When I was a kid and Mary Delahunty was an ABC radio announcer, and firemen were not yet heroic soldiers caught in the cross fires of the war on terror my old man would drive past the Metropolitan Fire Brigade training facility (which is now best identified as being diagonally opposite Victoria Gardens, just near the Skipping Girl between Victoria St and the Yarra) and tell us to look out and see whether the concrete skyscraper shell was on fire. Very rarely, maybe even only once, it was, and firemen-to-be were scurrying about pretend maidens frantically sizing up whether to jump or choke and roast to death.
A particularly pleasant part of the main Yarra bike path goes past there on the way to Hawthorn and then, believe it or not, the city after coming across a bridge from the bushy wilderness of Yarra Bend Park past the Studley Park Vineyard. The bike path goes right beside a swimming pool full of water used as a supply for quelling the flames in these exercises.
A property developer called Salta now owns all four corners of the Burnley, Victoria and Walmer Sts corner, and the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal was to have heard Yarra Council’s objections until the planning application was “called in” by the Minister, Mary Delahunty. They paid the Brigade $20M for the asbestos-riddled building and the surrounding land and have plans for a $300 million development. Stay tuned or contact us with news…
