Carlton Community History Group
News
La Mama up in Flames
Image: CCHG
The Aftermath of the Fire
Carlton residents woke to the shocking news that La Mama Theatre in Faraday Street was gutted by fire in the early hours of Saturday 19 May 2018.
The innovative theatre was founded by Betty Burstall in 1967, in the style of La Mama in New York. The small two-storey building, once owned by the Del Monaco family, was a printing workshop, and an underwear and shirt factory before its transformation into an intimate theatre space. Betty Burstall, the "Mama" of La Mama, died in 2013.
In the theatre tradition of "the show must go on", Saturday night's performance of Bully Virus went ahead at the alternative venue of the Kathleen Syme Library & Community Centre, on the corner of Faraday and Cardigan Streets.
Related item: Betty Burstall 1926-2013
Goodbye Bridget
Bridget Kinsman (née Ballot), beauty therapist of Newry Street, North Carlton, lost her fight with cancer and died on 16 May 2018. She will be remembered as a gentle and caring soul, and will be sadly missed by her family, friends and clients. Bridget opened her salon Carlton Beauty Care in 1995, in a quaint two storey building on the corner of Newry and Henry Streets. Newry Street was not a prime location for a business, compared to the main shopping area of Rathdowne Street nearby, but it worked for Bridget. Word got around and her client base grew. She never had to advertise her services because the recommendation of a satisfied client was worth more than a thousand dollars of advertising. While other businesses came and went, Bridget's was one of the longest running to continuously occupy the building.
Bridget Kinsman (13 August 1968 - 16 May 2018) was farewelled at St Peter's Eastern Hill on 24 May 2018. CCHG extends its condolences to her husband Jeff and their two sons.
Note:
The shop at 119 Newry Street was built in 1881 by W. Hearndon. It has had a variety of uses over the years, including a fancy repository, tinsmith and bootmaker and repairer.
And So To Bed
The boutique Milly Sleeping closed in February 2018, after more than 12 years in Carlton. The business at 157 Elgin Street, a small two storey shop with a narrow staircase, began in 2005. Mother and daughter team of Janette and Leah Muddle have supported local designers and stocked an eclectic range of clothing and accessories. "Milly Sleeping" was not, as might be expected, named after the two resident cats, which were sometimes seen sleeping in the front window. It was named after a painting by Ernst Kirchner.
Nearly 100 years ago, in September 1919, a very different style of business was transacted at 157 Elgin Street. Joseph Nolan, a hairdresser, appeared in Carlton Court on a charge of having used his premises for gaming purposes between 10 July and 1 September 1919. His was one of several local businesses raided by police and a search yielded the incriminating evidence of betting tickets and marked money. Nolan pleaded guilty and was fined £40, with £3 costs.
References:
http://www.millysleeping.com
The Argus, 6 September 1919, p. 17
The Good Doctor
Serge Liberman
1942 - 2017
Dr Serge Liberman, medical general practitioner to a generation of people in Carlton, Brunswick and other inner suburbs, died on 22 December 2017. Here are thoughts and recollections from some of those for whom he was a treasured doctor, friend and writer.
Judith Biddington: There are many skilled doctors and writers in our community, but most don't have necessarily have skill in both areas. Serge Liberman did, he was a good doctor and a good and interesting writer. In addition, as a humanist and humanitarian, he had great people skills. No wonder people in Carlton followed him up to Brunswick when he moved from one suburb to the other, or flocked to his talks when he gave them. Serge had the capacity to involve you, as his patient, in what was happening to you, to explain, to answer all your questions honestly and sensibly, thereby treating you with respect. He always knew your history, even long term, over forty years for some members of our family. He was also very likeable and so many of his patients regarded him as a friend; even when they did not share his ethnicity they still enjoyed his writing and excellent scholarship. He would also have made an exceptional teacher. He will be sorely missed.
Anne Marie Lynzaat & Richard Trembath:
There are many stories I could tell about Serge Liberman who was our GP for decades. The one I shall tell comes from when he had retired, and it illustrates his compassion and empathy with his patients.
About a year after he left the Lotus Medical Centre he read the death notice I had placed in the newspaper regarding my brother in law's death from pancreatic cancer.
Anne Marie and I were both surprised and moved by the letter we received from Serge shortly afterwards.
In it he expressed his best wishes and sympathy for our loss.
He concluded with a typical dry joke that Anne Marie's unusual surname helped pick out the notice from all the others!
Shelley Marcus & Peter Tilley:
As patients of Serge Liberman in Carlton and Brunswick from the 1990's until his retirement in around 2013, my wife Shelley and I came greatly to appreciate his excellence and warmth as a GP but also his scholarly and literary interests.
He was a late-20th-century version of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, who was likewise a doctor and master of the short story.
As a Russian-speaker and translator myself, I enjoyed our conversations on cultural matters during consultations.
Serge received the Alan Marshall Literary Award in 1980 and 1981, and Shelley and I have an autographed copy of his 2011, 836-page magnum opus, 'The Bibliography of Australasian Judaica 1788-2008'.
Serge will be much missed.
Felice Rocca:
It is a rare privilege to have the wise counsel and empathy of the same doctor from the gawky edge of early adulthood until the wistful edge of retirement.
I first went to the Lygon St clinic in the early 1970s with a throat complaint and soon found myself settling to see Serge whenever possible, following to new offices in Brunswick by the mid 1990s.
The strictly physical complaints, increasing as I aged, he dealt with smoothly and competently, and I soon found I could also trust him to advise on matters of emotional health, with the same warm efficiency.
I also discovered in his writings how deep his understanding of others could go, such as in his short story, published in The Age, of an elderly Italian widower readying to leave for Australia.
Upon his retirement in 2013 I felt a door was closing on a large part of my life. Now I know it is shut for good. Addio Serge.
Susan Crowe:
Serge Liberman was a popular doctor and you sometimes had to wait a while to see him, but he always gave you his full attention and care.
One day I was sitting in the waiting room, suffering from what I thought was the world's worst cold, when I heard a terrible hacking cough coming from the consulting room.
My symptoms were trivial by comparison with this patient, who sounded like they were at death's door.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the "patient" was, in fact, Dr Liberman himself.
He was obviously unwell, but he was still seeing a few patients before going home to rest.
He wrote a certificate for my time off work and, with his characteristic humour, he pushed a blank form towards me and asked if I could write a certificate for him.
I gave him the rest of the week off.
More information:
An obituary, with an overview of his life and work, appears in the Sydney Morning Herald.
As well as his medical work, Serge Liberman was a chronicler of Jewish, and also of other migrant lives, in Carlton and other parts of Melbourne, which came alive in his writings. Much of his writing output can be found at his website.
In December 2014 Serge Liberman gave a talk to the Carlton Community History Group entitled "Writing Jewish Carlton".
A copy of the talk can be found on the Academia website.
Dracula's Last Bite
and
The Canals Have Gone Fishing
Two well known Carlton businesses - Dracula's Theatre Restaurant and Canals Seafood - shut up shop in 2017.
Dracula's began in Drewery Lane, Melbourne, in 1980 and moved to larger premises at 96-100 Victoria Street, Carlton, ten years later in 1990.
The converted brick factory site, on the corner of Cardigan Street, was originally designed by architect P. Hudson in 1912 and built by F. Frenchman for Ross, Robbins Co., brassfounders.
Dracula's final performance was on Saturday 23 December 2017.
and
The Canals Have Gone Fishing
Canals Seafood, at 703 Nicholson Street, North Carlton, celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2017. The business began as a fish and chip shop, operated by Spanish migrants Joseph and Maria Canals, in Collingwood in 1917. They moved to North Carlton in the early 1930s and took over an existing fishmonger's shop, which had been in Nicholson Street as early as 1905. Canals is a family business in the true sense, with successive generations learning the trade from their elders and making their own contribution to developing the business. Over the decades, migrants from Europe, like the Canals family, have done much to influence the Australian taste for fish and seafood. In 2017, the demand for quality seafood was greater than ever and the Canals brothers, John and Peter, chose to end on a high note and give themselves a well-earned break in retirement. The shop building was auctioned in October 2017 and a new seafood business, The Fishmonger's Son, opened in May 2018.
Notes and References:
Building occupancy information has been sourced from Sands and McDougall directories.
Building design information has been sourced from the Australian Architectural Index and Building Application Index.
Dracula's Melbourne
The Age, 28 September 2017
 Photo: CCHG Elm Trees in Curtain Square North Carlton Looking South Towards Newry Street
 Photo: CCHG Tree Removal in Curtain Square North Carlton September 2017 |
From Quarry to Quercus
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Vale Bea
1924-2017
Bea married soon after the war and over the decades raised a family of four and gradually acquired the professional qualifications and experience she had missed out on when she left school at 14. Additionally, at the age of 64, she undertook an Arts degree majoring in Art History and Italian. She described those years at university as the highlight of her life. It was characteristic of her energy that, when she was interviewed at the age of 86, she was still employing an Italian tutor to work with her and a small group of friends in maintaining their language skills.
Bea spent the last couple of years of her life in an aged care home, something her daughters suggested to her with some trepidation as a temporary respite but which, characteristically, she enjoyed so much that she immediately elected to make it permanent.
Vale Bea, a full life indeed.
Who would have thought that waiting for her friend to change her stocking could have made such a difference? Read Bea's story and find out how this seemingly trivial event had a big impact on her young life.
A Fruitful Business
Good news for Rathdowne Street shoppers - the former St Clements greengrocer, which closed in February 2017, has re-opened under new management in May 2017. Senserrick, currently at 687 Nicholson Street North Carlton, is expanding its business into Rathdowne Street. Senserrick and St Clements are the latest in a long line of greengrocers that have occupied the shop at 384 Rathdowne Street since the 1930s, with the exception of a few years from the late 1940s when it was a wholesale hardware business. Longer term residents will remember the Tucci family, who operated the greengrocer's business from the mid 1950s through to the 1990s. The purchase of fruit and vegetables was often accompanied by an impromptu Italian lesson, courtesy of Francesca and Paolo. They retained ownership of the building after their retirement and the business has been continued by a succession of greengrocers. Paolo died in April 1993 and Francesca in June 2016, at the age of 90 years. Both were buried in Melbourne General Cemetery, Carlton.
The two storey shop building was sold in late 2016 and 384 Rathdowne Street is once again selling fruit and vegetables.
Image: Courtesy of Tucci Family
The Tucci Family in the 1960s
The Samovar Travels On
The two-storey building at 412 Rathdowne Street, North Carlton, which dates back to the 1890s, was a tobacconist shop for sixty years. None of the subsequent business occupants - pastrycook, confectioner, milk bar, picture framer, noodle shop, café or tea house - can rival the tobacconist in terms of longevity. Read more about the tobacconist shop that became a tea house.
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