Grandma said my suburb was for ‘poor people’. Now it’s one of Melbourne’s most expensive

For his 70th birthday, we took Dad to virtual reality. While my brother shot zombies in a graveyard, Dad and I played Google Earth. Headsets on, side by side, we explored the pyramids of Giza, the Grand Canyon, the Antarctic. Or so I thought.

Just as I was enjoying the view from the top of Table Mountain, Dad shouted out: “I can see our back fence!” Presented with the wonders of Earth, he had travelled to the corner of Wright and Richardson streets, Middle Park. Even in the virtual realm, he has never wanted to leave.

And why would he? Sandwiched between Albert Park Lake and the beach, bordered by Mills Street to the north and Fraser Street to the south, Middle Park’s 4000 residents know they are on to a good thing.

Stroll down the street for a swim in the bay; hop on the 96 or 12 tram and you’ll be in the city in two clicks, or St Kilda for dinner then home for an early night, safe in the knowledge that the suburb’s “colourful characters” don’t tend to drift too far over your side of Fitzroy Street.

Middle Park – often confused with Mill Park in Melbourne’s north-east thanks to our habit of dropping internal consonants – was once a wetland and lies on the lands of the Yalukit-willam clan of the Boon Wurrung, a fact that was never mentioned during my childhood. Mum and Dad bought their house in 1974.

Back then, it was not fashionable. Grandma couldn’t understand why my parents wouldn’t buy somewhere nice, like Glen Waverley. Middle Park was “for poor people”, she said. Well, sorry Grandma; in 2024, it’s Melbourne’s third most expensive suburb, where a square metre of land typically sets you back $12,916.

It was an idyllic place to grow up. My young life moved up and down wide, leafy Richardson Street, from the Maternal Child Health Centre to Civic Kindergarten then on to Middle Park Primary School, where teachers smoked behind the not-very-discreet hedge during breaks.

For every Brown, McKendrick and Young in my class was a Papadopoulos, Samaras or Antoniou – descendants of the suburb’s many Greek migrants. In the 2021 census, 9.2 per cent of residents reported Greek ancestry, and olive trees litter Middle Park’s nature strips.

After school, we played roller hockey on Canterbury Place, made notes for our Cat Club (“Erskine Street – tortoiseshell male, white socks, shy. Abused?”) or threw rocks at the spitfires in the park opposite the school, named the Frank and Mary Crean Reserve.

The Crean family has a long association with Middle Park; Frank was federal treasurer in the 1970s. In more recent years, I would spot Simon Crean, minister in four federal Labor governments, pacing along Beaconsfield Parade on the phone, attending to matters of state in his exercise gear.

Simon Crean at Middle Park beach in 2001.Credit: Simon Schluter

Armstrong Street village is the suburb’s heart. Middle Park Hotel, the subject of recent redevelopment controversy, was built there in 1889 and many other shops not long after. Then, as now, they’re the place to bump into your neighbours – an IGA and a Gum Tree grocer, multiple cafes and a few long-running businesses, like Aris Shoe Repairs and Victor’s Dry Cleaners.

In a suburb where appearances matter, it’s no coincidence that these two have stood the test of time. Pop in to see Victor; he’ll take your shirts in for cleaning and give you the key to the Carmelite Middle Park Tennis Club while you’re at it.

Rising house prices change things and at some point, Middle Park got a glow-up. Armstrong Street no longer has a smoke-filled TAB full of punters, but there is Pet Pantry & Co, where a kilo of “human grade” roo tendons will cost you $300. The newsagency’s gone, but there’s more than one place to get an ice bath. Ski boots causing blisters? A few blocks down Canterbury Road, you’ll find Ortho Ski where ski podiatrists will ensure your feet are comfy for the snow season.

Perhaps I should have seen this process beginning when, in the late ’90s, I went trick-or-treating along Richardson Street: a door swung open and there stood movie star Guy Pearce, who politely handed us some Ferrero Rochers and sent us on our way.

I don’t live there any more. I’m not far away – St Kilda – but when I had my first baby and was zoned to a Middle Park parents’ group, I made some calls and headed to Carlisle Street instead. I can’t relax until I’m back on my side of Fitzroy Street, where my baby’s op-shop clothes and banana-smeared pram are unremarkable. When I park my battered old Corolla in front of my childhood home, Mum swipes at the cobwebs on its mirrors when she thinks I’m not looking.

It’s no longer home, but Middle Park will always hold a special place in my heart. It’s the tang of pink peppercorns crushed underfoot in the primary school quadrangle, the metallic screech of the one-one-two rounding the Danks Street corner.

And it’s the adventure playground – the wooden fort, the castle – built by the Middle Park community in Albert Park in 1993 and loved by each new generation of kids, my own now included.

As I watch my son climb its turrets, I remember helping as an eight-year-old, sanding wood and soaping screws as the grown-ups drilled and sawed, feeling proud to be part of something big, something important. Something that was going to last.

Isabel Robinson is a Melbourne writer and community development worker.

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