Port Melbourne, Victoria
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| Port Melbourne Melbourne, Victoria |
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 The beach at Beacon Cove |
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| Population: | 10,373 (2001 Census)[1] | ||||||||||||
| Established: | 1860 | ||||||||||||
| Postcode: | 3207 | ||||||||||||
| Area: | 9.7 km² | ||||||||||||
| Property Value: | AUD $619,000 [2] | ||||||||||||
| Location: | 5 km from Melbourne | ||||||||||||
| LGA: | City of Port Phillip | ||||||||||||
| State District: | Albert Park | ||||||||||||
| Federal Division: | Melbourne Ports | ||||||||||||
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Port Melbourne is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is bordered by the shore of Hobsons Bay and the lower reaches of the Yarra River. Port Melbourne covers a large area which includes the distinct localities of Fisherman's Bend, Garden City and Beacon Cove.
The area to the north of the Westgate Freeway is in the City of Melbourne. The area to the south is in the City of Port Phillip.
Historically it was known as Sandridge and developed as the city's second port, linked to the nearby Melbourne CBD. The area has been subject to intense urban renewal over the past decade. As a result, Port Melbourne is a diverse and historic area, featuring industrial and port areas along the Yarra to open parklands, bayside beaches, exclusive apartments and Beach Road's restaurants and cafes. The suburb also forms a major transport link from east to west, home to one end of the West Gate Bridge.
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[edit] History
The area known as Port Melbourne was first settled in 1839 by Wilbraham Liardet, who established a hotel, jetty, and mail service. It was initially known as Liardets Beach, though soon took on the official name of Sandridge, and finally Port Melbourne in 1884. The area came into prominence during the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s. With an increasing amount of ships looking to berth, Sandridge became a thriving transport hub. To alleviate the high costs of shipping goods via small vessels up the Yarra River to Melbourne, Australia's first railway line was built in 1854, connecting Sandridge to Melbourne. This became known as the Port Melbourne Line, and was eventually converted to Melbourne tram route 109. The disused Sandridge Bridge takes its name from this historic railway line.
As a transport hub, Port Melbourne had numerous hotels. Early industries included a sugar refinery, soap and candle works, chemical works, rice and flour mills, gasworks, a distillery and a boot factory.
[edit] Port Melbourne Today
Today, Port Melbourne still serves as a transport hub for passenger and cargo vessels. Many luxury liners, naval vessels and ferries arrive at Station Pier including the daily ferry service, the Spirit of Tasmania, to Tasmania. Cargo traffic takes place further west, near the mouth of the Yarra River, principally at Webb Dock.
As the relative importance of the port has declined, and as manufacturing industry has moved out of the inner city area, Port Melbourne has increasingly become a residential suburb. The area where Port Melbourne originally developed, around Station Pier and the currently derelict Princes Pier, has been redeveloped with construction of apartment complexes, the best known of which is the Beacon Cove development.
Houses in Port Melbourne range from colonial single-fronted wooden worker's cottages to new apartments and housing developments, and Port Melbourne has undergone a major demographic shift in the past twenty years, from one of the cheapest and poorest suburbs in the city to one of the most expensive and wealthiest. Many large apartment developments in Port Melbourne occupied whole block of the land, where were industrial manufacturers or warehouses, such as HM@S Apartment in Beach Street, ID Apartment in Pickles and Rouse Street, Bayshore Apartment and Bayview Apartment in Bay Street. Each of these apartments contains multiple buildings within the apartment complex and most of those apartments have the heritage buildings preserved. Port Melbourne now blends significant numbers of wealthy people with those who live in public housing developments, and other "old Port" locals. The area also has many immigrants who arrived at Station Pier and settled, primarily those of Greek background, and new immigrants from Africa and Asia.
For many years Port Melbourne was a centre of Melbourne's criminal underworld, which operated smuggling syndicates on the docks. The old Ships Painters and Dockers Union was notoriously controlled by gangsters. The Waterside Workers Federation, on the other hand, was a stronghold of the Communist Party of Australia. Today the Maritime Union of Australia is still a strong presence in the area, though no longer controlled by gangsters or communists. In May 2002 the underworld figure Victor Peirce was shot dead in Bay St, Port Melbourne. The crime remains unsolved. Politically, Port Melbourne still votes very solidly for the Australian Labor Party, despite the influx of high-income residents.
[edit] Sport
The Port Melbourne Football Club, known as "the Borough" is one of Melbourne's oldest Australian rules football sides, and plays in the Victorian Football League. Another local team is the Port Melbourne Colts, which plays in the Western Suburbs League.
[edit] Gallery
 The corner of Bay St and Beach Rd, Port Melbourne. The building at left is Morley's Coal Depot, built in 1872, now converted to offices |
 The old Harper's Starch factory, now converted to apartments |
 The jumble of architectural styles in Port Melbourne reflects the suburb's history |
 The Spirit of Tasmania at Port Melbourne, with the West Gate Bridge visible in the background |
 Sapphire Princess (the world’s largest cruise) at Station Pier Port Melbourne |
 New Developments at Station Pier Port Melbourne |
 Heritage warehouses converted to beach apartments in Port Melbourne |
 Bay View from Port Melbourne |
 Bay Street in Port Melbourne |
[edit] Localities within Port Melbourne
Port Melbourne features three distinctive localities:
[edit] Garden City
Garden City is a locality within Port Melbourne and the City of Port Phillip. It is a 1920s planned suburb similar to those built in Britain at the time.
[edit] Beacon Cove
Beacon Cove is a locality within Port Melbourne and the City of Port Phillip. It is medium to high density suburb planned in the 1990s, and features its own beach, palm lined boulevards and postmodern terrace housing around a giant crescent and park, similar in layout to nearby St Vincent Gardens in Albert Park. The park, known as Beacon Vista adjacent to Garden City reserve, features a light tower which lines up with a light tower in the bay, situated between Princes and Station Pier. The sub-suburb is fashionable and expensive, particularly the large apartment towers which line the foreshore of the bay, although controvertial amongst some members of the Port Melbourne community as it is of a completely different style to the surrounding areas, with upscale 'McMansions' giving the area the name 'legoland' in the Port Melbourne community.[3]
 Beach and apartments at Beacon Cove |
 Port Melbourne foreshore near the Port Melbourne Yacht Club |
 Leisure at Beacon Cove Port Melbourne |
 Sea Change at Beacon Cove Port Melbourne |
 Residential Developments at Beacon Cove Port Melbourne |
 Port Melbourne Beach Music Festival at Beacon Cove |
[edit] Fisherman's Bend
Fisherman's Bend is a locality within Port Melbourne and the City of Melbourne. It is positioned immediately to the east of the West Gate Bridge, on the south bank of the Yarra River, adjacent to the suburb of Port Melbourne and opposite Coode Island on the north shore of the Yarra River.
The name Fishermans Bend originally included the area now known as Garden City, which was renamed in 1929.
The site was an early location for Bay fishermen of European descent, from the 1850s. Some thirty families lived on the Bend, frequently finding additional work in the docks and cargo ships. Ballast was loaded onto ships returning to Europe. Habitation was rough shacks along the Bend, made from corrugated iron, flattened kerosene tins or wood. There were no roads, shops, or sewerage. Water was collected from hanging out sail canvases and stored in iron tanks or casks, and milk came from a nearby farm. Fishing of course continues on the Bay, but today only two fishing licences belong to descendants of these early pioneer settlers. The last remaining shack on the Bend was demolished in 1970, to make way for Webb Dock. The new Surf Life Saving Club headquarters stand on the site (Meiers 2006).
The suburb of Fishermans Bend also has a significant place in Australian aviation history, being the home of several prominent historical Australian aircraft design and manufacturing companies including the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation, Government Aircraft Factories, the Aeronautical Research Laboratory and regional facilities for Boeing.
Fishermans Bend is a primarily industrial centre at the footof the Westgate Bridge which is the headquarters for Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Holden Australia, Hawker de Havilland, GKN Aerospace Engineering Services, the Cooperative Research Centre for Advanced Composite Structures, Kraft Foods Toyota Australia, port security and a campus of RMIT University.
It also has a marina known as Pier 35 and several container ship ports. Fisherman's Bend has a single large reserve known as Westgate Park, a large natural wetlands.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Australian Bureau of Statistics
- ^ Port Melbourne Accessed 27 November 2006.
- ^ Legoland
- Allan Meiers. 2006. Fisher Folk of Fishermans Bend. Port Melbourne: Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society.
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- ((note|legoland)) The Age newspaper, 8/1/2003
[edit] External links
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- Street map from Street Directory, MSN Maps and Multimap.
- Satellite image from Google Maps, WikiMapia and Terraserver.
- The Australian National Aviation Museum
- Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society
- Melbourne Port Phillip Council
| Suburbs of the City of Melbourne | |
|---|---|
|
Carlton | Carlton North | Docklands | East Melbourne | Flemington | Kensington | Melbourne CBD | North Melbourne | Port Melbourne | Parkville | Southbank | West Melbourne |
| Suburbs of the City of Port Phillip | |
|---|---|
|
Albert Park | Elwood | Middle Park | Port Melbourne | St Kilda | St Kilda East | Southbank | South Melbourne |
