When Agathe Kerr first laid eyes on South Melbourne Market in 2001, she felt it was really nothing special.
Its main commercial artery, Clarendon Street, through which thousands of Melburnians wash to and from the city, is very often witness to some top-shelf eccentricity. Now the grab-bag of offerings includes a load of take-away food franchises, a vape shop that was recently targeted by fire bombers, a couple of high-end day spas, paint-and-sip cafes, three popular op-shops and Chemist’s Warehouse.There are stalwarts too; the Old Paper Shop Deli and its glorious cakes endure, as does a longtime florist, an original chemist, a pizza shop, a sex shop, a funeral parlour, a musical instrument shop and a “17 times salon of the year” women’s hair salon, Rokk Ebony .
The 229 flats are said to have been Melbourne’s first high-rise housing commission development, built in a precinct once occupied by a vast Presbyterian orphanage housing many of the orphans from the gold rush era.The obvious mix of demographics rubbing shoulders on the streets of 2024 is something local real estate agent Warwick Gardiner thinks helps to make it attractive.
Needless to say, the area would be almost entirely unrecognisable to its first colonial inhabitants as they scraped out a living. “From then on, it was bustling,” says South Melbourne-born Rowan. “They needed money for drains because South Melbourne was also separated from everybody by Sandridge Lagoon.
“Squizzy Taylor’s grandson told me Squizzy shot a bloke in the pub and Bob Hawke was kicked out of it in his ACTU days, by the female publican of the time, for being obnoxious,” says Peoples, who has been running it for six years.A South Melbourne resident of two decades , Peoples says that despite the acknowledged gentrification, the suburb, and the hotel, have retained their character.
Ceramicist Mark Young is part of South Melbourne’s very active creative community. He makes his pottery in a tiny studio behind his single-fronted terrace.Though strict heritage controls can be a pain for residents to work with, the low-rise nature of South Melbourne has helped protect its sense of street-level connection.