Halfway down the north face of Melbourne’s Flinders Street station there is a doorway. It’s an elegant, imposing structure – two curved stone arches set inside one another. This is not a doorway that is trying to be invisible and yet for decades it has been hiding in plain sight, rarely opened and never to the public; the casual passer-by would likely only see it in its guise as one of the many alcoves in the CBD frequented by pigeons, black-clad teens, or those fallen on hard times.
Every city has its near-mythological spaces. One of Melbourne’s most persistent lies beyond that doorway. Above this pulsing heart of the city, above the bustling subways and platforms and seemingly never-empty thoroughfare, a whole wing of Flinders Street station has lain disused for decades. Storage spaces collecting dust bunnies and damp. Meeting rooms that remain silent. Chains from old punching bags still hanging from the beams of an empty gymnasium where scores from long-forgotten boxing matches mark the walls. And finally, at the end of the hall, a huge and dilapidated ballroom – its parquetry floor coming away in chunks, paint peeling from the walls.
