Basement Pylons

Concrete columns run floor to ceiling across a wide, open floor plate, every surface buried under overlapping layers of spray paint. Spray cans and debris are scattered across the ground. A low flat ceiling stretches the length of the space, and grimy industrial windows line the far wall. By 2015, when this photograph was taken, the ABBCO Bakery at Leichhardt had been long abandoned, the building given over to graffiti writers and whatever was left behind. The company that built the Leichhardt facility had its origins at 92-96 Percival Road, Stanmore, where a large brick bakery was built in 1910. The NSW Government purchased it in 1914, establishing the State Bakery to regulate bread prices and prevent wartime profiteering. Around 1925, the State Bakery was sold into private hands and continued operating as the Automatic Bread Baking Company, known as ABBCO. By at least April 1941, the company was running an industrial-scale baking operation at the Leichhardt site, where Mr Justice Maxwell visited the facility during a Federal Royal Commission investigating a ministerial reduction of a fine imposed on the company. By 1973, the Leichhardt operation was described by the secretary of the Baking Trade Employees' Union of NSW as the biggest independent bakery in Australia. Two roll machines produced six thousand dozen rolls per hour. Bread travelled through a 65-foot oven, then circulated on ceiling-mounted conveyer belts for a 50- to 60-minute cooling period before slicing and distribution. Around 100 types of bread left the factory via 22 retail shops and wholesale channels across Sydney. In September 1974, the bakery baked a 140-foot loaf for the Freedom from Hunger Campaign, twisted into a U-shape because of traffic difficulties, then carried through the city streets by a dozen bakers' apprentices and displayed at Martin Place. The building was abandoned by the time Brett Patman photographed it in 2015. It has since been demolished. A Dan Murphy's liquor store, operated by Endeavour Drinks, opened on the site around 2016 on land owned by RailCorp.