The carpark at Oxley’s on the Brisbane river: it was a different time and our brains were young

‘You don’t know until it’s gone – but there is a legitimacy to sitting inside a car park attendant’s booth.’ Illustration: Guardian Design

I never ate at Oxley’s on the River; the restaurant that hung weightless over the Brisbane River on a web of poles like it was floating. But if you ate there in the 2000s and used a serviette to mop up a little lobster or a dab of wine, there’s a good bet our hands were (almost) touching.

Oxley’s opened in Milton around Expo ’88, under the similar name of Oxley’s Wharf. I don’t know when the whole car park arrangement started, but by the 2000s, Oxley’s on the River remained a glassy structure in still-sorta-industrial-looking Milton, hovering on the water and glowing at night.