Trip down memory lane as Rundle Mall hits the big 4-0
FORTY years ago, with thousands converging around its fountain, Don Dunstan opened Rundle Mall. We look back at the retail centre’s colourful history.
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POP sensation Boy George created mayhem when he descended on Rundle Mall and played for the people of Adelaide.
There were 25,000 jostling for position in 1984, the same year his band Culture Club won a Brit Award for Best British Group and Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
But for Mark Raphael, who once ran the iconic The Muses music store in Rundle Mall, his craziest music super star moment was when Shania Twain performed in the late ‘90s on the bridge linking Hotel Richmond and the Renaissance building.
“The mall was blocked for hours due to safety worries,” he says.
The bridge is long gone, but Raphael can still list numerous artists that left their mark in the mall from Rat Cat to Jimmy Barnes, Faith No More, Slim Dusty, Silverchair, Powderfinger and You Am I.
For Rundle Mall’s own general manager Amanda Grocock it was The Superjesus performance in 1998 that rates as a favourite memory.
“It was fantastic, I remember it being beautiful weather and a big group of people, it was that thing, that experience that’s live music,” she says.
She and Raphael say all South Australians have a treasure trove of mall memories.
There are memories of meeting mates at the Mall’s Balls, leaning against the G.W. Cox jewellers’ window to people watch, and of the banter between fruit stand and coffee shop owners.
“Everyone knew everyone and world problems would be argued and resolved during a 10-minute discussion as traders were on their way somewhere,” Raphael says.
Both Raphael and Grocock, whose first job was at McDonalds in the Myer food court, remember when the larger interstate traders began to nudge the smaller independents out in the 1980s.
There have been overhauls and facelifts, John Haysman strutting his stuff in a Lycra leotard, the shiny new Myer Centre and its infamous Dazzeland opening — and the ever changing trading hours.
Shoe retailer Brenton Whittenbury, whose sixth generation family is now the mall’s longest serving trader — can remember when Saturday trading was 8am until 11am so staff could play sport or spend the weekend with family and friends.
“I remember participating, with thousands of others, in protest marches down Rundle Mall to Parliament House when Sunday Trading was being considered,” the Barlows and Grundy’s store owner says.
“We weren’t the regular rent a crowd protesters but people who worked in the Mall and wanted to save our weekends.”
They failed to halt the rollercoaster of trading hour change and now there’s Saturday afternoon and Sunday trading along with public holidays.
Interestingly, Grocock thinks the tide of big retailers has turned and in the past decade there’s been a shift back to those older days with the smaller independents claiming a stronger thread in its rich retail fabric.
South Australian icon Haigh’s Chocolates lives in the original 1849 Beehive corner building once owned by the mall’s namesake John Rundle, and right across the way is another independent, Charlesworth Nuts.
There are pop-up shops appearing and small bar Lindes Lane opening just off the mall while florist Louise Woodhouse has found a home in Adelaide Arcade.
“That’s where we’re going now, the national chains are still doing well because they have the scale … but the little guys, the independent book stores you go out of your way to visit or the cafes that put the right flower on the top of your coffee, that’s what people want to experience now,” Grocock says.
There’s also a move toward new technology to keep the mall ahead of the game with plans for smart technology to lead shoppers to stores or find transport options easily.
Back in the day Rundle St then Mall was always a national leader. When the Adelaide Arcade opened in 1885 it was the first retail establishment in Australia to have electric lights.
These days, the arcade can still offer an out-of-this-world personal shopping experience.
Paranormal researcher and recent City Library historian-in-residence Allen Tiller confirms there’s numerous reports of at least one ghost, resident caretaker Francis Cluney, frequenting its halls.
“Francis Cluney died in 1877 in what is now the Manhattan Dry Cleaners, he fell into the lights’ electrical generator but there was a story I found saying he was possibly pushed,” Mr Tiller says.
“The owners of the store have been there since the ‘70s and they have always felt things going on, they go in each morning and say ‘hello Francis’.”
40 years of Rundle Mall
1976: Rundle Mall — formerly part of Rundle Street — opens on September 1 with 10,000 people celebrating the new era in city retail. The fountain, given to city council in 1908, is moved to Rundle Mall by Gawler Place.
1977: The Spheres , or the “Mall’s Balls”, the stainless steel sculpture created by Bert Flugelman, installed on October 5.
The bronze sculpture of girl on a slide created by John Dowie is gifted to the city by the John Martin’s board. Royal visit of Queen Elizabeth II & The Duke of Edinburgh who “meet the people” and walk through Mall.
1980: Adelaide Arcade caught fire on August 3 and Gays Arcade (where fire started) destroyed.
1983: The Golden Pageant — 50 years of Christmas Pageant.
1984: Boy George and Culture Club visit Rundle Mall on July 5.
1985: David Jones took over John Martin’s.
LATE 1980s: Myer store demolished and replaced by the REMM Myer centre in 1991.
1991: Dazzeland opened at the top of the Myer Centre.
1993: Christmas Pageant celebrated diamond anniversary 60 years.
1994: Sunday trading started.
MID 1990s:
Rundle Mall given makeover, installation of new paving, lights, seating and trees.
1995: Fountain moved to outside Adelaide Arcade.
1998: Dazzeland in Myer Centre removed. Last John Martin’s store (Rundle Mall flagship store in Adelaide city centre) closed.
Shania Twain promoted new album Come On Over to several thousand people in Mall and The Superjesus band appeared at The Muses.
1999: Set of bronze sculptured pigs by Marguerite Derricourt “A Day Out” added.
Tony Bennett made public appearance in Myer centre.
2000: David Jones moves into the new Adelaide Central Plaza
2000: Rundle Mall escalators and Richmond overpass removed
2001: City Cross Arcade bought by Makris Goup.
2004: Cinema in Regent Arcade closed.
2006: Electric light project, Rundle Lantern using 748 panels of LED lighting which glow and change colour at night began at Hungry Jacks corner. Cinemas in Regent Arcade removed.
2010: Trading hours extended.
2011: The Muses store which opened in 1968 closed after 43 years in the Mall.
2012: Darrell Lea closed its Rundle Mall store.
2013: Rundle Mall Redevelopment starts and Rundle Place opens on March 26.
Apple’s first store in Adelaide opens.
David Jones celebrates 175 years.
2015: Rundle Mall Redevelopment completed.
Historical stroll shows a lot of sole
FROM Nick Xenophon’s odd shoes to a pre-GST buying frenzy and champagne flowing in the fountain, six generations of shoe-selling Whittenburys have seen it all in Rundle Mall’s 40 years.
Patriarch Brenton Whittenbury has sold footwear through two full re-pavings and refits, and witnessed pop star Boy George drawing “the biggest crowd ever” when his band appeared on the old pedestrian bridge in 1984.
He recalls politician Nick Xenophon arriving in store with odd shoes on his feet and champagne flowing in the renowned 1800s fountain when the shopping mall officially opened on September 1, 1976.
“And that Friday night before the GST came in was just huge,” says Brenton, whose family stores have included Daintywalk shoes, Judd’s and Grundy’s.
Brenton’s daughter Sarah oversees the family’s Barlows shoe store just off the main shopping strip. He believes the Whittenbury family can claim the mantel – after Wendt’s jewellery and Balfours closed – “as the longest serving traders in the mall”.
For the mall retailers, it’s the memory of champagne in the fountain that will lead a month of 40th birthday celebrations during September – a champagne tower and a bubbly breakfast will kick off proceedings near the infamous Mall’s Balls.
Rundle Mall Management Authority general manager Amanda Grocock said the tower was “a nod to that moment”. “And we’re creating a room adjacent to the iconic spheres for the breakfast – it will have a ruby colour theme that is another nod to the ruby anniversary,” she said.
The ruby red colour theme is running throughout the mall’s spring season and later in the month three gardens will be created in the Mall.
Stephens Place will have a topiary garden with a fashion theme, Gawler Place a bar with a Spring racing theme and Charles St, a Zen garden with a health and beauty leaning.
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