Carlton Community History Group

As early as 1884 there was a chemist, Johnston, on the south eastern corner of Lee Street, a small shop which remained a pharmacy for ninety years. It was vacant for a period in 1933 and for 12 years after that it was run in turn by two women, perhaps indicating a less than thriving concern. But many locals remember Vince, pharmacist from 1947 to 1969. When someone became ill in the middle of the night, knocking on his side door in Lee Street was a tempting alternative to finding a doctor.

After Johnston on the Lee Street corner, the next chemist opened in 1889 on the south western corner of Curtain Street, until recently Café Bagatelles. Strover took over the business in 1891 and traded there until 1912, when he moved a little further south into no. 671, a purpose built shop as can be seen from the decorative glass over the doorway. Until 1939 Strover and two successors lived in the terrace house at no. 669 next door to the shop. That pharmacy closed in 1957.

In 1913 a third chemist opened in Victoria House, no. 536 Rathdowne Street, on the south eastern corner of Richardson Street. This shop is relatively isolated and previously had a mixed trading history, but as a chemist's it was successful and continued on that site until 1987. The names of two of the early proprietors can still be seen on signage at the back of the building.

One reason for this success in an unpromising location may be that from 1932 to 1970 Doctor Moses Sternfeld, remembered in Jewish memoirs for making his house calls on foot, had his consulting rooms directly opposite at no. 841 Rathdowne Street (which today is again a medical centre). Similarly between 1890 and 1935, there was always a doctor practising in one of the terrace houses in the same block as the pharmacy at no. 671.

Paul Van Prooyen, the last chemist in the shop on the Lee Street corner, took over in 1970 then moved in the late 1970s to bigger premises on the other side of the street, right next door to what is now the Paragon.

In 1979 David Nolte took over the pharmacy at no. 536 from Sol Benporath, who had run it for ten years. Within a year Paul Van Prooyen asked David Nolte to buy him out and for a while he ran the two pharmacies then consolidated them at no. 536. Rathdowne Street now had only one pharmacy and the location could not be described as central. The inevitable happened in 1987 when Nolte's business moved to its present location in what had been the old bike shop opposite the Kent Hotel.

Photo: Julie Elder
Old chemist shop window, 671 Rathdowne Street, North Carlton

Photo: Rowan Crowe 378 Rathdowne Street North Carlton	378 Rathdowne Street North Carlton The death of Terry O'Rourke in 2011, at the age of 90, marks the end of an era for this strip of shops, where no. 378 Rathdowne Street, today Rathdowne Deli, was a hardware store for more than eight decades. The first shop on this site housed a bootmaker called Elston, who was here in 1889 and somewhere on this block for ten years before that. He was succeeded by a Polish tailor, Gershon Redapple, then a costumiere and a fruiterer, but by 1906 the shop was Pearson's Ironmongery, run by proprietors Mac and Eva and later their son Percy for more than fifty years. From the early 1960s Terry O'Rourke was recorded as also living at this address and in 1966 the shop became O'Rourke's Hardware, remaining so until the early 1990s. Terry O'Rourke was very much a local, his family having lived across the road at no. 677 since 1941. Interviewed in 1985 for a special commemorative edition of the City Alternative News, the O'Rourkes related a number of anecdotes from the early days of the business. One item stocked by the Pearsons was seconds from Hoffman's Brunswick brick kiln. One customer for them was G.J. Coles, who loaded them into his motor bike with side car to resell in his Smith Street Nothing Over 2/6 shop. Percy Pearson was a radio enthusiast and, when the first radios not requiring headphones became available, he mounted a loudspeaker outside the shop and relayed an Ashes match being played at Lords. The crowd that gathered was big enough to hold up the cable trams and apparently the incident was reported in The Argus.
Photo: Julie Elder 520-522 Rathdowne Street North Carlton	520-522 Rathdowne Street North Carlton The closure in March 2011 of Mode Dry Cleaners, following the sale of the property in 2010, will mean a major change in the streetscape and an end to fifty years of dry cleaning services provided there by Pullars from 1941 and then Mode from 2003. Before that, however, from 1923 to 1940 it was the site of Martin Shelley's motor garage. He had begun as a cycle and motor mechanic in 1905 at no. 420 (today Small Screen) moving twice to bigger premises, first in 1922 to no. 430 (now 1001 Things for Baby) and finally to the very large space at no. 520 where he remained until 1940. The huge wooden door which can be seen from a laneway off Richardson Street is presumably a relic of his business.
Photo: Julie Elder 693 Rathdowne Street North Carlton	693 Rathdowne Street North Carlton A new patisserie, Depot de Pain, has opened on the corner of Curtain Street in a building which housed of one of the very first shops in this part of Rathdowne Street, a butcher's started by Domenico Muschialli in 1879. The building was quite small - at that time there were three shops between Curtain Street and Birdsall Place whereas today there are only two. The butcher's continued until 1886 and was followed first by doctor's rooms and then a bank. Bars on the window of what was once the strong room can still be seen from Curtain Street. When Muschialli died in 1897 his widow Harriet opened a wine café here. She ran the business until 1913 and then lived next door at no. 695 for most of the time until her death in 1923. The wine café, or salon as it was sometimes described, had a succession of thirteen different owners before it closed in 1966. At that time sweeping changes to the liquor licensing laws meant there was no longer a place for this kind of business. Much of its wine had been sold to be consumed elsewhere - locals remember plonkos drinking in the park and schoolboys were known to avail themselves of takeaways. Children entranced by stories of the American Wild West admired the wine café for its swinging doors. In 1972 a travel agency opened on this site but, until the opening of Depot de Pain in 2011, no. 693 had not been in commercial use for some ten years, largely because of planning regulations.
Photo: David Elder 701-703 Rathdowne Street North Carlton	701-703 Rathdowne Street North Carlton Today Nolte's Pharmacy occupies a double site, no. 701-703, but these were separate shops until the 1940s. Bootmaker Fittell began at no. 701 in 1896 before moving to no. 705 in 1897 and later across the street. From 1897 to 1915 a saddler ran his business here. Like the shop next door it then housed a series of dealers. In 1926 the last of them expanded into no. 699. What most long-term Carlton residents will remember about this site, however, is its history from 1931 as a cycle repair shop. Harvey took over in 1946 and two years later expanded into no. 703. Like many Carlton boys of that era, Jack and George Ward remember it vividly and speak of the red hose with brass fittings dispensing free air. Pharmacist David Nolte moved his business here from the corner of Richardson Street in 1987, by which time, he says, the old bike shop was a rather spartan building. No. 703 had been a fruiterer's, a furniture dealer's and a secondhand bookseller's before it was occupied from 1905 to 1914 by Corbet's house and land agency, the first of three Rathdowne Street sites this business was to occupy over a period of eight decades. After Corbet moved north to the corner of Fenwick Street in 1915, no. 703 became a laundry, with Chinese owners from 1919 to 1948, when it became part of the cycle repair shop next door. There were a number of laundries in Rathdowne Street in the early days, most lasting only a year or two, but this and another Chinese-run enterprise at no. 557, close to Princes Street, were by far the longest-lived of them.