St Kilda is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 6 km south from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Port Phillip. At the 2006 Census, St Kilda had a population of 16,122.
During the Edwardian and Victorian eras, it was favoured by Melbourne's elite, and many palatial mansions were constructed. Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, St Kilda served a similar function for Melburnians as did Coney Island to the residents of New York City and its history draws an interesting parallel. Postwar St Kilda became Melbourne's red-light district, with many of the large mansions converted into low-cost rooming houses. During the late 1970s and 1980s the area became home to many of Melbourne's subcultures, including the punk subculture, artists, musicians and LGBT culture groups. While some of these groups still maintain a presence in St Kilda, in recent years the district has become gentrified and pushed many of residents from lower socio-economic groups out of the suburb.
St Kilda is home to many of Melbourne's famous visitor attractions including Luna Park, the Esplanade Hotel, Acland Street and Fitzroy Street. It is the home of many theatres and St Kilda Beach and to many of Melbourne's big events.
Origins of the name
The suburb takes its name from a ship called The Lady of St Kilda, which visited Melbourne in July 1841, five years after the founding of Melbourne. The ship was owned by Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, a member of a prominent British political family, and the main shopping street of St Kilda is named Acland Street after him. The ship was named for the island of St Kilda in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.
Many people have mistakenly referred to the suburb as "St. Kilda" or "Saint Kilda", assuming that it stands for "saint", however the correct spelling is "St Kilda" as there is no known saint by the name of Kilda - see Origin of Names at St Kilda, Scotland.
The Dunedin, New Zealand, suburb of Saint Kilda was named for the Melbourne suburb by early property developer (and former Melburnian) George Scott.
History
Kulin people lived in Euroe Yroke (the area now known as St Kilda) for up to 30,000 years. Evidence has been found of shellfish middens and huts along Albert Park and Lake and axes which were most likely sharpened on the sandstone cliffs behind the main beach. Corroborees where held at the historic tree which still stands at St Kilda Junction.
St Kilda was first settled around 1839 by Ben Baxter, a settler from Melbourne, on a grazing lease. The high ground above the beach offered a cool fresh breeze during Melbourne's hot summer months. In 1840, St Kilda was the home to Melbourne's first quarantine station for Scottish immigrants. The area was known by several names, including 'Green Knoll' and 'The Village of Fareham' until it was officially named St Kilda by then governor Charles La Trobe in 1841.
Within a few years of its founding, St Kilda became a fashionable area for wealthy settlers and the indigenous peoples were driven out to surrounding areas.
St Kilda became a separate municipality in 1857, and in the same year, the railway line and railway station connected the suburb to Melbourne city.
During the Land Boom of the 1880s, St Kilda became a suburb of great stone mansions and palatial hotels, particularly along the seaside streets such as Fitzroy Street, Grey Street and Acland Street and the area once known as St Kilda Hill centred between Wellington Street, Alma Road, former High Street (incorporated as part of St Kilda Road) and Chapel Street. The lower inland areas of St Kilda East were not so wealthy and included many smaller, semi detached cottages, many constructed of timber. Much of the area which is now St Kilda West was swampland, but was reclaimed and subdivided in the 1870s.
During the Depression of the 1890s, however, St Kilda began to decline. The seaside area became an entertainment precinct for Melbourne's working classes after a tramline was extended south from the Melbourne central city area, and the wealthy people moved further south to more exclusive suburbs such as Brighton.
Italian Carlo Catani, Chief Engineer of the Public Works Department was contracted in 1906 to masterplan for the beautification the foreshore of St Kilda all the way to Point Ormond. His successful plan resulted in the famous leisure precinct that people enjoy visiting today, paving the way for several resort style developments along the foreshore including Luna Park (1912), the Palais Theatre (1927), Palais de Danse (1926), St Moritz Ice Rink (1939), and many others. As a result, several landmarks along the foreshore were named after Catani, including the clock tower, gardens and arch.
In the 1930s, St Kilda became a centre for Melbourne's growing Jewish community and subsequently a growing Orthodox community developed with a number of synagogues and schools. In recent decades, however, the centre of Melbourne's Jewish community has moved eastwards to more affluent Caulfield. There are still Jewish neighbourhoods in East St Kilda, mainly of older and more Orthodox people and recent Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union, but the Jewish character of Acland Street, for example, has been lost.
In the 1960s, St Kilda became one of Melbourne's leading gay and lesbian residential areas. In 1968, the Palais de Danse, adjacent to the Palais was gutted by fire. The Palace nightclub was built in its place in 1971 and in 2007 was also gutted by fire and demolished.
In the late 1960s, widening of St Kilda Road and the creation of the Queens Way connection to Dandenong road destroyed much of the former St Kilda Junction (including the famous Junction Hotel) and High Street, once considered the centre of the suburb, which became an extension of the road. The widening also had the effect of creating a physical barrier between the foreshore suburb, its civic area and eastern streets.
In 1981, the St Moritz ice rink was closed. Around 1984, it was destroyed by a spectacular fire. In 1987, the St Kilda railway line was closed, rationalised and re-opened to become part of route 96, one of the first light rail lines in Melbourne, terminating in Acland Street.
In 1991, the site formerly occupied by the St Moritz site was reopened as the St Moritz, which became the Novotoel Bayside in 1993, then the Novotel Bayside in 1999.
Since the 1990s, an influx of tourists and young backpackers and the increased gentrification of the area and during the decade led many long term residents to leave, thus removing much of the bohemian/artistic character of the area.
In mid-1998 Becton, new owners of the Esplanade Hotel announced its plan to build a 125 metre, 38-storey tower behind the historic hotel. The plans were later scaled down due to resident concerns.
On September 11, 2003, the St Kilda icon, the 99 year old pier kiosk burned down in an arson attack. In a swift and overwhelming response to the loss, the government committed to its original plans using what remained of the original materials.
In 2004, Baymour Court, significant 1920s Spanish Mission flats and hotel stables were demolished despite the campaigning of the National Trust of Victoria and The Esplanade Alliance as part of the commencement of hi-rise Esplanade apartment building.
For the 2006 Commonwealth Games, St Kilda hosted an interpretive public artwork called, the Lady of St Kilda sculpture, a mock timber shipwreck. The installation proved to be extraordinarily popular with locals and tourists and it was left erected for many months afterward. However, the sculpture was subject to vandals disassembling parts of it as well as OH&S concern for children's safety on the high unprotected bow of the "ship" so the local council removed it in November 2006.
The area adjacent to the Palais Theatre known as the Triangle Site, including the Palace music venue is the subject of a major re-development, first proposed in 2005. The proposals stipulated the restoration of the Palais Theatre, but controversially many advocated the demolition of the Palace, one of the area's main live music venues. To save the Palace, a legal battle ensued. Ironically, the Palace burned down spectacularly during an arson attack, and fears were held for the Palais. The winning development in 2007 plans a series of lanes, promenades and walkways rambling through eating and drinking spaces, art installations, entertainment venues, retail outlets and open grassy spaces. Further controversy over the new development was caused when the tenants who vacated the Palais illegally removed its 80 year old chandeliers[dubious – discuss].
In 2006, plans went out for a foreshore re-development, which included promenade widening and saw the demolition of the bicentennial pavilion which marked the land end of the St Kilda pier.
In 2006, the proposed development of a skate park and concrete urban plaza over parkland on Fitzroy Street next to the primary school at Albert Park caused significant local controversy. The council received a large number of objections. Alternative sites along the foreshore were ignored by council and all of the mature trees on the site were removed before the plans were presented for consultation.
In February 2008, the Port Phillip Council's approval of the proposed Triangle site development despite over 5,000 written objections (representing over a quarter of the population of St Kilda) caused an uproar in St Kilda which saw media attention across Victoria with local resident lobby groups including Save St Kilda and UnChain St Kilda banding thousands of residents together in protest and enlisting the help of celebrities including Dave Hughes, Magda Subzanski, Frank Thring and Rachel Griffiths in their fight against the local council. The council had refused to allow a secret agreement between it, the developers and state government to be released which effectively allowed for the transfer of ownership of a large amount of crown land to private owners. As well as the outrage over the sale of public land, many residents believed that the state government and council should have funded the restoration of the heritage Palais themselves rather than pass the costs on to the developers who had proposed a larger development to recover their own costs.
In May 2008, the skate park development was stopped by the Supreme Court of Victoria, claiming that the council had acted inappropriately. A hearing was scheduled with the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. The mayor at the time, Janet Bolitho, was cited to have commented "the area would remain public open space - just maybe not green".
Demography
Today, St Kilda is an area of sharp social contrast, with many homeless and other disadvantaged people living among the wealthy and fashionable who crowd its shops and cafes.
For many years, St Kilda has had the highest population density in the Melbourne statistical area, and the highest for a metropolitan area outside of Sydney. This density is reflected in the built form, which consists primarily of strata titled units, apartments and flats, including a single Housing Commission of Victoria tower. In recent years a hi-rise apartment trend in suburbs like Southbank, Docklands and the Melbourne CBD and St Kilda Road all rival the suburb's population density.
Despite migrationary trends, St Kilda retains a large Jewish population. The legacy of Jewish people in the area is evidenced in the large number of synagogues in the area and the Jewish Museum of Australia, the only one of its kind in the country, which is located in Alma Road.
Culture
St Kilda has a unique artists culture, but is also home to many local events of high profile.
Major events
St Kilda has run Melbourne's first major arts and crafts market which has been run on the Esplanade every Sunday since the 1980s. It has been rivalled in Melbourne in recent years by the Southbank art and craft market on Southbank promenade.
St Kilda is also home to many major annual events. The largest of these is the St Kilda Festival, which since 1981 has grown over recent years and now attracts over half a million young people to the area each year. St Kilda also hosts the gay Pride March, part of Melbourne's Midsumma Festival. St Kilda is also home to the many venues of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival. Each year, the Community Cup Festival celebrates grassroots Australian rules football, attracting up to 23,000 spectators and raising money for local charity the Sacred Heart Mission which helps the homeless, a similar annual celebrity cricket match known as Batting for the Battlers is played at the Peanut Farm opposite Luna Park and attracts a crowd of up to 2,000. Other local events include the St Kilda Film Festival and St Kilda Writers Festival.
~ Wikipedia
