Vandals suspected of throwing switch at troubled Nylex sign
MELBOURNE’S famed but trouble-plagued Nylex sign has mysteriously clocked on for the first time in six years.
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MELBOURNE’S famed but trouble-plagued Nylex sign has mysteriously clocked on for the first time in six years.
No one knows who flicked the switch.
But mischievous vandals are believed to be responsible for turning the heritage-listed clock’s lights back on on Wednesday morning.
The Herald Sun retraced their steps on Thursday, climbing up the dusty 12-level silo at the Richmond malting plant to the sign, which rises over the Monash Freeway.
NYLEX CLOCK IN RICHMOND CLICKS BACK TO LIFE
Just below the clock is an old defaced sign: “Unauthorised persons prohibited from trespassing on steelwork by order of Neon Electric Signs.”
Several switches appear to have been tampered with, lighting up most of the clock — though the time was not accurate.
Police have been called after several reports of people “loitering suspiciously” around the site, most recently on Australia Day.
Developer Caydon bought the site for $38 million last year.
Owner Joe Russo is in the dark about how the clock returned to life. He believes trespassers are responsible.
So does Visual Exposure managing director Mick Harrold, who was the last person to fix the clock in 2009, before it was switched off when Nylex went into receivership.
He showed the Herald Sun several broken windows at the bottom of the silos, where people could have broken in.
Inside the silo, crude graffiti and rubbish litters a narrow metal staircase leading up to the digital clock.
A fuse box beneath the Nylex sign has been forced open. Dust around another set of switches, connected via a yellow power cable to the clock, has been disturbed.
Mr Harrold says entering the silo is risky. There is asbestos inside, and the structure has not been maintained.
“It could be very dangerous up there.”
But he says it is about time this “big part of our history” — which was immortalised in Paul Kelly’s song Leaps and Bounds — was ticking once again.
Victoria Police spokesman Belle Nolan says police attended on Australia Day, when “people were seen climbing the clock structure and spraying graffiti”, but officers found nothing.
The site is operated by Barrett Burston Malting, but Caydon expects to take ownership by year’s end.
Mr Russo says the clock “will be retained” in a planned $600 million development.
The planned development will include an apartment complex and, in a nod to the site’s history, a microbrewery.