Bench

A wooden counter inside the derelict Marina Picture Palace holds a bottle of Super Pine disinfectant and a green-wrapped Winning Post package, both coated in dust. Small objects rest on the worn timber surface. Behind them, the wall is covered floor to ceiling in overlapping Opera House Lottery tickets, layer after layer of faded paper gone pale with age. Marina Picture Palace opened on 28 May 1927 in Rosebery. It was designed by architect William de Putron and built by William Henry Rumble, both members of the small independent consortium that financed and constructed the building. The design was Inter-War free-classical, with a stepped parapet, symmetrical fenestration, and ceramic tile detailing on the facade. The cinema seated 1,210 at opening and served the suburb through decades of changing ownership and technology, from silent film through talkies, from independent operation to suburban circuit. In 1967, the Louis Film Company purchased the theatre. Chris Louis, who owned and operated over 18 theatres around Sydney, bought the Marina in honour of his wife, whose name was also Marina. The company specialised in continental and Greek-language films in the era before SBS television. The Marina closed as a cinema on 8 February 1984. The Louis family then converted the stalls area into a video and DVD shop, which operated until around 2002. After that the building stood vacant. The Marina is the only surviving pre-World War Two cinema in the former Botany Bay local government area. Six theatres once served the district. The others burned or were demolished. What remains is the facade, a derelict interior, and objects like these, left on a counter as if someone stepped out and never came back. This photograph was made in 2019.