Showers

The shower block inside the ATL Building's amenities building was not part of the main factory. It occupied a separate structure on the same site at 37 Nancarrow Avenue, Meadowbank, purpose-built to service the workforce that ran the factory floor and toolrooms. That separate building provided dressing rooms, showers, and a canteen. The fixtures photographed here, corroded metal fittings and tiles running with old water stains, belonged to a washroom built for production workers, not for offices or management. Automatic Totalisators Limited moved its manufacturing operations to the Meadowbank site in 1947, relocating from 182 Chalmers Street near Central Station. The factory at Nancarrow Avenue was the company's third and final manufacturing site, designed by the engineering firm Julius, Poole & Gibson. Two buildings occupied the site: one for the factory floor, warehouse, and offices; the other for staff amenities. The amenities building, including these showers, was part of that original 1947 construction. ATL's manufacturing output at Meadowbank included mechanical and electromechanical totalisator systems installed at racecourses across 29 countries, as well as automatic turnstiles, hospital communication systems, motor vehicle registration plates, and commercial signs. The company developed the world's first computer totalisator system in 1966. By the 1980s, mechanical manufacturing had wound down as electronic systems replaced the earlier equipment. In the 1990s and 2000s the factory building was repurposed as a multi-tenant facility. By 2015, when these showers were photographed, the amenities building stood in advanced disrepair. Rust had consumed the metal fixtures. Tile grout was stained dark from years of seeping water. The room was intact but stripped of any working function. The ATL Building was demolished around 2016 as part of the Shepherds Bay Urban Renewal Project. Despite being locally listed as a heritage item under Ryde LEP No 105 (2003), the building was approved in principle for demolition by the Planning Assessment Commission in March 2013. The site is now residential apartments. These showers no longer exist.