(Photo: State Library of Queensland and John Oxley Library; #APO-002-0001-0005)
(Photo: State Library of Queensland and John Oxley Library; #22309)Above (top) is the National Hotel with the Customs House in the background, and a more direct view (bottom), both pictures from around 1890. Below are later photos of the hotel in 1939 and 1972.
(Photo: State Library of Queensland and John Oxley Library; #78353)
(Photo: NLA; #nla.pic-vn4361600, Bruce Howard)At the time that I first remember the National, in the late sixties, there was an extremely popular cocktail bar called "Warren's Bar" which was quite the risque venue because of the eponymous cocktail barman Warren. Warren was very theatrically flamboyant, with a witty repartee of suitable double entendres - behaviour that would perhaps now be described as "camp". Brisbane at that time was not a very worldly city, and looking back on the environment now, it is hard not to wonder at the cruel jibes that would have been heaped on Warren. I hope he survived it all. I found the following work portraying Warren by artist David Collins at the Bett Gallery in Hobart.
("Warren: The National Hotel (Brisbane)" 2009 by David Collins. Reproduced by kind permission of David Collins and Bett Gallery, Hobart)
(Photo: © 2010 the foto fanatic)In my recent photograph (above) Customs House with its copper dome can be seen in the background, now dwarfed by the large building behind it. On the RHS of the picture, the hotel has gone, replaced by another large office tower which has a coffee shop on the ground floor. These days, there is a coffee shop on every corner of the CBD, often with one or two in between. I suppose that it's one way of humanising glass towers.
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i spent several fridy nights in the national in late 80s (he said sheepishly)
ReplyDeletewhat an ugly replacement
ok how much do-do does one reveal?
ReplyDeleteI have one friend who took a Hotel room over the road in another hotel, so he could take (new friends) back to his rooms!
Warren's Bar was HOT . . . gay and straight, everyone mixed up there.
yes...I did too...it was cheap....forget the hotel
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the hotel across the road was called The Atcherly (spelling?)
Deletei worked at The National Hotel in the early 80' really interesting times. was so sad to see it demolished
It was certainly unique in Brisbane, for that time anyway!
ReplyDeleteIt was the watering hole of all the corrupt coppers outed in the Fitzgerald inquiry...and they were Legion.
DeleteI am pretty sure Amyls Nightspace was downstairs, lots of 4ZZZ bands there, I saw Do Re Mi and The Saints. I remember feeling so grown up, esp because I was underage. Every time I walk past that new glass building I think Brisbane lost a little knocking down the National.
ReplyDeleteThe National certainly was a TripleZed venue in the early '80s, but I think what was originally promoted as Amyl's was previously the old Curry Shop in George Street. I could be wrong.
DeleteAt the National, when I was still at school, I saw the Laughing Clowns, Scientists, Chris Bailey solo, Iggy Pop, The Gun Club, Vampire Lovers, The Go-Betweens and many more. It was a dreadful viewing venue - lots of big pillars obscuring the stage. The best view was a bird's eye from the mezzanine.
And then I started lunchtime drinking there when 'working' next door at 444 Queen Street in the Public Trust Office. Very boozy, and Friday lunches lasted until knock off time. The nearby Belfast Hotel was another nice spot ('til it was demolished) - quieter, with Carlton Draught on tap and Big Bob Williams holding court
Would have loved to be a fly on the wall during the 60s when the scenes Matt Condon describes were unfolding
Yes, Barry Maxwell was a genial host at the Belfast.
DeleteAn easy place to disappear in during the 80s.
My first day of my first job after school in 1977, they all took me to the Belfast for the whole arvo
DeleteI met Warren several times in the early 70's, with his black painted finger nails. He was a very entertaining person who disclosed that he was hetrosexual and had a wife and two children.
ReplyDeleteMy mother worked with warren when I was little we used to go over his place I think he must have been divorced by then. It was probably 1972 or 1973. I remember his black painted fingernails and his eye creams. My mother told me many funny stories about him, probable things that should stay untold.
DeleteYesterdays was a hot nightclub there in the mid eighties.
ReplyDeleteI worked at the national in 1976 i was cellarman and waiter at night new warren he was picked up from his apatment everynight by taxi roberts brothers owned the hotel then angus steak house christabelles bar red bar bouncers were pretty tough then they put some guy through the glass door one night only pub to have all female bar staff all beautiful see through tops loved working there
ReplyDeleteI worked across the road from the Belfast in my first job in the 70s, so it was my watering hole, and where my husband to be first chatted me up over a "fallen angel" or "fluffy duck" or two. 30 years later I discovered my great great uncle Thomas Lefroy Holmes had been one of the original licencees in the early 1900s. Was then flabergasted to read Matt Condons account of the other goings on in the Belfast. A lot of history for me.
ReplyDeleteUsed to drink at the National as a Singapore based servicemen in 1968. Well remember Warren, thought he was "camp" by even Singapore standards. Couldn't go into the lounge unless acompanied by a female... all long ago, and far away.
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