AAA<\/p>\n
I\u2019m driving one weekend through my suburb with my son Hamish. We stop at the traffic lights by the train line, and consider the local shops, clocking three massage parlours, a vape shop, a bottle-o, and a closed double-fronted place that sold \u201cmobility\u201d vehicles, but which has since relocated to the rural town of Maryborough.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything you need\u201d, says Hamish drily, before reminding me that at the 2021 census, the population of this suburb, Tottenham, was 0.<\/p>\n
The absence of a residential population explains why I\u2019m stepping in to write this article \u2013 in this series they are usually written by someone who lives in the suburb. It\u2019s also one of many things I find interesting about Tottenham, not least because I suspect the zero-population story is not entirely true.<\/p>\n
There are two other Melbourne suburbs with no population; Essendon Fields and Calder Park. Of these, only Tottenham gets its name from England \u2013 specifically the working-class suburb north of London, home of the Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Our Tottenham was named when the Tottenham railway station was built in 1891.<\/p>\n
The idea of a Melbourne suburb without a resident population is intriguing, especially when, as with Tottenham, that suburb is a mere 8 kilometres west of the CBD. I don\u2019t own one of the factories, drive a forklift at one of the shipping container facilities, nor am I running a religious congregation in one of the warehouses. But I do have a connection. Having lived in nearby in Footscray<\/a> for many years, I\u2019ve driven every street in this gritty landscape.<\/p>\n For instance, on the morning described I\u2019m driving with Hamish to Sunshine<\/a>. He\u2019s on his way to umpire at JR Parsons Reserve, a ground that is pure western suburbs with concrete silos that loom over the field and remind us of the area\u2019s industrial identity. But for the most part, I don\u2019t run or walk the dogs in Tottenham. The landscape of fenced-off probably toxic sites, stacked shipping containers and train lines hasn\u2019t always felt inviting.<\/p>\n Walking is how my elder son (not the umpiring kind) discovered Tottenham. Braving its thistle-covered fields, exploring its abandoned heritage factories, he got to the heart of the place.<\/p>\n On adventures during COVID lockdown, he explored the former carpet factory on Paramount Road, a location that provided work for second world war migrants, and which in the mid-20th century became host to industries formerly located along the Maribyrnong<\/a> River. Returning home with a 1970s porno mag and other treasures, he talked excitedly over dinner about Olympic\/Olex Cables and the wool stores further west and south.<\/p>\n My rebel son\u2019s explorations of Tottenham highlight that the suburb is, and has always been, a place of work, but there\u2019s more to it.<\/p>\n Take Kylie, who\u2019s worked in Tottenham for 35 years. The office where she sits each day is at Lot 102, or Allied Containers. To get there, you head down Sunshine Road past the shops and the function centre, Happy Receptions (now closed), then turn left into Olympia Street. The day I do so, I see one other pedestrian \u2013 who doesn\u2019t seem to be in a good way \u2013 and many trucks.<\/p>\n Related Article Melbourne residents with no idea how to place where I am from this description, might remember seeing the black smoke from an industrial fire that occurred in August 2018 when a warehouse illegally laden with toxic chemicals went up in flames<\/a>. The fire took 140 firefighters and more than a week to control. Within hours, dead creatures \u2013 eels, fish and birds \u2013 began turning up in Stony Creek, the waterway which runs like a damaged vein through the centre of Tottenham. Many of the reports about the fire described it as being in West Footscray<\/a> \u2013 a reflection perhaps of Tottenham\u2019s tendency to be off the radar.<\/p>\n I walk to Stony Creek; it feels like visiting a wounded but courageous friend. The presence of trees, weeds and grasses is a testament to the creek\u2019s resilience given the damage wreaked by the noxious industries long-associated with Melbourne\u2019s inner-west.<\/p>\n Having grown up in Altona<\/a>, Kylie remembers when the funny-looking building on Somerville Road, that became a Cash Converters, was previously the closest McDonald\u2019s. She met her husband working in Tottenham; one of her aunts worked, for 21 years, at Huntsman Chemicals on Somerville Road. Tottenham may not have residents in the conventional sense, but Kylie, who\u2019s spent time there every day for decades is as familiar with the locale as most of us are with our gardens, streets and cafes.<\/p>\n As is Dave, who a few years ago bought a concrete box of a warehouse and set up a recording studio in Tottenham. The place is a wonder. Dave\u2019s put together all the rooms and equipment himself; the non-parallel walls of the studio that make for a better sound, the makeshift \u201clounge room\u201d under high ceilings where musicians relax during breaks between sessions.<\/p>\n Related Article Dave told me how one night, working late at the studio, he fell asleep. Waking to the sound of someone playing a saxophone he crept downstairs. He saw a man emerge from the hole in the cut wire fence that abuts the weed-covered train line, in front of the studio and across the car park that forms the centre of the landscape between Dave\u2019s studio and the other concrete warehouses; these serve as everything from plumbing premises to \u201cman sheds\u201d for storing motorbikes and boats. The man was playing the sax, badly apparently, but was not otherwise harmful.<\/p>\n I asked Dave if he ever got the heebie-jeebies, being in such a lonely place at night, and if he sometimes wants more \u201cnice stuff\u201d around. \u201cNo\u201d, he says. \u201cI like chaos. I\u2019m comfortable in my own company. This place suits me.\u201d<\/p>\n Residents of Melbourne\u2019s west are used to the dismissive comments from other parts of the city, such as \u201cthe only way to see the western suburbs is by flying over them, preferably at night\u201d. Driving through Tottenham, as most of us typically do, can be a bit like flying over \u2013 it\u2019s tempting to be condescending.<\/p>\n Related Article But I think of Tottenham as like the backyard kitchen in which my Greek neighbour cooked so she wouldn\u2019t sully the inside, \u201cproper\u201d kitchen, which was kept for visitors. The engine room of Melbourne, it\u2019s the place where people who live in our city\u2019s richer, more traditionally beautiful suburbs locate the industries which generate the wealth that means they can stay away from Tottenham.<\/p>\n Having come to love the western suburbs precisely because of the industrial life that make them what they are, this suits me, as I imagine it does Kylie and Dave.<\/p>\n Associate professor Ceridwen Spark conducts research on urban and social change at RMIT University.<\/p>\n The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. 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Associate professor