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IT looks like an ordinary old Newcastle arcade, sandwiched in between modern buildings along Hunter Street east.
But looks can be deceiving, for this L-shaped arcade is part of the hidden history of inner Newcastle.
Who would guess looking at it today that the City Arcade linking Hunter Street with Newcomen Street holds more than a few local secrets.
Its long, fascinating life story involves a now forgotten swimming baths and even a brief stint as an underground movie theatre (literally). But more on that later.
The saga of the present City Arcade site, located between Bolton and Newcomen streets, stretches back 120 years to 1888 and it’s really is a two-part story.
The first stage involved the construction of Newcastle’s first baths beneath the western entry to the present City Arcade.
The second phase of its life then came in the late 1930s with a massive site redevelopment, involving creating a new access to Hunter Street while constructing the present arcade.
And when it opened in February 1939, it was described as being Newcastle’s first shopping arcade. And so, in its own way, the site is a hidden treasure.
The public face of the arcade now is the familiar Barnett’s Tobacconist and gift shop on Hunter Street, next to the old Ell’s bookshop site (now being renovated into a new clothing store) and just three doors west from the towering CML building.
The present souvenir shop reveals little of its art deco past at a cursory viewing of the wares on sale.
The first clue to the arcade’s intriguing past here is a surprising reminder of the distinctive artwork, which emerged before World War II.
A clean-up of Hunter Street end of the arcade late last year revealed old art deco-style, glass-etched panels, which had been hidden away for decades.
The deceptively simple line drawings were uncovered when Barnett’s Tobacconist owners Merv and Cynthia Atkin were renovating.
"They would date back earlier than 1945 when Merv’s father, Bert, first bought the business here from tobacconist Sam Barnett," Cynthia Atkin said.
"Barnett originally had his shop across the road in Hunter Street but moved here soon after the arcade opened.
"Barnett then sold to Merv’s father but most of the tall glass murals may have been blocked since the early 1940s. The display area was also shared with other tenants of the arcade. "Older Newcastle residents knew about the etched glass and would chat about them when coming into the shop over the years.
"It’s odd, but some people still even call us Mr and Mrs Barnett.
"I think a lot of people recently haven’t realised the kind of long history involved with this arcade until we started upgrading which showed off more of the glass murals.
"We’re tried to preserve and show off the arcade’s heritage, but whether or not we have succeeded will be up to others to judge, I guess," she said.
Mrs Atkin said the glass murals opposite their shopfront on Hunter Street must have been installed when the arcade first opened.
It was likely they were a prime example of the city’s bid to be modern, optimistic and to show off the very latest trends, casting off the gloom of the 1930s Depression.
"The swimsuit on a diver etching here, for example, must have been considered very daring at the time," she said.
Merv Atkin said he came to the business in 1955 but remembered the simple art outlines on the long glass panels as a child.
"There’s an aeroplane possibly a Dakota in flight a long fish, waves, the swimmer and even the outline of a kangaroo," he said.
"The sketch outlines aren’t just one colour either, they’re embedded in various colours like blue, green and pink and gold.
"We always knew the mirrored artwork was there, but didn’t realise how well it would clean up," he said.
A second clue to the City Arcade’s past is a large painting, which appeared in recent years in an alcove outside the arcade’s Newcomen Street entrance.
The drawing depicts what seems to be a large pool in the foreground surrounded by white roof columns with solid roof trusses above.
A third clue to the arcade’s past has sadly disappeared in recent years. It was the signboard for a sandwich shop once located on the dog leg of the sloping arcade.
The cafe, since closed, was called The Deep End and thereby hangs a tale. A trapdoor in the arcade floor led to a subterranean world, hinted at both in the exterior painting and the cafe sign.
For here, beneath the arcade walkway leading to Newcomen Street, the Newcastle Corporation, or Municipal Baths once existed.
And what’s left of the 1888 baths, the long empty pool, still exists in situ there beneath the feet of passer-bys although these days it is studded with squat brick pillars.
It’s dark, dank, stuffy and more than a little claustrophobic down there. There’s no public access and no hint normally of what this unusually long space was used for. No hint, that is, until the occasional visitor, usually a tradesman, crouching and shuffling along comes across small strange sets of steps built into the once whitewashed sides of this unique basement.
The steps, however, lead up to nowhere as the floor of the arcade is laid above the stooping visitor’s head.
The story of the old, once controversial city baths began back in 1881 when Newcastle council received a Crown land grant in Newcomen Street from the colonial government for a water reserve.
A freshwater spring then fed the vacant, untidy place. Then after city water reservoirs came into use, the locals openly called it a ’plague spot’. The water percolating down from the hillside above was suspected of being contaminated, by running through part of the old Christ Church graveyard.
And so, the Newcastle Corporation Baths were built there instead and opened on February 14, 1888, at a cost of 4500 pounds.
As it was to be more than 30 years before our present Newcastle Ocean Baths were erected, the new municipal baths were very popular, attracting almost 6000 men and boys in its first week.
For it was a very elaborate venture for pre-1900s Newcastle. Fed by seawater pumped from the eastern end of Scott Street, the large swimming pool measured 27.5-metre long by 10.5-metre wide and could hold 370,000 litres of water.
The baths could be filled in six hours, but emptied in one, which was probably necessary more than once a week because dirty coal trimmers seemed to delight in not taking showers and just plunged in, leaving a coal scum around the pool edge.
The Corporation Baths was enclosed within a two-storey building and there were 50 closed and 50 open dressing cubicles and several showers.
Some 85 electric lamps supplied the lighting at a time when it wasn’t commonplace.
The building’s Newcomen Street frontage was also constructed in the ornately decorative "Corinthian style" and there was a covered entry.
Swimming carnivals and races were regularly held there, but ocean surfing and bathing became popular, which contributed to the falling patronage at the once lavish enterprise.
Part of the trouble was that women were initially excluded from using the baths. Eventually "ladies only" were admitted every Thursday from 6am to 4pm.
Newcastle council then sold its lease of the baths in February 1907 after advertising it as possibly being suitable for concert space or as a dance hall. It became neither.
Instead, on June 8, 1908, the old baths reopened as King’s Picturescope Palace, but was then renamed the Elite in 1909. Its silent movie licence was finally revoked in October 1917.
By 1918 the site had become a oyster and billiard saloon and part of the below floor space was later used as a printing works.
The facade was remodeled, but much of the interior was then gutted in 1938-39 to create the present arcade, which then linked Hunter Street with Newcomen Street to attract more through traffic.
In 1957 the arcade was handed back to Newcastle City Council and after being damaged in the 1989 earthquake, the site was sold to businessman Mike Constantine.
Then some 10 years ago, the then Deep End cafe owner Peter Welldon took H2 on an inspection of the silent, shadowy 19th century world beneath the arcade.
"It was originally supposed to be built in a T-shape, not L-shaped and link up with Scott as well as Hunter Street," he revealed at the time. "And part of my site had once been the YWCA Blue Triangle shop. It was said to be Newcastle’s first sandwich bar where they claimed to have made 2.2 million sandwiches in the 1940s.
"From their profits they bought the YWCA Hotel site at Mayfield. This arcade’s full of history," Welldon enthused.
* This article first appeared in the Newcastle Herald in 2008.