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If you ever see a trickle of teenagers pouring off Sydney Road or Batman train station, they are probably going to Coburg Velodrome. Established in 1979, it’s been an unlikely summer dance party venue for the past few years, programming those all-day multi-DJ hellscapes my kids have given up trying to explain to me.
There’s more historical intrigue at the Woolies end. The aforementioned Kodak factory ruled here from ’61 to 2004, a steamroller of manufacturing optimism that slowly consumed 40 hectares of dairy land that was still operated, until their 1977 eviction, by the family of 1880s Scottish immigrant John McKay.
Kodak’s award-winning modernist buildings were opened by awestruck prime minister Bob Menzies, back in an indestructible age of industry that looks from here like a fever dream of Shelley’s Ozymandias. It’s all dust now, under brand-new streets quaintly named for pre-digital memories: Spectrum Way, Aperture Street, Focus Drive.
My neighbour Alba worked at Kodak for a while. Everyone did. As a young girl she remembers Mr McKay riding his horse along the ridge across the creek, a perch now dominated by the recycling plant. Back then, the Big 4 Caravan Park was full of travelling circus folk. The creek was awash with frogs, the bush with echidnas and goannas. Her mum used to tell her aunt in Brunswick how much clearer the air was up here.
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Some things have changed for the better. Aerial photos from Kodak’s reign show a lot less greenery than I walk my dog through now. When my kids were small, we used to plant native trees, shrubs and grasses with the Friends of Edgar’s Creek, a fantastic community organisation bent on the steady restoration of a landscape the original Wurundjeri mob might recognise. I’m sure the tiger snakes are loving it.
I’m yet to see one, by the way, outside of my basement — although I have a strong suspicion the developers will unearth a bit of wildlife in the rotting weatherboard a couple of doors up. According to the notice that just went up outside, the peeling pile is due to be razed for “construction of two double-storey dwellings”. My son saw a fox slip in there last week. Another weirdly comforting reminder that everything else is temporary.
Michael Dwyer is a Melbourne-based freelancer who specialises in music, art and culture.
