“A big win for the community”: history signs find a new home

After years of not knowing whether North Melbourne's “beloved” history panels would live on, a new home has been found. 

In a joint effort between the North & West Melbourne Association (NWMA), the Hotham History Project and the Melbourne Metro Tunnel Project’s Cross Yarra Partnership, the panels have found a new home on Fogarty St where they will stay for coming years. 

The panels chart the evolution of North and West Melbourne, from the once pristine Blue Lake, home to the local Kulin people for millennia, into the gentrified city suburb it is today.

When created in 2022, they were originally located on Laurens St near the soon-to-be-open Arden Metro station, but the future of the panels was not secure, and they were only guaranteed to live on there until the end of that year.

NWMA chairman Simon Mitchell Wong said that this was of concern to the community due to so much effort going into the creation of the panels. 

“We wanted to ensure they had a longer useful lifetime,” he said.  

The NWMA chairman said that the creation and preservation of the panels would not have been possible without the creative team led by the Cross Yarra Partnership’s Christine Eid, the NWMA, and the Hotham History Project. 

Fellow North Melbourne resident and secretary of the NWMA Kevin Chamberlin is also pleased with the new home of the signs and said that given there was a lot of pedestrian movement through the area, the signs would bring some much-needed amenity.

Mr Chamberlin thanked City Wide Asphalt Group for their generous support by providing a new site where the signs can live on.

“They tell a great story and they're important pieces of history.  We hope they spend the rest of their years on this site,” he said. •