Office

A red-eyed creature in black and red sprawls across the glass wall of an office meeting room inside the ATL Building at Meadowbank, the words 'It Comes & Goes !!!' sprayed over the vertical blinds behind the glass. Diagonal light from the upper windows crosses the dark wall opposite, picking out a white grid-patterned panel propped nearby and broken ceiling tiles overhead. The concrete floor is bare. Nothing else remains. Automatic Totalisators Limited was incorporated on 21 April 1917, growing from an invention by engineer Sir George Alfred Julius. The Meadowbank factory was the company's third and final manufacturing site, purpose-built in 1947 by the engineering firm Julius, Poole & Gibson. The building carried an Art Deco facade and a diamond motif set into the foyer floor. The road serving the site was created as part of the factory development; it did not exist before the site was established. From this factory, ATL shipped precision mechanical and electromechanical totalisator systems to racecourses in 29 countries. The company also manufactured automatic turnstiles, hospital communication equipment, motor vehicle registration plates, and commercial signs. By 1966, ATL had developed the world's first computer totalisator system. As electronic systems replaced electromechanical machines through the 1970s and 1980s, manufacturing at Meadowbank declined. The operations passed to the Smorgan group in 1980, then to AWA around 1988. Through the 1990s and 2000s, the building was repurposed as a multi-tenant facility housing a gym, a church, office space, and a dance school. The factory was listed as a local heritage item under Ryde LEP No 105 in 2003. Despite that listing, the Planning Assessment Commission approved its demolition in principle on 6 March 2013, as part of the Shepherds Bay Urban Renewal Concept Plan. The building was demolished around 2016. The 2015 photograph records what remained: a tagged glass partition, a broken ceiling, and bare concrete.