Forgarty St panels

The panels bearing the name “True North” were launched on Fogarty St, North Melbourne, on the afternoon of October 13 on a wall enclosing the Citywide Asphalt Group premises.

Since March 2022 the heritage timeline artwork on the panels have been displayed nearby in Laurens St. They were commissioned by Metro Rail as part of its Creative Program to put art on hoardings to keep the city vibrant during the construction phrase.

The new station could not be named after the suburb it serves because the station which opened in October 1859 and located in West Melbourne has always been known as North Melbourne. As it wasn’t considered feasible for the name to be changed it was named after the street that runs west from North Melbourne and past the well-known football ground that also carries the name of Arden St. 

“True North” is a nod to Arden Station’s true location in North Melbourne. 

Lorraine Siska, Mary Kehoe and Peter Gerrand, members of the Hotham History Project and the North & West Melbourne Association, did a vast amount of research that was put together to form this collection of 10 panels that were curated by Christine Eid of the Communications and Stakeholder Engagement Group of the Melbourne Metro’s Cross Yarra Partnership. This group paid for the panels to be cleaned and moved to their present site.

The new location, close to the North Melbourne football ground, gives great public accessibility. The current plan is for the panels to remain there for years.

Fogarty St was originally one of the boundaries of the Blue Lake that was so integral to the area during the early period of settlement.  

Short talks were given by North and West Melbourne Association president Simon Mitchell Wong, the Hotham History Project’s Lorraine Siska, and the Royal Historical Society of Victoria’s Margaret Anderson. •