Switch

In a corner of the Marina Picture Palace in Rosebery, an antique electrical switch with 2 large circular knobs is bolted to an aged timber beam. Fabric-wrapped wiring traces the beam above it. Around and below the switch, lottery tickets, W. State Lottery and Opera House Lottery issues, have been pressed and layered against the wall over time, their numbers running into the hundreds, their paper faded to a uniform brown. The Marina Picture Palace opened on 28 May 1927, a Saturday, with a programme that included Mary Pickford in Sparrows, John Barrymore in The Beloved Rogue, a film on the Birth of Canberra, and a live performance by Bill Mason. It was designed by architect William de Putron, who was also a member of the original consortium that built and operated it, alongside builder William Henry Rumble and cinema pioneer Eric Christensen. Christensen, who held Exhibitor's Licence No. 1 for New South Wales, placed a gold sovereign in the brickwork during construction. The building operated as an independent suburban cinema for most of its life, passing through the hands of the Ward brothers, the Snider and Dean circuit, and finally the Louis Film Company, which purchased it in 1967. Chris Louis 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. The lottery tickets in this frame were not placed by cinema patrons. They arrived during the building's later life and accumulated long after the last reel ran. The switch remains on its beam. The Marina Picture Palace is the only surviving pre-World War Two cinema in the former Botany Bay local government area. This photograph was made in 2019.