Preceded by the overnight removal of houses this photograph from Underhill Avenue shows the bulldozers and graders busy shaping the site for the new Westfield Shoppingtown (Courtesy Dawn Dorman)
This July marks the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Indooroopilly Shopping Centre and to mark the event the Indooroopilly & District Historical Society are looking to gather photographic images and memories of its early days.
If you would like to contribute to this project please contact us on IndooroopillyDHS@gmail.com
The following is an excerpt from the opening brochure:
Another World of Shopping Comfort
Truly, another world altogether – The ultimate in under-one–roof shopping. Indooroopilly Shoppingtown contains a superb balance of ‘comparison and convenience’ shopping. Major Department stores; the largest combined food and variety stores in Queensland, over 70 magnificent stores imaginatively combined in one excitingly different, air conditioned complex. The final word in modern shopping comfort … Another world … Altogether.
Shop now in another world; a gay world; a fun world … where shopping ceases to be a struggle, and becomes an entirely new experience … it’s happiness, being pampered, being cool, getting real shopping satisfaction ! Here, the best there is to be had is gathered together to tempt and delight you. Great stores that are already your friends ! A multitude of gay boutiques. A Roman fountain three stories high with colorfully floodlit falls and cascades ! A fountain as only the Romans could have made it … a liquid art form to fascinate the young and, delight the old
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The first I knew that ‘Something Big was Happening’ at Indooroopilly was during a chat over the side fence with my neighbour. She told me that ‘all the houses on the other side of the street, Musgrave Road, were to be removed so that shops could be built there. I didn’t believe her. Where would anyone get such a peculiar idea? We already had shops at Indooroopilly, some in Station Road and some along Moggill Road. I tried to imagine shops lining the opposite footpath with awnings across the footpath to the gutter – a whole line of them from Moggill Road to Belgrave Road. We had no idea that the proposed ‘shops’ might be enclosed inside a large building.
Over the next year, we were frequently disturbed during the night as houses on wheels were transported down Musgrave and Station Roads. It was sight worth waking up for, flashing lights, police cars, poles lifting overhead wires and an enormous house, or maybe half a house, floating down the middle of the road and disappearing up or down Moggill Road to who knows where.
(Margaret M, June 2020)
The engineer who was supervising the building of the shopping centre knew my dad and he asked him if he could find a use for the temporary site fencing after the construction work was completed. Dad said yes and that material became our yard fence which has served us well for fifty years.
(Phill C, June 2020)