4 long-lost Adelaide icons
Progress waits for no-one, and much of Adelaide’s history is now just a distant memory.
Here are four Adelaide icons that have vanished from our city’s landscape.
1. City dip
The spot now occupied by the latest version of the Festival Centre plaza was once the location of Adelaide City Baths, which opened in 1881.
Turkish baths were added later, and these were open daily for gentleman, including Sunday morning, while Thursday was ladies’ day.
In 1883, an incongruous Jacobean-Italianate frontage was fitted to the building, and this was replaced with a more conservative façade in 1941.
An Olympic-sized swimming pool arrived in 1940, which later became a training facility for Olympic swimmer Dawn Fraser.
Adelaide City Baths were demolished in 1969 to make way for the Festival Centre.
2. Go Wests
Long ago, Hindley Street was an entertainment precinct of a different stripe. Before TV, DVDs and Netflix binges, a night at the flicks or a daytime matinee was a big deal. Movies were so popular that Hindley Street was dotted with cinemas, which were more commonly known as theatres.
Strolling down the strip, moviegoers could choose from a range of venues, including the Wondergraph Theatre (later the State Theatre), Metro, Civic and Wests, named after its owner Thomas James West.
The Wests site was previously occupied by a cyclorama, ice-skating rink, roller rink, and the Olympia Theatre, which was opened by T.J. West in 1908. He later demolished this building and in 1939 opened a new theatre on the site, complete with an art deco facade and lavish interior décor.
Wests closed in 1977 and later became a Chinese restaurant, then Sinatra’s Nightclub, Hindley Cinemas 5 and 6, and Timezone games arcade.
Following extensive renovations in 2001, the building became the home of its current tenant, Australian Symphony Orchestra’s Grainger Studio.
The art deco exterior lives on.
3. Fair fun
Many of us remember the Glenelg sideshows where we discovered cutting-edge video games like pong.
This was also the venue of knock-em-down and laughing clown-style entertainment, now only found at the likes of the Royal Adelaide Show and country fairs. The site was later occupied by an allegedly magic mountain, and more recently, The Beachouse.
But before any of these fun houses emptied our pockets, there was Luna Park – yes, Adelaide had one too. It featured the Big Dipper rollercoaster, which ended up in Sydney’s Luna Park when Glenelg’s went bust in 1934.
4. Tram tales
When the City to Glenelg tram line was extended in recent years to the Entertainment Centre, Festival Plaza and Botanic Garden, it was rightly considered to be a major boost to Adelaide’s public transport network.
However, Adelaide trams used to travel throughout the suburbs, as far as Morialta, Henley Beach, Paradise and Colonel Light Gardens.
From about 1952, the tram network gradually shut down due to neglected infrastructure and the growing popularity of private vehicles.
By 1958, all the tram services had ceased, except for the Glenelg line. The Bay service may well have suffered the same fate if it didn’t operate on a dedicated line, unlike the others which ran along suburban streets and roads.
See some fascinating photos from the past by clicking on the blue circles on this interactive map, produced by the Tramway Museum at St Kilda.
Side note: The city to Glenelg line was originally a train service and was one of two railway lines that ran from the city to the Bay. The other line, which followed what’s become the Westside Bikeway, was owned by the Holdfast Bay Railway Company and operated until 1929. The old Plympton platform can still be seen near the corner of Marion Road and Mooringe Avenue.
Following the closure of the Holdfast Bay service, the remaining city to Bay line converted to trams.