Midnight Star

A faded hoarding above the central entrance reads Midnight Star 55-57 Reception Centres, on a multi-level building at a Parramatta Road intersection. Decorative brown trim bands the cream upper storey, above painted signage advertising the Rider Theatre Restaurant, with Sing a Long Laugh a Long Clap a Long Fun Pack Live Entertainment across the lower facade. Rendered panels rise above a deep awning. Red traffic lights hang at the intersection and utility poles carry dense runs of power lines across the frame.

Two businesses are legible on the one facade, one worked over the era of the other, which is how Parramatta Road records itself. The corridor's signage runs hand-painted over vinyl over neon over LED, and a building that has stopped being repainted holds every layer at once. Reception centres and theatre restaurants belonged to a period when a venue on a main road could fill a room on passing trade and a sign large enough to be read from a moving car. The road was carrying 55,000 vehicles a day by 1981 and 70,000 by 1985. The M4 opened in 1986 and took a share of that traffic off the surface route, and the businesses that depended on volume rather than destination felt it first.