Loss of a loophole space

“RIP to another Sydney landmark. Thank you, Ding Dong Dang, for many nights drunkenly belting away into the wee hours of the morning.”

In this and other laments that were posted recently on reddit, Ding Dong Dang is described as iconic, legendary, an institution. Its demise another blow dealt by the extraordinary year that is 2020. Two accompanying photos show the karaoke bar’s well-known neon sign – in the first it’s lit up at night against the distinctive green and grey chequerboard tiled front wall of the building, in the second it is disconnected, dull, resting amongst demolition debris on the street in front of a door.

Since the 1990s, in a mazy space on the ground floor of a small and scruffy warehouse building on Randle Street, right next to Sydney’s Central Station, Ding Dong Dang has given late night revellers the chance to belt out songs in Korean/English/Japanese/Chinese while imbibing heavily in darkened rooms painted with glow-in-the-dark murals. Its messiness and grunge, and the licence these offered, were deeply appreciated.

The comments on reddit express loss, even devastation, share memories of nights out, loose and late. The sign features prominently in these remiscenses, and people want to souvenir it. One user explains his interest, “This is an awkward request.. and honestly I don’t know why I'm asking, but if anyone knows where it went, can I please have it? My brother died there.. and my cousin would probably want it.. may seem dark but he really looked up to him.”

Almost immediately the posts on reddit are recycled into articles across the mainstream press. On ABC Sydney’s Facebook page the repost elicits an avalanche of sadness and incredulity. More than 700 comments reminisce about good times, messy fun, bad wine and singing into the early hours. One person recalls, “and we ended upstairs in that guy’s apartment lol.”

I know Ding Dong Dang well. For the four years that I lived above it, the revelry, the singing and the smell of dried fried squid (the house specialty) rose through the thick floorboards late into the nights. The door behind the now discarded but much coveted sign is my front door. Through it, two floors up, facing the back lane and looking over Central station, my studio space was where I crossed the threshold between millennia; from where I set out to walk across the Harbour Bridge, along with 250,000 others, to call for reconciliation; and where I witnessed the World Trade Centre reduced to rubble and dust. I was there, safe in the centre of things, that night in 2002 when a young man was shot and killed. Perhaps it was Lookingforsam’s brother.  

Today the street is powdered with plaster from the interior walls of Ding Dong Dang, and maybe from the spaces on the other two floors, torn out and stacked along with the sign. I have seen that street powdered before – with dried blood and fingerprint dust the night of the shooting, and with an unknown white substance which, after the events of 911, triggered the street to be cordoned off while a team in chemical suits arrived in a truck to spray it away.

My connection is just a small part of the building’s history. Many others also share its story. One of these is the ‘guy in the apartment’, an artist, weaver and teacher who had a studio in the building for decades. A graduate of the Royal College of Art with pieces in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia and the Powerhouse Museum, he was very young when he was commissioned to design the uniquely textured and subtly-hued fabrics of the green walls of the House of Representatives and the red walls of the Senate, as well as their chairs and carpets, in Australia’s Parliament House. Everyone in Australia has seen this work, the backdrop to so many moments in the nation’s history.

The building wasn’t always artists’ studios, though it has hosted many over the decades since the 1980s. Earlier tenants were typical of Surry Hills’ industrial past – including clothing manufacturers and Chinese furniture makers. Yet its original purpose was differently intended. The building at 7 Randle Street was commissioned by the Reverend 司徒千 (Situ Qian, known as Rev George Soo Hoo Ten), the first Chinese Anglican minister in Australia. Completed in approximately 1908, it seems likely that the building was intended, by its energetic creator, as a new Christian mission, although circumstances thwarted this purpose.

And now full circle. Built on land cleared for the construction of Central station in 1906, 7 Randle Street is marked for demolition, the current multi-billion dollar redevelopment of the station making its location attractive for a more glamorous building.

While Randle Street’s development is in the hands of a sympathetic architect, I am sad about the loss, not only of a place with so many personal memories, but of a certain type of place – a loophole space. In a city becoming ever more designed, loophole spaces offer the kind of rough space that allow mess-making, experimentation and occupation unmediated by any pre-existing ‘purpose’ assigned to a place. While attention to the built environment is important in making beautiful places, it’s also important to appreciate these pockets which allow people the freedom to create spaces for themselves.

With thanks to Dr Fiona Allon for edits