Little Portugal: Salted Cod and Structures

 Any reason to make a visit to the location of my planned layout is a blessing. 


I suggested going to Petersham one Saturday. My motive was to have the opportunity to get to take photos of the area and get some ideas for my layout. My wife would also get to enjoy her culinary delights and visiting another part of cultural Sydney.
I was surprised to walk around along New Canterbury road to find many older generation of Europeans chatting over coffee. Our lunch at a Portuguese restaurant was salted cod and roast pork with seafood all accompanied by plenty of roasted potatoes. Whilst the family finished off eating their meal I got to walk around and take some photos

Part of building a model layout is to do research of the area planned to be modelling. Studying the area and reading and viewing old photos. What I like about the commercial buildings in the inner suburbs of Sydney is the unique late 19th century architecture of the shops. I especially liked are the large arches above the shops. I have seen these in and around Neutral bay and Cremorne. I hope to be able to include these style of shop buildings on my layout. However, I have not seen kits of these so I will need to scratch-build them.

Below is New Canterbury road outside the restaurant. In the 1950s, trams use to travel this route but is now replaced by bus 444 & 445.

 

The above shops are along Audrey St heading towards the Station. The tram also ran down this street to Petersham. 

 

The other buildings that were interesting was the old Majestic cinema that has been converted to apartments. I remember passing this theatre when I was a child it use to show Green/Italian movies before being converted to a Roller Skating rink that became rundown.

 

In the 1930s to 1950s before the advent of TV most suburbs had a ''movie house''. There were hundreds of cinemas around Sydney suburbs they would not only play movies but also Newsreels.

 

I hope to include a cinema on my layout, to reflect the time before TV arrived and viewing entertainment required a trip to the suburbs.   

 

 

One gem I spotted near the carpark where we parked was an old warehouse building along Marrickville road that was previously used by a furniture and removalist company - Beynon & Hayward. I like the unique shape of the roof and the corrugated iron on the rear. The council is deciding what to do with it and plan to knock it down to use for a carpark. Others wish to preserve it and have it as heritage listed. I do hope this too.