
Fitzroy Swimming Pool
Heritage municipal pool with a hand-painted danger sign, saved from closure by a community occupation.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Fitzroy Swimming Pool in Melbourne opens in 1994, when a newly merged council wanted the drained baths for apartments and swimmers occupied the empty concrete basin in shifts, day and night, until the council backed down. It reaches back to 1908, when the pool was built under engineer John Monash decades before his First World War command, and follows the story of a hand-painted bilingual warning sign at the deep end, put up by a pool manager after he pulled migrant children from the water who could not read the English version.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Rippon Lea Estate
Nineteenth-century mansion and gardens with a man-made lake, fernery and a pool built over the original ballroom.
Brighton Bathing Boxes
Row of ninety-plus rainbow-painted Victorian-era beach huts, privately owned and fiercely protected on a sandy shoreline.
Brunswick Street
Bohemian inner-city strip of cafes, bars and boutiques that inspired a landmark Australian novel.