St. Kilda

St. Kilda is a beautiful and bohemian neighborhood south of downtown that sits on the bay. It was where the great Melbourne entrepreneurs built mansions at the end of the 19th century, and by the turn of the century new tram lines brought middle class sea bathers, dance halls, theaters, an amusement park and revelling pleasure seekers. The Depression and World War II brought hard times to the neighborhood, the pleasure turned illicit and the area was quite seedy until its regentrification began about 25 years ago. It is the story of many neighborhoods.

It was gorgeous last Sunday, so we drove down there and walked along the esplanade where there is a craft market on Sundays. We mostly played on the beach. Jake and Lucy are crazy for the beach. Jake found two boys from New York, and they built an elaborate Romanesque fortress that channelled the surf

until Lucy came along like godzilla, sat on their architectural triumph in her enormous soggy diaper and flung handfuls of wet sandy ruins into the air.

It is the story of many civilizations, played out in about an hour.

The seaside amusement park in St. Kilda is very reminiscent of Coney Island, and for good reason. Twenty of the men who helped design Coney Island were imported to help build Luna Park (named for one of Coney Island's main venues). Like its inspiration and namesake, Luna Park was a turn-of-the-century marvel, its rides and side shows evoked exotic lands across the sea, famous discoveries and disasters, such as the San Francisco earthquake, and human curiosities. It was a place of illusion and spectacle and like the original Luna Park, it glittered with the novelty of thousands of electric lights. Its wooden rollercoaster, the Scenic Railway, which began operating when the park opened in 1912, is the only rollercoaster from that period which has been in continuous operation. The postcard below was printed by the Rose Stereograph Company.

On the drive home Matt wondered who St. Kilda was. Jake suggested she might be the saint who watches over drunkards. We thought that was an odd response, until Jake told us that Tin Tin had thought such a saint was the only explanation for Captain Haddock's continued well-being. On further inquiry Matt discovered there was no St. Kilda. The neighborhood was named for a yacht named the Lady of St. Kilda that had been moored for some time in the harbor. The ship's name came from a group of Scottish islands, which in turn got their name from an old norse word for shield: skilda. From a misread map notation Saint Kilda was born. Incidently, in a cruel historical twist, just as Melbourne's St. Kilda was enjoying its heyday, Scottish St. Kilda was experiencing a tragic decline. Inhabited since prehistoric times, at the end of the 19th century 80% of the islands' children began dying in infancy from tetnus, which they got from poor midwifery practices. By 1930 there were only 36 inhabitants of St. Kilda left and they were voluntarily evacuated to the Scottish mainland. The islands have had no permanent population since.