What’s one memory in your life you hope you never forget?
‘Leaving my abusive relationship.’
How have you felt since?
‘I’m free and a survivor!’
What was the hardest part about leaving?
‘Fear of being violated by him and fear for my life. I’m safe now.’
What advice would you give to other people that are in the same position?
‘Leave. Don’t take it. Be strong.’
Spotted in Newtown.
‘Sunday Streets is a little plan that some colleagues and I are hatching to close down parts of Enmore Road to recreation on a Sunday morning every couple of months. I’ve asked her if she’d like to be involved and maybe run a hoop workshop.
‘The biggest part of it is about transforming the roads that are usually for cars and making sure that it’s a community space for a while we’re people can come out and meet each other and transform the space. It’s got so many benefits – health, environmental, economic and for the community. The businesses do really well out of it too. It gets people out on the streets alfresco shopping.
‘It’s something that happens in 100 capital cities around the world including Chicago, New York, Cape Town and Jakarta. Los Angeles closes off 25km of roads every couple of months. It’s an international movement but it’s not happening in Australia yet.
‘We plan to connect up some existing cycle routes so cyclists can get a good ride in with activity stations along the way. So it’s very safe for families as well as rollerbladers and skateboarders.
‘The plan is to bring people together from different communities and interest groups. It’s about celebrating diversity and subcultures.’
What’s one memory that you hope you never forget?
‘It’s more of a feeling than a particular memory. I hope I can remember forever the feeling of being on stage and making people laugh. Definitely.’
You’re never fully dressed without a smile!
Spotted in Newtown.
Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.
Spotted in Newtown.
‘I want to see a space that encourages people to learn from each other. These days everything is a money spinner around formalising education and getting qualifications but we’ve forgotten about just doing for the sake of and learning through doing. We want to get people talking again.
‘That’s what I did with my bikes. I learnt from my father in law who used to live in a village in Greece and he didn’t have access to tools so they used what they could get their hands on. And my next door neighbour is a retired mechanic so, through the act of doing, I learnt.
Do you think that an initiative like this fills a void where traditionally it would have been passed down from generation to generation?
I think that’s a really interesting way to look at it that we need to create these community opportunities that previously organically created themselves.
So far we have about 170-180 members. Interest keeps growing before we’ve even opened the doors of the workshop. There are a lot of people owning motorcycles now. Deus Ex Machina has done a great job over the last ten years to raise the profile of the customised motorcycle making it accessible to everyone.
We have a few female members but not enough. We definitely want to raise the profile of women motorcyclists as well because they’re just as capable and as confident on the tools as they are behind bars out on the road.
Our challenge though with Council is that in the old model, businesses have their own zones. We’re a hybrid business so we’re not just the one thing. We’re using both the ramen bar/café and workshop to feed each other. There isn’t a box for Council to tick for us.
If you read what the LEP environmental concerns are, they just don’t exist for us. We’re not disposing huge quantities of oil. We’re not parking bikes or cars out on the street. We’re not painting. We’re not emitting fumes. We’re not running our bikes. We’re not doing any of those things. It’s the same as what somebody would be doing in their own garage at home.’
And so it ended up a sunny ANZAC Day afternoon. Beautiful light, beautiful music and beautiful smiles near Newtown Station.
‘We’re protectors of our heritage so to speak. I personally think that it’s my obligation as an owner of the building to see it live on for the next genera…tion and generations to come.
‘We’re in the process of looking at about four Australian companies that are interested in leasing it.’
Is there anything in particular that whoever gets the contract, you would like to see the do?
‘As long as they’re Australian and they keep it live entertainment here whether it’s theatre, Vaudeville or whatever.
‘Three stipulating points – the back outside wall will belong to the artist (who just completed his artwork today) for as long as he can paint and the other artists that have used that wall – they’re Australian. They have to use the painter that I’ve commissioned to paint the building and my electrician because he knows it inside out.
‘The huge ceiling lights took us about two months each to restore. In 1999 a hailstorm went through this place and did close to $700,000 worth of damage to everything. It was a swimming pool down here. We never really restored the lights properly – we just sort of temporarily restored them. We’ve spent so much money here now doing the restoration, we decided to spend some time on the lights. We got geniuses in plaster work and basically remoulded them, fixed them up and rewired them. They’re all LED now. That’s the only thing that’s changed in here simply because the first three on each side used to come down to the ground so you could change the globes and then they would be winched back up. We didn’t want them touched any more. If there’s loud music in here we don’t want them rattling and falling down. They’re an important part of the architecture in here.
‘The architect that built this place is responsible for around 2,000 buildings in Sydney. He built the Grace Bros Broadway building. The Hub falls in to the P&O style where the patron would come to the cinema and get ‘taken away’ on a boat. Hence the round circles at the top and the front. They’d come in here and they’d feel like they were going away on a cruise. People needed escapism so theatre was killing it back then.
‘I’m enjoying the work here. It’s our building so it’s a labour of love. I’ve been working on it for two years now. Why wouldn’t you do it up? It’s such a beautiful building.’
Thank you to this guy on King Street for delivering an important Community Service Announcement.
Humans of Newtown 