Tag Archives: The Planet Nightclub

These Walls

What’s left of the once mammoth Le Cornu Furniture building, Keswick, Adelaide, October 2019.

There’s been a lot of demolition since we moved into our neighbourhood two and a half years ago. Mid-century houses are being levelled and replaced with two, sometimes three, townhouses at breakneck speed. Some, but not all, were quite worse for wear. I know it probably makes sense in those cases for their demolition. But as Bob and I often discuss when we go for a walk with Lucy: will these mid-century houses come to be seen as something to preserve in the same way that we covet houses from the early part of last century?

We were probably part of the problem, having been 1920s wannabe home owners from the time we rented an early ’20s bungalow a few years ago. Alas, a long-lost great uncle with a hefty inheritance didn’t materialise, and we went mid-century. I’m glad we did – a ’50s house for my ’50s-’60s vases.

The houses being demolished are mid-century Australian, rather than the ones you’d see in, say, Palm Springs or immortalised in mid-century American movies like the time capsule Bachelor in Paradise starring Bob Hope and Lana Turner.  I’m glad that many of the neighbourhood’s houses that would have been built by immigrants – largely Italian and Greek – in the ‘60s have so far remained. These houses are very distinctive and look like what my grandparents and relatives live or lived in. They are the houses of my childhood.

I’ve never had precise spatial awareness. However, it is really put to the test once the roof comes off one of these houses, gardens are cleared, and fences torn down. I cannot reconcile how what looks like such a small space sheltered, fed, and slept families within four often-painted and papered walls that kept their secrets and made memories. How quickly a well-used backyard or long-established garden can be turned into a dirt patch. Indeed, how quickly a whole block can be reclaimed (briefly) by vegetation! Then again, I guess these blocks aren’t that small, as they’re making their way to shelter, feed, and sleep two or three families. Still, it feels strangely disrespectful, even when I have no link to these houses nor am I clamouring to buy one. Perhaps it’s just garden envy. There was one house I used to walk past with a wonderful front garden made up largely of succulents. I wish I’d gotten my act together and taken some cuttings of their purple aeoniums before they were cleared with the rest of the garden.

Notwithstanding my spatial ability, one building and block of land that was definitely not small was Le Cornu Furniture, which traded from 1974 until 2016 on a huge lot in the Adelaide suburb of Keswick. My family bought a lot of furniture from there. Whose didn’t? For the past several weeks, demolition of the site has been in earnest after the building sat vacant for the past three years. I couldn’t believe how quickly it was being torn down, and so last week when I was driving past, I decided to drive around the block to where some building remained and to take a handful of photos. All that really remained was a small slither of the building (photo at the top of the page), the front of which is on the Maple Avenue side of the site. I then drove to the parallel street and took a picture through the fencing so that the inside of the building could be seen.

Didn’t there used to be more furniture in there?

I’m not sure why this part of the building was still standing, but without most of the cream Le Cornu (now Le C) cladding that modernised the building, I imagine that we are getting a glimpse for the first time in years of the original Chrysler manufacturing plant that pre-dated Le Cornu. As an aside, I’ve read that an old Chrysler sign that was above part of the building further down Maple Avenue has been saved, so I presume it was moved off-site before that part came down. A free-standing Le Cornu sign, akin to those old mid-century motel signs (without the neon) is supposedly being kept safely in storage, too.

I must be thinking a lot about buildings of late. Early last year, my friend Mark and I were heading back to my car after dinner out in the city one evening. I’d heard just a couple of weeks earlier that The Planet nightclub building, which was on the same street in which we’d parked, might be demolished after being left empty for the better part of a decade and a half. Since we were there by happenstance, I decided to walk a little way down the street and take some photos of this building where I’d spent a good part of my teens (shh!) and early twenties.

The Planet nightclub building in March 2018.

Across the street I stood, looking at the old girl, snapping some shots on my phone. We then ventured across the street and tried to peer through the windows. A security guard was just about to set an alarm for the evening. I guess whomever owns the building still wants it intact, even if disused. I told him why I was there – that I had been for so many years and wanted to take one more look. He nodded and told me it was fine to keep taking my photos. Then, as he looked at us curiously, recognition dawned on his face. “Oh yeah, The Planet. That place used to go off”, he said as he sauntered away.

Only the lights remain of The Planet nightclub sign. I hope it’s gone to a good home.

By the way, the building is still there almost two years after I took these shots. From what  I’ve read, it will be levelled at some point in the next couple of years along with the building on its right – once a seafood restaurant called Pescatore – and left – a building that housed, amongst other things, a baguette bar I’d stumble toward after a night at The Planet. But, after many rumours of its imminent demise over the years, for now at least, it’s nothing if not a survivor.

House, businesses, buildings. Perhaps furnished by a store that, itself, is being torn down. If those walls could talk, indeed. Regardless, the memories remain. Even if, after a baguette, they got a little fuzzy.

“The past is never where you think you left it” or: Katherine Anne Porter wears rose-coloured wayfarers

Sometimes the planets align. We were running late for dinner with expatriate friends who were in town for a few days. After 20 minutes of no luck finding street parking or a car park that didn’t close early, we ended up in a car park in Wyatt Street. This was no ordinary car park. Each level is named after a planet. Level 9 is still Pluto because, well, when you need parking (and there’s money to be made on office workers and people like us), the Kuiper belt and its dwarf planet is as good as anywhere. Each floor has a mural near the elevator proclaiming what planet/level it is. Or at least I presume this to be so. The lower levels are inhospitable to all but permit parkers. We were on Level 6: Saturn (My Very Energetic Mother Jumps Skateboards Under Nana’s Patio). Each elevator stop is accompanied by a voice proclaiming, “You are on [planet]”. Forget Majel Barrett, Star Trek, fans. This voice is decidedly more booming.

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We finally made it to dinner. There were the magical 7±2 (on account of some joining us slightly later) people at the table. We’ve all known each other since we were teenagers and it’s easy to fall back into the old groove even when friends have been away for a while. After dinner we all headed to one of the laneway bars that have taken over Adelaide in the last few months. One gin and tonic (in a wine glass, no less) was enough for me and Bob, and we left shortly after.

Walking back to the car, we inadvertently took a slightly different route to the one walked earlier in the night. As we chatted away, I didn’t realize what street we were on until I turned my head and was facing a familiar façade. When it was a nightclub, it was called Aquarium. Now, I don’t really recall ever going there when I was 18. It had a bit of a reputation for being a place where the bad kids congregated. There wasn’t Yelp or Trip Advisor in those days for me to verify this, you see. But the site of this old club made me realize what was coming next. Down the road, not too far, was The Planet. The nightclub that my friends and I spent at least one, maybe two, nights a week at when we were in first year university.

I tried to peer in through the frosted windows. The building has been vacant for as long as I can remember with promises of reopening as a club or converted office/apartment space. Who said you couldn’t go home again? I should have remembered that you could never see ‘in’. Instead, you had to line up, sometimes half-way down the street on promotions nights, and get to the door to see how busy it was.

Memories came back in waves: awful champagne (we still referred to it as such) from the long bar on the bottom level that led to the dance floor; the upstairs where we spent most of our time, chairs and barrel tables scattered around pool tables; and the third level, which housed the RnB music and felt like it was tacked on to the building and could fall off at any moment. The bathrooms had attendants with perfume/colognes and hand towels! The downstairs actually functioned as a restaurant before the tables were removed from the dance floor and, if you went in and waited, the bouncers wouldn’t ID (this was long before the very stringent checks that go on now). A blessing when you were 17.

Where did the Chupa Chup come from?
Where did the Chupa Chup come from?

The Planet has held somewhat of an increasing mythical status amongst my friends and I. We recall it fondly to those who never went there. I started to wonder, why? Of all the places that we went, why did this nightclub hold such a memory for me?

I suppose it represents, in a much heightened way, what it was to be young and at that time in my life. There were new experiences, new drinks (or just new drinking…not that any son or daughter from an Italian family didn’t have their first sip of vino at seven) and new friends. University only involved about 12 hours of on-campus contact a week and gave me plenty of time to read Gordon Allport’s Pattern and Growth in Personality between parties. There was, of course, the notion of no – or at least limited – responsibility at that age. But, what I think it represents the most is a time when anything seemed possible. You never knew where a night would end, just as I never knew what psychological theory would change the way I thought about everything.

The tendency to see the past with rose-coloured glasses is neither unique nor particularly surprising, at least psychologically speaking. Maybe I tend to do it more than others. Recently I returned to my high school and walked past my old first-year home room. I sighed and waited for the happy memories. Then I realized, wait a minute, for the most part I rather hated first year high school! Nostalgia has always had a seductive hold on me, even if it wasn’t my own. I was most fascinated by the section in the video store that was labeled “Nostalgia”. Not just because they were classics (John Garfield in They Made Me a Criminal and Chaplin’s The Gold Rush for two), but because their covers harkened back to something that couldn’t quite be reached but would be oh so sweet if you could get there.

John Garfield, possibly on a Planet pool table getting a talking to from a bouncer. Photo: Movielegends
John Garfield, possibly on a Planet pool table getting a talking-to from a bouncer. Photo: Movielegends

I guess it’s the same with what the Planet represented. In those times it was a feat of strength to wake up after a late night and feel no hangover. More accurately, the hangover was there, but you could still get through Sunday family lunch and go out later that day/night. Plus, you’d go past the baguette bar down the road from the club before hopping in a taxi. But hangovers still didn’t feel good. What about the night where I ended up wearing cowboy shooters all over my new very expensive (even now I consider that jacket to have been way too expensive) jacket? The sickeningly sweet pre-mix drinks, as well as the bravado and arrogance of people jostling each other at the bar to get those drinks. And the things those bathroom attendants must have seen?! I remember Bette Midler shuddering on stage when she recalled the ‘70s. “Running makeup, running stockings,” and watching a group snort a shag rug after she accidentally overturned a tray of cocaine. The last may not be true, but it makes the point. There’s something exciting and liberating about not knowing your limits; but what about the self-doubt, the loneliness of adolescence and young adulthood? Again, completely not unique, but oh so acutely felt.

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The street had a lot of memories. There were other clubs there we went to that have made way for all sorts of things. Yes, there will be time for more reminiscing. However, at that moment, walking past that nightclub on the way back to Saturn, there wasn’t time. There was a nightcap of Tia Maria to drink at home and a BBQ to go to the next day.