Of all the hundreds of blog posts I have written since 2003, the one that sparked the most interest was this one from ten years ago, about the closure of the milk bar at the corner of Barkly and Canning Streets in Carlton. The post made it into one of Andrew Leigh’s books, and for years afterwards I was contacted by locals wanting to know more. Milk bars were part of growing up in Australia for anyone now middle aged or older, and I think the post resonated because it tapped into childhood nostalgia.
In 2009, I put the milk bar’s demise down to the redevelopment opportunities of a prime piece of Carlton real estate. The same people who in the 1970s would indulge themselves spending 20 cents on a bag of sweets at the milk bar were now willing to pay over a million dollars to live in the inner city. But that turned out to be an optimistic thought.
Instead the old milk bar has, apart from the occasional squatter, now been vacant for a decade. Today, it is boarded up and covered in graffiti. I expect there is some story that explains ten years of inactivity, and why someone would forgo rent on the milk bar or the large amount a developer would pay for the land. But if we can’t have our milk bar back, a new house or apartments would be better than the current eyesore.
Barkly and Canning street corner ex-milk bar, 22 December 2019
Barkly and Canning street corner milk bar on its last day, 20 December 2009
Andrew Norton 