West End's Exploration of Home

WEST ENDER’S EXPLORATION OF HOME

Locals relive their past and recount iconic moments of migration to battling gentrification.

WEST END, 4101 – Walking down Hardgrave Road to Vulture Street, all the streets are filled bumper to bumper; with cars and bikes ringing; the sounds of children and parents walking to school. The inner-city suburb is across the river from Brisbane’s city centre and past South Bank’s chic restaurants. West End is rich with history, diversity and each house holding a unique story. Acknowledging their dark past from the White Australia Policy to living along Boundary Street, West End. In the 1980s specifically after World War II - Vietnamese and Greek migrants made West End their home bringing food, culture and religion into the community. But over the past decade, West End has been seeing more high rises, and competition moves into this eclectic cosy suburb. Despite all these changes, locals are proud to identify themselves as ‘the old West End.’ Why is there a distinction between old versus new West End? Like many who’ve moved away, and seen West End develop from afar, some welcome the change, others fight it, and some simply mould around it. But there’s something about this suburb that is so iconic. Inside these houses may be the answer to harmonious living between West End’s old and new.

BOUNDARY STREET - Sitting in the shade beneath the trees, ‘The Goanna’ sculpture, created by Aboriginal artist Joyce Watson in 1995 casts a watchful eye over Boundary Street, resting on the corner of Russel Street on the highest point of the stage. The children crawl on its mosaic dreaming tail and adults relax near its head, it’s a strong symbol showing unity and ironically, acceptance. To many locals, Boundary Street is a reminder of our dark past when the First Nations people were exiled beyond the street lines. It was a time of racism and brutality but ‘The Goanna’ is a symbol of ‘dissolving cultural barriers’ where West Ender’s embrace public art through the grassroots community. Reminding locals and visitors, West End is the heart of culture, diversity, and ironically acceptance.

GROWING UP ASIAN IN WEST END - I was born and raised in West End. I thought every suburb lived harmoniously and had street parties with their neighbours. My school slogan, “We all smile in the same language” it was all I knew. Until I moved away from my beloved suburb, and for seven years, I lived in six different suburbs close to Brisbane CBD but nothing like West End. In the early 2000’s we would all meet up with our neighbours and walk to school together. I would walk past a little lime green Queenslander wedged between two high rises, and walk past the Greek Orthodox Church to go to Brisbane State High. After school, we would buy chips from George’s Fresh Seafood on Boundary Street. Everything and everyone was within walking distance.

But when my father migrated here from Vietnam in 1977, he said, ‘living in West End is different for us.' My father, like many Chinese/Vietnamese who migrated to Australia after the Vietnam War. My dad and 28 other people including his two parents, two aunties, two uncles and his six siblings journeyed across extremely dangerous waters. My father was 10 years old at the time. They battled starvation, diseases, and pirates. When they arrived, Australian’s called them ‘boat people’ this was after the government put an end to the ‘White Australia Policy.’ My father, a child not knowing any English went straight into the local primary school, West End State School with his brother and four sisters. “I just tried to learn English… People called us ‘ching-chong’ … There were a lot of racists back then because there weren’t a lot of Asian people.” His father worked in a glass factory on Vulture Street, West End. Before it was a trendy high-rise, with restaurants and apartments it was called ‘Decorative Glass Company.’ My father said, his two eldest sisters sowed and designed clothes for companies. In terms of the people, ‘you get used to the place [West End] and now they” pointing to his children “have Brisbane State High.” Growing up Asian in a predominately ‘white Australia’; they made it their own, his sister lived in the house next door and he ran three retail stores across Brisbane. My family home, three decades later, remains a classic Queenslander exterior with some minor touch-ups over time. Just down the street, on the corner of Montague and Raven Street, sits The Stores, a place where it champions locally sourced products. 47 years later when The Stores was being built, my father was worried about the congestion, as most West Ender’s were. In a little suburb, the streets are narrow, but The Stores have been welcomed by its neighbours and are a short distance down Montague Road, near the Orleigh Park, which bent along the passage of the Brisbane River.

‘BENT BOOKS’ is within the heart of West End, near the pedestrian scramble where Boundary and Vulture Street meet. The pedestrian scramble is one of two in Brisbane, in the centre of the major intersection is a huge Aboriginal flag painted by unknown indigenous activists in 2017. Councillor Jonathan Sri said, “it’s a timely reminder of the injustice Aboriginals of West End experience daily.” This busy intersection brings large amounts of foot traffic to the bookstore. Bent Books has been in West End for over 23 years, Kat Mulheran the current owner has worked there for 18 years. With new businesses, restaurants and apartments towering over West End, Miss Mulheran calls it “bittersweet… I still think West End is largely the same. I’ve seen the same people smile and wave at me for 18 years. But once I leave my little bubble [home] I do see that it’s different.”

Recognising the newcomers, she says, “it may be better because people get to live close to the city and engage with the community.” Before owning Bent Books, she moved to Canada in 2009 for a brief period, in search of a ‘big life’ but after a few months of travelling she realised how much she loved ‘my lil’ corner of the world.’ She realised, ‘I didn’t want that big life after all and that I was happy with my small life in my small city in my lil bookshop. So I made the decision to come home.”

When Miss Mulheran lived halfway around the world, she compared Commercial Drive in East Vancouver to Boundary Street in West End as an ‘ethnic, bohemian enclave. Rough around the edges but more interesting than the rest of the city.” She soon realised what she left behind, “my job at Bent Books, my place in this little community, this space where I fit – was something special and I just had to leave it to realise it.” Miss Mulheran realised West End was her home, she enjoyed being able to walk around barefoot and have no locals bat an eye because people would very often be barefoot themselves. I was also guilty of walking around barefoot from time to time. I would always walk past this beautiful lime green Queenslander, it was an oddity, not because of the standout colour but because it stood alone wedged between two high rises. It was a little traditional Queenslander house built on top of stumps and made from timber and iron with a little veranda on the front side. Queenslanders typically have high ceilings and decorative cortices – the edge where the ceiling meets the wall.

NICKNAMED WEST END’S ICONIC ‘UP’ HOUSE after the animated film Pixar film, and for 105 years the Richards family have passed ownership down three generations. Ownership was passed down to their youngest son and World War II veteran Norman Richard’s in the 1970s. For sixty years it was home to Norman and his wife Janet Richards, together they protected their house from developers. Constantly surrounded by developers, they were offered a temporary space while construction took place but Mr Richards was convinced they would, “take my land. He was there for every nail and piece of steel.” When Mr Richards passed, it was time for Mrs Richards to move closer to her sister. In 2015 she sold it to an anonymous buyer for $1.4 million. The anonymous buyer wanted to keep the iconic West End house the same, transforming it into a community art imitative known as ‘House Conspiracy.’ The Richards family left some of their belongings: teacups, saucers, dining table and chairs, even a floor polisher. The anonymous buyer felt it was important to keep the Richards family history alive. House Conspiracy was created for artists to rent a space and develop their craft to showcase it to the West End community. House Conspiracy’s President, Elizabeth Cowie and long-term resident of the West End gave a tour of the space. Parallel to the house, the construction site on Mollison Street results in plumes of sawdust in the atmosphere. Elizabeth Cowie shouts above the construction work, with four large trucks, an excavator and cranes towering over us. Walking under an archway of dead trees left from one of their exhibitions. Despite the tiny exterior from the front, we walked into a large backyard of green space framed by lime green apartment walls matching the neighbouring apartments. President of House Conspiracy, Cowie says, they usually have four to six artists at a time, once they’re ready to showcase their artwork, usually held in the backyard inviting members of the West End community to view and enjoy the space together. Closing the backdoor muffling the sound of construction, a peaceful inviting atmosphere surrounds us.

Cowie says, “in some ways, we’ve kept it how Ms Janet left it.” In multiple places on the timber walls, each artist leaves a poetic sentence, ‘I hear you better in the silence.’

Walking through House Conspiracy, the three-bedroom studios and typical Queenslander fashion of high ceilings, the echo of our voices fill the rooms. “Our whole reason for existing is to create space for artists to work and collaborate because as you remember …” Cowie raising her voice significantly as she opens the front door to the loud construction, “across the way, where we would have the ‘Absoe’ markets and Peter’s Ice Cream Factory, built-in 1929 the two-storey brick warehouse stored ice cream cones but after the closure in 1996 it became a warehouse, gallery and office space for artists to create.

Unfortunately, The Ice Cream Factory was shut down due to fire damage from the first floor and in 2014, developers bought the sight to repurpose it into ‘West Village’ compiling of apartments, townhouses and retail precinct. When the artists were forced to leave, and Cowie said, ‘you can’t stop us and we will still be artists of West End.’ Cowie said, the mystery buyer was coincidently in West End at the time of the auction, and according to Cowie he lives outside of Brisbane on a farm, and unlike many of the old Queenslanders, 42 Mollison Street, was not sold to a developer. Just a friend of long-time West Ender of 15 years. When asked why he bought West End’s iconic ‘Up’ house he said, ‘he wanted to preserve West End a little bit longer.’ House Conspiracy is a collaborative community arts studio fighting against gentrification and connecting the locals to their history. Cowie held up an interpretive panel created by one of their residences, Hilary Davis. The panel had illustrations dating back to 1868 acknowledging the traditional lands of the Turrbal and Jagera people during Brisbane’s convict era in 1925-42; to when the Richards family purchased the land in 1910 to Norman and Janet’s ownership and battle against developers; to the establishment of House Conspiracy. 42 Mollison Street is a testament to the locals fighting to keep West End’s history and the artistic collaborative process alive. Uniting together is something West Enders do well.

WEST END WONDER WOMAN – At the beginning of November 2010 – 2011 Queensland was hit with a series of floods, forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes. The state of Queensland declared disaster zones, in January 2011 the Brisbane River broke through its banks flooding parts of the CBD, Fortitude Valley and West End. It was reported that 20, 000 homes were affected including Kirsty William’s four closest friends – three in West End and one in Fairfield. She recalled paddling into their homes with canoes and dinghies to help retrieve their belongings. Mrs Williams lives is a long-term West End resident of 18 years, and this West End Wonder Woman helped locals clear out, clean and even, repair old photographs. ‘It was a confronting moment,’ says Mrs Williams spent weeks helping people save their personal photos by prising it apart, soaking them in water and wiping them carefully, leaving them out to dry. One of Mrs Williams friends’ houses on Gray Road – which is four blocks away from the Brisbane River – flooded pasts the second-storey window, “We had very little warning – the day before it flooded, all day the water kept creeping up through the gutters.” Residents with power invited strangers into their homes to charge their devices. Mrs Williams said, ‘It was an amazing time because of the community… different people set up feeding stations, one was cooking for everybody else. One person was minding the kids while the parents were helping.’ Almost eight years later, a few homes have raised their houses above flood level and many had to completely rebuild their homes. She says, the ‘Mud Army’ of selfless volunteers who walked in off the streets to help those in need. Mrs Williams said, “The community have helped them, and they are still involved in their lives” which is true strength to what makes West End a unique suburb.

KURILPA DERBY AND BEGGAR BANQUET – While retelling the crisis, Mrs Williams remembers another remarkable event, The Kurilpa Derby. 2019 will mark West End’s 12th year of this one-day event. The Derby is largely focused on participation – to dance, dine and join in the street festivities. The Kurilpa Derby is a celebration of community, pride and inclusivity which resembles a small-scale version of the New Orleans Jazz Festival. Locals dress up, dance and celebrate all things West End – Community. In the evening a free banquet is served for the participants.

West End is the diversity of the people, their histories and a strong sense of belonging. Australian culture, we have pride in our state but we’re not as loud about our neighbourhood. This is why the locals identify as West Enders. West End is full of open doors, inclusivity and pride. A place where the dark past is acknowledged and not shunned. Keep being weird West End.