Report - ABC Gordon Street Centre, Melbourne VIC, Australia (2022)

NZurbex · Jul 15, 2023

History
Often referred to as ABC Ripponlea studios, the ABC Gordon Street Centre is actually in Elsternwick, Melbourne, but is located on what was once part of the neighbouring Rippon Lea estate. In the mid-1950s, the Australian Government (Commonwealth) on behalf of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (now the Australian Broadcasting Corporation – ABC) bought around a hectare of land from the estate owner, Louisa Jones, for £36,000.

However, things turned sour in the years to follow – and, to cut a long story short – Mrs Jones prevented the Commonwealth’s compulsory acquisition of further land in 1963 before having this overturned a year later. But Jones and her supporters didn’t give up and she bequeathed the estate to the National Trust upon her death in 1972, preventing the ABC from being able to acquire it.

Despite this, the Corporation were still able to use the land they’d already bought to build studios for channel ABV-2 between 1956 and 1958, with the help of the BBC who provided technical expertise. The complex officially opened on 21 May 1958 and consisted of two large studios – 31 and 32 – and a presentation studio – 33 (later split into 33A and 33B) – along with associated facilities, an outside broadcast garage and plant block, dedicated scenery workshop, and transmission tower.

A new three-storey wing was added to the northern end of the main studio building in 1961, along with a four-storey administration block built between 1965 and 1968. Further development took place during the 1970s – namely, to upgrade the studios for colour TV and provide additional soundproofing due to passing trains.

The studios were the site of the first public television broadcast in Victoria and became known as the ‘Dream Factory’, producing thousands of hours of programming since. Over the years, the likes of ABBA, Elton John, Tina Turner, AC/DC, Village People and Cyndi Lauper played at the studios and Kath & Kim was filmed there before closure in November 2017.

The explore
The abandoned complex is surprisingly well secured, but after a bit of ingenuity, we were in. Things were going pretty well until I suddenly decided it'd be a good idea to head into a cobweb-infested basement area. Like many, I suffer from pretty bad arachnophobia but the Aussie spider nests looked fairly dormant and weren't hanging low or anything. So I cautiously crept down the stairs alone, as me and my friend had split up Scooby-Doo style at this point. So far so good.

But as I opened a dirty old door at basement level, something fell on me and I was back at the top of the stairs in a flash before I could even recall running up them. Naturally, I brushed myself from head to toe in a complete frenzy. No spiders, it seemed. But now felt like a good time to quit while we were ahead. Besides, my friend was already camped out in the master control room, also in a mildly terrified state (he'd heard footsteps, so he claimed). So that was that – we rendezvoused and made our exit, having seen most of what the site had to offer.

General