the plaza look different, this one is a little too busy. And brown.

Temple Court Arcade, Little Collins Street Melbourne.

City arcades, part four-Temple Court Arcade, Little Collins Street.
Temple Court was named after a street in the London legal precinct, and started out as a kind of alleyway between Collins & Little Collins, before someone built an office building there in the 1860s. The various lawyers, barristers, import-export agents, stock brokers and other financial small fry rubbed along in there quite happily and in 1924, this rather fancy bit of wedding cake went up on the site:

That's the view from Collins St. these days. The building is now apartments, with a few shops (including an OK Vietnamese bakery) on the ground floor. BUT...if you slip around the corner and go down Gurner's Lane to Little Collins St you will see this:

Subtlest sign ever:

This is the view from just inside the doors. There used to be a liquor store downstairs, but that's gone now.

And this is the view from the bottom of the escalator:

Even on a brisk spring morning the air was flat and sterile. The whole arcade was very, very quiet. It gave me the creeps a bit. I had a nagging feeling some blank eyed cyberassassin was lurking behind a pillar.
Three of the shops are empty and for lease, and the basement itself is for sale. I'm guessing some kind of bar/izakaya/taco joint will open down there before too long.

Greensborough special.

Well, finally got over to Greensborough recently and very glad to have made the effort. For some reason I knew this was going to be good- I've never felt the urge to snap a roadsign before:

BUT the plaza isn't the only place of interest. The main street (called...Main St) boasts two stand alone arcades as well. The first, Grimshaw Walk, isn't that great:

It appears to have no other tenants but the cake decoration supply shop/school. Every shop front is filled with baking trays and cupcake apparatus.

Yep, if you want to do some cake decorating, maybe you should forget Port Phillip Arcade and head out to Greensborough.

 

A bit further along the street  Main St is the balance of the universe is restored- Greensborough Arcade features a compellingly normal set of tenants. Although I have no idea what Vi-trex is, if you need some, go here:

OH AND DID I MENTION YOU CAN WALK THROUGH TO THE CAR PARK? WELL YOU CAN.

LOOK THERE IT IS RIGHT THERE THROUGH THE KINDA SCARY GATEWAY:

Anyway. The first thing you should notice about Greensborough Plaza is the sports murals. Which have safety thingers across them, which I bet the artist wasn't too happy about:

The Plaza entrance looks quite majestic from the bus exchange. Pity the clock was broken:

It gets pretty crazy inside. This place has clearly spread itself organically, over the years since it opened back in 1978 and there is a bit of a disjointed feel to the various sections. I liked this massive hub, which was open from the ceiling all the way to the floor, way down below:

I liked this bit of no-nonsense badging on the bins too. It's true you know, if it ain't recycling, it's landfill:

There was so much going on that it was a while before the glass elevators registered. Yes, "glass elevators", plural- they have two of them:

They have two McDonalds' too, which seems a little excessive. Final view is the rear car park entrance- like the front, it's pretty imposing:

Wrapping up, I'd recommend Greensborough overall, and the Plaza itself for fans of brutal architecture who want to get lost in a food court.

The Hub, Little Collins Street, Melbourne

Continuing the series on city arcades, The Hub is a funny little place, a dogleg running off the much bigger and fancier Royal Arcade:

There are a few shops and restaurants in it, small frontages packed in along it's relatively short length. That shoe repair place looks pretty old school, I bet they'd sort your heels out.

This is the view from Little Collins St. It's kind of odd that both ends of the arcade have signs trumpeting the fact you can use it as a short cut to other places, rather than marking it as a destination in itself.

Elsewhere- up north.

I have been on the road this week, so consider this a bit of a Queensland special. I was surprised how many plazas malls & arcades Brisbane holds. From the new and garish, like Queens Plaza:

to the older and more refined- Brisbane Arcade reminded me a lot of Melbourne:

And some kind of run down and suburban looking places:

My travels took me as far as Tully, where I found this: Banyan Plaza.

That thing you can see behind it is Tully sugar mill. It runs 24 hours a day, and makes the whole town smell of treacle.

Centrepoint, Bourke Street, Melbourne

Another city arcade- this week, Centrepoint, in the Bourke Street mall:

It's looking pretty shabby these days. The only remnant of it's original early 80s layout in the Pancake Parlour- you can see the sign in the middle of the photo. A generation of Melbourne teens wasted their Saturday nights there. Before Centrepoint was built, that downstairs area was a cinema called the Odeon. I got this badge when Centrepoint opened:

Though I cannot remember where I got this one from:

Southland, Nepean Highway Cheltenham.

Along with Chadstone, Eastland and Northland, Southland, which opened in 1968, is one of the original big four malls in Melbourne, built by Myer in the mid to late sixties. The original logo looked like this:

Place is looking kinda bloated these days:

And there's no proper signage in view from the highway.
This entrance is down under the famous bridge, which joins the two halves of the centre. Not very welcoming, but then this place is meant to be approached via the massive, shadecloth-draped car parks.

And here's the bridge itself:

It is two storeys high, and has a food court- you could probably make a stand-alone centre out of the bridge alone if you wanted. That window is a bit under used- it's tucked away in the back of a camping goods store where you have to pretend you want to buy a tent or some lycra socks to enjoy the view north back up the Nepean to the city:

In the central atrium, they have a TV that is like, two storeys tall. It shows ads, all day. And everyone seems to ignore it.

But have a look at this pic, from 1968:

The water feature is long gone but that's still recognisably the same place. I wonder what fashion show was going on on that stage? This is the place where I met Tom "Dr Who" Baker during a meet and greet tour he did many years ago.

It's a pity this pic isn't in colour- that tiled mural was great. There is no trace of it to be seen now, I wonder what happened to it. 

Oh, and if that is your grandma or auntie standing there, do let me know.

And finally, in this pic, from the early 1980s (note the Holden Commodore) you can see the trees of the old roof gardens. Some of that original white brickwork is still to be found down in the carpark.

Old pics from the City of Kingston historical website.

Elsewhere- own your own plaza.

Yes, it's true- the catchily named Lane Cove Coles Centre is up for sale.

Now I don't pretend to understand all of this but it sure is some mighty fine real estate jargon:

• Coles Supermarket & 5 specialty tenants offered for the first time in 25 years
• Coles accounts for 73% of gross income - lease to July 2022 plus options
• Speciality tenants include a Cellarbrations Liquor, Green Grocer, Butcher, Hairdresser and Florist
• Prime location in Lane Cove, an affluent Lower North Shore suburb approx 9.5km to the north of the Sydney CBD
• Future development potential (subject to tenant & council approval)
• Net passing income $1,600,000 p.a approx

Anyway, there is also a video tour here which you can watch if so inclined. Closing date for expressions of interest is 5 September, so you only have a couple of weeks. Maybe call your bank manager today. 
If I owned it, I'd put a waterslide through that main atrium just for the hell of it, and build myself a penthouse apartment on the roof.

Tivoli Arcade, Bourke Street Melbourne

I'm going to be looking at a few city locations over the next couple of weeks. First up (for no real reason) is the Tivoli Arcade. This is the back aspect, walking up from Little Collins Street:

I like the way it once had a cafeteria and a cafe & bar. And a copy centre, too.

The actual entrance is not too flash. Something about this reminds me of airport signage:

The arcade itself is mostly Asian-oriented these days, with a smattering of beauty parlours and a couple of Melbourne's ubiquitous cheap curry places making up the numbers:

The front entrance, off Bourke Street:

Until destroyed by a fire in 1967, the site was occupied by a theatre- built in the 1860s and called the Opera House during it's early years, it became the Tivoli in 1914: