306 words
꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂
THE street names around Macquarie University in the northwest of Sydney have a distinctly martial complexion to them. Many bear the names of historical battles, wars and military campaigns. The Crimea War and the Napoleonic Wars figure heavily in the street configurations – Balaclava Rd, Crimea Rd, Waterloo Rd, Talavera Rd, Busaco Rd (misspelt as the actual battle name in the Peninsula War was “Bussaco”), Trafalgar Pl. But there’s also Culloden Rd, Agincourt Rd and Khartoum Rd from other wars involving the Brits. Khartoum also lent its name to a very atypical cinema that existed in the North Ryde area long before the university and shopping centre came along. In what is now called Macquarie Park was green belt bush land punctuated by pockets of agriculture, Italian market gardens, citrus orchards and farms, plus an isolated and incongruous greyhound track on the site of the future university campus, and – the Khartoum Open-Air Theatre.
 |
| Khartoum Theatre, rudimentary open-air cinema with absolutely no “bells and whistles” |
Located on the corner of Khartoum and Waterloo Roads, the Khartoum (carved out of a former orchard itself) held its first screenings in 1938 as a two-man operation. The picture theatre’s knock-up construction from timber and corrugated iron and distinct lack of shelter¹ earned it the nickname “The Shack”. Between double features, an unusual form of entertainment would be provided, woodchopping contests. Despite competition from the Fifties onwards from the nearby North Ryde Skyline Drive-In and the advent of television, the Shack retained enough patronage from locals to keep operating until 1966 (‘Sydney’s lost cinemas: Ten of the best which enchanted audience before biting the dust’, Brian Kelly, The Daily Telegraph, 07-Sep-2016, www.dailytelegraph.com.au).
Khartoum Theatre, North Ryde, 1938-1966, one screen, 480 seats.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
¹ the structure had a partial roof but most of the seating was exposed to the elements
No comments:
Post a Comment