Last days of the Gatwick: Notorious ‘Hell Hotel’ which has seen murders, drug deaths and stabbings
THE part at Melbourne’s notorious Gatwick Hotel is going on until the last minute which the place of murders, drug deaths and stabbings finally closes.
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IT’S 10am on a Sunday morning at “hell hotel” and Australia’s most infamous rooming house is starting up another manic day.
Outside on the footpath in Melbourne’s St Kilda, a group of people is waiting to be let in through the doors which are currently locked from the inside.
The Gatwick Private Hotel is known as a place where you can be murdered in your room, robbed, bashed or offered a variety of drugs among the cockroaches, addicts and prison parolees.
But the notorious “house of horrors” is also regarded as home for Melbourne’s downtrodden, and the people on the street feel even less fortunate for not being among those with rooms inside.
A woman introduces herself as the “famous Aunty Coco of the Gatty” and claims the only reason she’s currently outside is that she has been barred “cos I got caught twice for stealing”.
Aunty Coco also claims she “tries to look after” the more vulnerable of the Gatwick’s residents “cos they’re always getting picked on or robbed”.
Since the 1950s the Gatwick has offered discount accommodation, with a room currently renting for around $230 a week.
But the “Gatty” is now in its last days, due to close late this month or later this year, depending on who you believe.
It was confirmed, then later denied, that a Nine Network company was buying the building for renovation in an upcoming season of the TV reality show, The Block.
It has been slated for closure before, but this time it is really happening and that has residents panicked and people like Aunty Coco questioning what people will do.
“Where’s everyone going to go when they shut the Gatty down? They’re already locking the doors and not letting visitors in after 9pm,” she complains.
A man opens the Gatwick’s front door and Aunty Coco and friends hurry in.
Across the foyer, the smell of marijuana is competing with the rising stink of the sticky red carpet.
A couple of residents are drinking from a wine cask in the doorway of a room.
The owners, sisters Yvette Kelly and Rose Banks, have been working at the Gatwick since their mid-teens.
They admitted in the 2015 SBS documentary The Saints of St Kilda that the Gatwick could be a nightmare when people skipped paying rent and spent their welfare payments on gambling or drugs.
But with its closure now a certainty, Ms Banks tells news.com.au the Gatwick’s image as a place of murders, suicides or overdoses has been wrongly portrayed by the media.
A resident wanders by and tells Ms Banks that he loves her.
Ms Banks says the Gatwick, with its grand sweeping staircase, high ceilings and historic architecture was purpose built 80 years ago as a modern and luxurious hotel.
But in the SBS documentary it describes the Gatwick as “Hotel Hell ... a festering flophouse and fleapit”.
Yvette Kelly said the Gatwick did provide accommodation for people recently released from prison, because they would otherwise be “on the street” and likely reoffend.
The sisters told SBS that most of the fights or trouble at the Gatwick were caused by outsiders.
In February 2014, a long-term resident was bashed and kicked to death in an upstairs corridor.
Police said his murder left the walls splattered in blood.
The same month, police shot dead in the street a man suspected of stabbing a woman at the Gatwick Hotel in a botched drug deal on May 1, 2011
Craig Douglas, 31, was shot after brandishing a kitchen knife at police on Grey Street, just around the corner from the Gatwick.
On the same night, Douglas had allegedly stabbed a woman in the back and face three times at the Gatwick.
Douglas and three companions had checked into the Gatwick, but had a disagreement with a long term Gatwick resident, a woman with hearing and speech problems, and she was stabbed.
In 2006, 34-year-old Arthur Karatasiosis was repeatedly stabbed in the foyer of the hotel by Michael Paul Smith, also 34, who was guilty of defensive homicide.
A year earlier, a Russian-born man Simon Gurfinkel, 57, was found dead in his room with 12 fractured ribs, a crushed larynx and a lacerated ear.
A night manager had found him unconscious in the corridor and, believing he was drunk, had put him to bed.
The man charged with beating Gurfinkel to death was found not guilty in 2009.
The Herald Sun reported that death by drug overdose was more common and that a detective had reportedly investigated four overdoses at the Gatwick in 2014 and 2015.
It reported that prostitutes serviced clients on the premises which had clothes, rubbish and syringes in one bathroom, sagging ceilings, peeling walls and dirty toilets.
Yahoo 7 reported between April 2012 and 2013, 74 crimes were committed at the Gatwick, including kidnapping, assault and aggravated burglary.
Rose Banks refused to confirm if the Gatwick had been sold to Channel Nine.
“Ask The Block people,” she said, but confirmed it had been sold and would close by the year’s end.
While it’s fair to say reviews on TripAdvisor aren’t glowing, others show clear affection for the hotel as a haven for people low on funds.
Two TripAdvisor reviews described it as “a hotbed of violence and drugs” and suggested “you would be better off sleeping on a tram”.
But on Facebook, others were more complimentary.
Cory Melbourne wrote: “Good crowd ... I love the joint. gets a bit rowdy inside on hot days due to no aircon ... and they always put on a good feed around 8ish out the front in a van.
“Highly recommend for backpackers! Plus no shortage of goon bags getting thrown around the joint if that's your thing! Make sure you wear thongs in the bathrooms also!”
Darren Paul Boag wrote: “Not bad for the money per week ... 5 mins from the beach, 15 mins from the CBD.
“All night parties, rock and roll to heavy metal head banging stuff, no night the same.
“What an experience to tell the backpackers about, it beats being cold in a car they say!”
Originally published as Last days of the Gatwick: Notorious ‘Hell Hotel’ which has seen murders, drug deaths and stabbings
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