Darlinghurst Blog: Books: Set in Stone - The Cell Block Theatre, by Deborah Beck

Deborah Beck is an archivist and lecturer at the National Art School, housed in the old Darlinghurst Gaol, and she has developed a passion for the history of her workplace. In 2005 she released the book, Hope in Hell: A History of Darlinghurst Gaol and the National Art School (Allen and Unwin publishers) and now she has followed that up with a pictorial history of the Cell Block Theatre, which was published by the UNSW Press last month.

The Darlinghurst Gaol (built between 1822-1885) was converted into the Sydney Technical College in 1922 but it was only in 1957 that the women's cell block, or D-wing, was restored and transformed into the Cell Block Theatre and over the next two decades it became a cultural hub for alternative and avant garde productions in Sydney. 

Beck traces the sandstone building's history from its days as a women's prison - including the time when French actress Sarah Bernhardt came to tour the facilities in 1891, and when the jail housed such crooks as sly grog dealer Kate Leigh in 1905 - to the late 1970s when it played host to wild parties and performances by people like dominatrix Madame Lash.

Beck has also pieced together some marvellous stories of the women who were jailed there and the women who later studied at the college in the 1930s, who would sneak into the derelict women's cell block to have a snoop around.

In 1955, when the director of the college, WR (Bill) Crisp, was trying to gain support to turn the women's cell block into a theatre, he invited American actress Katherine Hepburn to visit the site in order to generate publicity for his plans. And, she accepted.

This photo shows Australian theatre legend Sir Robert Helpmann puffing on a fag with college director Mr Crisp and Hepburn:

Beck's beautifully illustrated book also includes a lengthy chronology of the dance and theatre performances, parties and music gigs, which were held within its walls from July 5, 1955 to October 21, 2010. 

The chronology includes the book launch of The Mind and Times of Reg Mombassa, by Murray Waldren, which was held on October 28, 2009. I note this because I was lucky enough to attend that launch and it was one of the most magical nights I have experienced in Sydney. 

When I arrived there were candles, or small lights, dotted through the grounds leading to the Cell Block Theatre and waiters bearing canapes and Champagne. The book was launched by Mambo founder Dare Jennings and Mombassa's band, Dog Trumpet, gave a live performance in the theatre. 

Apart from Beck's fascinating story of the building's history and restoration, my favourite part of her book are the historical photographs. They just have a beautiful silver glow about them.

If you want to see this excellent and well-researched publication, there are nine copies of the book in various libraries in the City of Sydney network, including two copies at Kings Cross Library. Or why not just buy a copy from the publisher's website and support this amazing local historian.

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Set in Stone - The Cell Block Theatre, by Deborah Beck

UNSW Press, 272pp, $49.95

www.unswpress.com.au

Darlinghurst: Books: The Mind and Times of Reg Mombassa, by Murray Waldren

Every once in a while a book is published that not only smells, feels and looks good but the story inside surpasses my usual publishing expectations. And so it was with this fine biography about Australian contemporary artist and musician, Reg Mombassa (real name: Chris O'Doherty), by writer and painter Murray Waldren, which was published one year ago. 

I'm not a big reader of biographies of men but I bought this book for three reasons:

1) It was a beautiful, tactile object with lots of pictures:

That Even Has a . . .

 . . . Dust Jacket . . .

 . . . That Unfolds . . .

 . . . To Reveal . . . 

. . . An Art Poster!

2) It was about Reg Mombassa, legendary illustrator and member of excellent band, Mental as Anything, who provided the soundtrack for my youth and who featured numerous time on the cover of Countdown magazine, which I subscribed to as a child:

 

Countdown magazine, February 1986, (from page 204 of the book).

3) It was $75, signed by Mombassa, written by a friend, and I thought, what the hell, if I don't like it, its heft and size could still be useful as a shield against the Mechangaroo.

Mechangaroo, by Reg Mombassa, 2001, (page 227).

So I bought the bio last November and that evening sat down at the dining table to have a look at the pictures in the book and unexpectedly stayed up reading until 3am, compelled by Mombassa's eccentric, rich and creative life. I then slept for about eight hours, woke up and continued reading, right until the very last page. I was so engrossed I even read all the acknowledgments, bibliography, discography, exhibition lists, credits, end-notes and index that are stored at the back of the book and which I would normally skip over. 

By that stage I was endlessly singing the Mentals's song Too Many Times, too many times, wishing I could play an instrument and dreaming of setting up a new Sydney art collective. The only thing I was unhappy about was that within 24 hours of buying the book I had already read every word and there was nothing left of it to read. 

Chris O'Doherty at the rear of his Oxford Street terrace, Paddington, in 1975, (pages 98-99).

Apart from the fascinating story of Mombassa's crazy character and life, the book - set in New Zealand and Sydney - also features a number of pubs, apartments and houses in Darlinghurst and the surrounding suburbs and includes references to various events in the neighbourhood.

Mombassa studied at the National Art School, housed in the Darlinghurst Gaol, and it was there he met many of the Mentals band members.

Mombassa initially lived with his parents - who immigrated to Australia from New Zealand in the late 1960s - at their home in Avalon, on Sydney's northern beaches. 

But commuting to the National Art School ''on a double-decker bus'' for two-hours was tiresome, so in the early 70s Mombassa moved in with a friend to a house in Bondi Junction, in Sydney's eastern suburbs. The other flatmates were junkies and crims and one day the house was raided by police. 

Soon after, Mombassa packed up and moved to a house in Paddington Street, Paddington, neighbouring Darlinghurst.

During this time Mombassa played bass and lead guitar in a band called, Bulldog, doing garage-band covers for weddings and parties. His circle of friends and acquaintances grew, and included Maria Hisshion, who lived in a house in Liverpool Street, Surry Hills, neighbouring Darlinghurst. Hisshion was a drug mule for the infamous Mr Asia heroin importer and she was murdered on Christmas Eve, 1975 - her body was found 12 days later in Sydney Harbour, tied to a 7kg anchor.

There are also tales of squats and squatters, wild parties and drugs during this period in Sydney's inner suburbs, with locations including the Excelsior Hotel in Surry Hills, the Cell Block Theatre at Darlinghurst Gaol, and The Settlement community centre in inner-city Chippendale.

Mombassa's future wife, Martina Woodburne, was also involved in the protest/squatter movement on Victoria Street, Potts Point, in the mid-1970s, when developers wanted to demolish historic terraces and a green-ban was imposed by the Builders Labourers Federation. Department store heiress and street-publisher Juanita Nielsen, who was noisily opposed to the development also disappeared, presumed murdered, during this time. 

In early 1972 Mombassa moved in to an ''unpleasant dark and dusty house'' in Boundary Street, Darlinghurst, for a brief spell, before relocating to a flat on Glenmore Road, Paddington.

By the age of 24 Mombassa had held his first art show at Watters Gallery in Darlinghurst's Little Italy district. Around that time he started gigging with his brother Peter O'Doherty, Martin Murphy (who lived in Caldwell Street, Darlinghurst), David Twohill and Andrew ''Greedy'' Smith, with the group soon to become known as Mental as Anything.

The band played regular gigs at Heffron Hall (pictured above), on Burton Street in Darlinghurst, Balmain Town Hall in Sydney's inner-west, and at the Tin Sheds Collective studio on City Road, near inner-city Broadway.

The book paints a picture of a lively, energetic and creative Sydney, and while memory tends to romanticise things, it appears Mombassa really has dedicated his life to art and music in a rather determined, flamboyant and enviable way.

The Mentals also played a gig with Tiny Tim at Iona, the 19th century Darlinghurst villa, in 1989, (page 255).

But this engrossing book is not just about Sydney-centric incidents and escapades. Mombassa went on to become the signature artist for Mambo clothing - thousands of people around the world wore his fashionable prints - and he later designed massive blow-up figures based on his Mambo characters for the 2000 Sydney Olympics closing ceremony. The Mentals were also one of the best-selling Australian bands of the 80s and continue to gig today. 

Yet despite these commercial and popular enterprises Mombassa remained a subversive and eccentric individual and after reading this book I now believe he is one of Australia's greatest artists.

Mombassa still plays with the Mentals but a few years ago I saw Dog Trumpet - the band he has with his brother, Peter - at the Illawarra Folk Festival, south of Sydney, and they rocked like happy-folk-hill-billys. Mombassa, using his real name, Chris O'Doherty, also continues to exhibit at the Watters Gallery. With Mombassa's seemingly endless creative output, Waldren will no doubt have to write additional chapters for the book in about 20 years. 

Author Murray Waldren, by Reg Mombassa, 2009, (from the dust jacket).

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In a nice bit of serendipity blog-post-wise, Harper Collins will this week be releasing a second edition of The Mind and Times of Reg Mombassa, which comes in a classy slip-case and includes a 24-month calendar featuring Mombassa's artwork. The limited edition set, pictured below, costs $50.

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The Mind and Times of Reg Mombassa

by Murray Waldren

Harper Collins

432pp

$50/$75

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Reg Mombassa

Murray Waldren

Harper Collins

Mental As Anything

Dog Trumpet

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Watters Gallery

109 Riley Street

Darlinghurst NSW 2010

02 9331 2556

http://www.wattersgallery.com/

Darlinghurst: Food: Forbes and Burton

After a week of cold weather and a few days of gales, Spring finally stuck its head out from under a rug of clouds to make Sunday a fabulous day to head outdoors again. I spent the morning running errands and by 2pm I still hadn't eaten a scrap, so when Ruby Molteno called and suggested a late lunch, I swung by, scooped her up and we landed promptly at the doorway of Forbes and Burton cafe.

On such a lovely day we were surprised at first to discover an available outdoor table, so we donned hats and sat in the sun . . . until we became so sickeningly hot from its rays, and realised why most diners were sitting inside.

We placed our order and moved inside too:

Forbes and Burton is located in an 1850s building that stretches all the way from 238-252 Forbes Street, and is listed on the Register of the National Estate. I'll be doing a post soon about the history of the building, known as the Belgrave Terrace.

But I still can't talk about its 21st Century life without mentioning the building's historical sandstone walls with their chip marks from the workers' picks. The building is right across the road from the National Art School and former Darlinghurst Gaol, which is mainly built from sandstone that was dug out from the local area by convict workers.

The gaol was constructed between 1821 to 1841 and I wonder if the sandstone used on the Belgrave Terrace was hacked out by its convict neighbours or was left-overs.

The interior design of Forbes and Burton makes the most of the building's heritage aspects, but also includes nice modern embellishments, such as this crimson-pink, reflective panel:

The building was home to the very trendy Dov cafe until 2006 when David Pegrum, a former head chef at the internationally acclaimed Sydney restaurant Tetsuyas, took over the kitchen.

I ordered the special of the day, which the waiter incorrectly recited to me, and which turned out to be Braised Chicory and Salmon Fillet en Papillote with Asparagus ($22). The waiter wasn't far off the mark though (he thought the chicory was witlof) and he was right when he said it was a good-looking dish:

It tasted great too and there was some wilted greens, drenched in deliciously fattening butter, hidden beneath the fish. Ms Molteno, the all-day breakfast queen, ordered poached eggs with whole-grain toast, bacon and tomato:

I asked Ruby why on earth she always orders bacon and eggs when she could easily cook them at home. She said it's because she doesn't like to have bacon in the fridge as she wants to keep fatty temptations right out of sight. I suspect the real reason is because she doesn't much like cooking. Ruby then went on a discourse about how such a seemingly simple dish can be cooked so many ways and how each cafe's bacon and eggs tasted completely different.

Ruby said she didn't truly realise this until she went to London many years ago and discovered to her horror that some cafes didn't know how to cook bacon and eggs. As for the Forbes and Burton version, Ruby was full of admiration: the eggs were plump and free range, the tomatoes were Roma and the bacon wasn't too salty.

Then because I hadn't eaten all day and because I had to work in the evening and life is too short to say no to anything, I ordered the Chocolate Brownie with Raspberry Coulis and Yoghurt:

We weren't quite sure about the yoghurt blob - surely it should have been double cream - but the sourish yoghurt and raspberry were a good foil for the sweet chocolate.

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Forbes and Burton

252 Forbes Street

Darlinghurst NSW 2010

02 9356 8788

http://forbesandburton.wordpress.com/

Darlinghurst: Fashion: Kookaburra Kiosk

I have good memories of the Kookaburra Kiosk, which once occupied the shopfront at 112A Burton Street, across the road from the National Art School.

I first visited the vintage clothing store in the 1990s when it was run by Sally Hammond, who established the kiosk around 1975.

Hammond, a friendly dark-haired brunette who always wore red lipstick, kept a first-class collection of vintage dresses from the 1920s-70s, all impeccably dry-cleaned and displayed.

The prices were quite high for my meagre budget, but I do remember buying a classic black '50s handbag with a clasp, which I dragged around for years until it fell to pieces.

I'm sure I remember hearing that Hammond used to loan some of her clothes to big-time filmmakers, such was the quality and authenticity of her collection.

Hammond sold the store around the turn of the century and sadly died earlier this year.

Kookaburra Kiosk was then run by a young woman who was quite eccentric and always fabulously and colourfully dressed. She kept a different kind of stock that was less collectable but much cheaper. I was a frequent visitor to the store by then and befriended the woman but I have scratched my memory and can not remember her name!

Fortunately I do have some photographs that were taken around 2005-07.

Here is a picture of the woman without a name but a lot of style:

Her then boyfriend worked as a chef next door at Recess Cafe and I think she is holding up a plate of food he has made for her.

This next photograph was taken on another lovely Darlinghurst summer day when I brought along sparkling wine and glassware for us to celebrate life. The woman on the left was a friend of the Kookaburra Kiosk woman. They are both whistling for some reason.

The last time I saw the woman without a name, she was walking along Darlinghurst Road in her typical peacock colours. I was driving by in a car so couldn't say hello. When I moved back to Darlinghurst last year, the Kookaburra Kiosk was gone.

This picture is rather sad and shows the Darlinghurst Express, which moved into the Kookaburra Kiosk site (because no town can ever have enough quick-e-marts):

I was walking past the old KK site last week and noticed this painted calligraphy on the wall of a doorway in the same small block:

So perhaps the Kookaburra Kiosk lives after all?

Darlinghurst: My Story

I first moved to Darlinghurst in 2002. I had been living in share-houses in East Redfern and Surry Hills but so desperately wanted a place of my own. The reason for selecting Darlinghurst was because it had, and still has, so many more studio apartments than Surry Hills or Redfern, which have mostly terrace houses and one- and two-bedroom apartments.

I only looked at one studio apartment in Darlinghurst and I was smitten. It was at 7/40 Hardie Street, next door to Flash Auto Repairs - run by the charming Peter - and just a skip away from the Darlo Bar, Green Park Hotel and the 311 bus stop.

The picture above is one of the few photographs I have of apartment number seven and was taken on a special day (face flowered for privacy) and here is a photograph of 40 Hardie Street (to the left) that I took the other day:

The rent for apartment number seven was $170 a week and $5 less than I was paying in the share-house. It was small but I didn't know any better. The kitchen was an afterthought, the bathroom had a sliding-door and the windows looked out to brick-walls and a light-well, but I loved it because it was my own.

The 12-room apartment building sold for $1.56 million two years after I moved in and was purchased by three young, and very clever, men (Arthur, Lans and Sava). They were good landlords and never put the rent up. One of them even kindly came to remove a huntsman spider that had made itself a home in the corner of the room above my bed.

I lived at number seven for five glorious years, hosting cosy (squashy) dinner parties for six, befriending the local cats and falling in love with the neighbourhood.

But my book and dress collection was steadily growing and it was clear I needed more space, so when the apartment next door - number eight - became available, I asked if I could have it. The following week I carried all my possessions about 2m to the place next door.

Number eight was a dream. It had beautiful windows that looked out on to Hayden Lane and to the rear of French restaurant Sel e Poivre, so that the kitchen staff's musical Gallic accents came floating up into my home. Another positive was that the apartment also had a bathtub.

Here is a picture of number eight:

I loved that apartment to death and even had it painted a gorgeous shade of yummy, rich clotted-cream before I moved in. I also installed a paper blind in the kitchen and thick-cream, light-blocking curtains in the main room. Sadly I wasn't to stay there for very long.

After just six months of living in luxury I accepted a job far, far away and in April 2007 moved out of Darlinghurst and gave up number eight for someone else.

Here is a picture of my last day at number eight, when I had to hand over the keys:

To be honest, I was actually glad to be moving out of Darlinghurst and Sydney. I was frustrated by my job and needed to move away from the stinky city I had grown to hate. I especially loathed the excessive planting of Plane trees, which shed fine, pollen-coated hairs every Spring and cause so much grief for my poor throat and nose. I was tired of hearing about rising property prices and the fact that every time I stepped out the door, life seemed to cost me $50.

So I moved to the seaside where I had ocean views, a car-space and a verandah for only $170 a week - 1990s prices!

For the first 18 months I was fine. I returned to Darlinghurst and the surrounding suburbs regularly to see my then lover-boy and other friends and it was almost as if I had never left.

Almost. After that first honeymoon phase I began to miss my old neighbourhood. I missed walking the streets at night, the noise and the characters.

There was one particular scene of the neighbourhood that I would replay in my head. It was walking home at dusk from Taylor Square and then alongside the National Art School, towards Burton Street. There would be a sense of peace about the neighbourhood as fruit bats in their thousands flew overhead from the Royal Botanic Gardens to search for their evening feast, while the city's workers also made their way home for dinner.

The strongest, most memorable image of that walk though, is of a large gothic-looking house on the corner of Forbes and Burton Streets, which would be in silhouette against the dying day. I loved that house at that time of day. It thrilled me for some reason. I'm sure I have a photograph of it somewhere too. (I was pleased to see today that the house is still there. Although it looks like the Caritas psychiatric hospital across the road is soon to be demolished to make way for a fancy apartment block - more on that another day.)

So anyway, I missed old Darlo and badly wanted to be back in number eight, as if the whole move out of Sydney had never happened.

I set about plotting my return and in September last year began looking at Darlinghurst studios and discovered that rents had gone up by $100 a week in the 2.5 years I was gone. It was sad, but there are worse things to spend your money on.

I trawled through the rental ads on Domain.com every waking hour for weeks and it was on a Saturday morning when I finally found what I was looking for. I am very picky. It had to be a 1930s-40s build, so that I would have high ceilings and none of that porridgey stuff they started spraying on ceilings in the 60s. It also had to have light: don't want to be depressed. And polished floors. A built in wardrobe (I don't want to own another piece of furniture). And a bathtub would be dandy too.

The place on Royston Street appeared to have everything. I dashed to the real estate agency as soon as they opened up shop and put in an application, which was approved by Sunday night and on Tuesday I inspected it and the keys were in my hands.

Here is a picture of Royston Street:

It is not the greatest street in Darlinghurst. One has to hike up Oporto Hill (or Vomit Hill, as it appears on Sunday mornings) to reach it, and it is surrounded by the dastardly plane trees, but it will do for now. Secretly, I still want number eight back.

Here is a picture of the view from my sunroom across the rooftops of Paddington with St Vincent's Hospital to the right:

Here is a picture of the view from my kitchen window, down to Rushcutters Bay and over to Darling Point. I can actually see the Moran family's mansion, Swifts.

Happy, happy to be home...

UPDATE: October 2011: I am now employed by the City of Sydney and feel that I should declare my interest here in case I should ever by accused of bias.
I have just left an industry that I loved for 10 years to embark on this new adventure and I am very excited about my new position at Town Hall, especially because I will be able to pop down to the City of Sydney Archives in my lunch breaks. And hopefully this can only be a good thing for my My Darling Darlinghurst.
Opinions, thoughts and adventures will remain my own and I still make no money from this blog; it has and always will be a labour of love.