Squashed Flat Like a Cane Toad

I AM what I AM - self portrait, LC 1987

DAY 10
By 1987 in Brisbane there were so many construction cranes on so many half finished buildings, that the skyline was more crane than building. It was crane city. Joh Bjelke-Peterson infamously used the crane phenomena as a measure of how well the ecomomy was going when he said, "I just look out the window and count the cranes". Had he wished, he could also have looked out the window and counted the "Office Space For Lease" signs on practically every city building. Clearly there was nobody to move into all of those new buildings and six months later the recession hit, interest rates went up to 18%, and Joh went back to Kingaroy.

Joh presided over the destruction of many lovely old Brisbane buildings, including the Cloudland Dance hall where my Mum and Dad met and danced the Foxtrot and the Pride of Erin. If it was still there today it would be Salsa and Lindy Hop Heaven on a dance floor the size of a The Rod Laver Tennis Centre and sprung with 10,000 tennis balls. But Cloudland was a famous Brisbane landmark on top of a prominent hill and visible for miles around, so naturally it should be demolished and replaced with units. It was pulverised at 4am in the morning to avoid the protesters who would otherwise have lay down in front of the bulldozers and been squashed flat like a cane toad.

And the beautiful 19th century Bellvue Hotel with it's intricate display of wrought iron railings on 360 degree verandahs, was pulled down and replaced with a statue of the Queen. Twenty years later she's still the pigeon poo Queen of Queensland.

from Great Moments in Brisbane Architecture series - LC 1989

We are all here to raise consciousness to a new level of awareness.