Neighbourhood Changes in Bondi Junction

When I left home in 1979, buses provided the only public transport to Bondi Junction. By the time I came back to Sydney in 1980, the Eastern Suburbs Railway was operating, increasing the area’s desirability. Three corner shops from my childhood have long gone, unable to fight the supermarkets’ grocery range, prices and extended hours. Back then, most people I knew were Roman Catholic because my primary and secondary education took place in the same Catholic school. My parents’ choice was probably pragmatic rather than religious because Holy Cross was the closest school to our place.

Only the Junior School continues the tradition of Catholic education. Holy Cross College on Edgecliff Road was transformed into Reddam House after the Catholic Church no longer wanted to educate non-believers. My sister and I wondered what happened to the junior high dux board where our names glowed in gold lettering on the timber. Perhaps it still loiters in a Sisters of Mercy convent. Our senior school in Paul Street was close enough to hear the school bell from our backyard. The church sold that property earlier. Mirvac developed it into the Ben Eden Estate where the heritage listed sandstone building which was my maths classroom still stands amongst the complex of apartments and town houses.

Father started the first Chinese restaurant in Bondi Junction. He ran it for 39 years, no mean feat in the food business. After he died within a few years of selling, I bought the family home from my two brothers and sister in 1990. At the time, I was paying off a house in Marrickville and my siblings lived outside Sydney. Why did I return to Gowrie Avenue after the greater diversity of the inner west? It was a practical decision. The house was bigger and more conveniently located for public transport and amenities, although I missed the lovely neighbours from Marrickville and various interesting places to eat in Newtown. Considering its population size and mix, Bondi Junction remains an eating desert, despite failed attempts by various restaurateurs over the years. Sushi trains and small places succeeded, but nothing ambitious at a higher price point lasted long. Even the El Topo Mexican restaurant above Billy the Pigs didn’t survive Covid closure. Did buying a Gucci handbag mean you couldn’t afford to splurge on fancy food?

Neighbourhood streets in Bondi Junction slowly changed. A vacant lot across the road where we played metamorphosed into apartments. The Gowrie Gate units had off-street parking while only three of the 25 semi-detached houses in the rest of the street had a carport before the council stopped approving new ones. In the last decade or so, eight places added an unobtrusive top storey. Renovations had to keep the facade from around 1913 when the whole street was built to a uniform design of semi-detached brick and tile houses, hoping to create a little touch of Paddington minus the lace, perhaps.

All the shops and businesses in the commercial centre have been replaced during my lifetime. No more Waltons, Star Cinema or Dinkum Fair. Buses stopped running down the eastern end of Oxford Street since the pedestrian-only mall was built. I first joined Waverley Library when it was located in Bondi Road.  In that place sits a neat patch of grass next to the Waverley Woollahra School of Arts. A bigger library then took over the former premises of a ten-pin bowling alley in Ebley Street. Officeworks filled the space after the library moved to Denison St where it operates as a community hub as well as information centre.

When I returned to Bondi Junction, I got to know a few neighbours better, including some who’d kept to themselves during my childhood. Who can blame adults for wanting little to do with a gang of kids playing on the street?  My siblings and I mainly hung out with neighbourhood kids including school mates. Despite being the oldest, being little with flat feet lost me every running race in Gowrie Avenue.

My first casual job was selling tickets for bingo run by the two parish priests in the Holy Cross Church hall. I worked with a classmate and older teenaged neighbours whose father passed the collection plate at Sunday Mass. We’d reek of cigarettes after those nights.  Who knew that smoking caused lung cancer?  Let alone passive smoking.

My first Christmas holiday job at Grace Brothers department store was in mens’ wear which I mainly remembered for folding clothes again and again. That and my flared black mini skirt. I blew my first pay on Christmas gifts for the family. Although the next holiday position at the deli counter saw me frequently dropping food, GBs kept me on for Thursday night and Saturday morning shifts until I rang in sick once too often. A disappointment, but error-free food handling wasn’t my forte. I was better at eating. Unlike my sister, I never waited tables at Father’s restaurant. His customers used to line up with saucepans for takeaway outside on Bronte Road, near the arcade to Grace Brothers. Both the restaurant and GBs disappeared, then the Westfield shopping mall gobbled all the terrain.

Local protests and concerns raised by Waverley and Woollahra Councils couldn’t stop the development of the largest Westfield in the southern hemisphere at that time. It covered both sides of Oxford Street including the previous Carousel centre.  Bike paths came much later despite complaints from retailers. Since Covid, business everywhere suffered cost of living pressures. Currently, a flagship Westfield tenant, David Jones, is shrinking its footprint. Other tenants vacated premises when they no longer made enough to afford the high rents.

Yet some people still have money to spend. Apartments continue to go up, fetching rising prices. Congestion increases with greater density and increasingly bigger SUVs. An Ayurvedic Wellness Centre occupies the building which housed the clinic of Mother’s obstetrician. The Waverley War Memorial Hospital where I was born will be redeveloped as an aged care facility. The now privatised buses seem to be always full. More change will come.  Watch this space.