Rundle Street

Rundle Street, often referred to as "Rundle Street East" as distinct from Rundle Mall, is a street in the East End of the city centre of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. It runs from Pulteney Street to East Terrace, where it becomes Rundle Road through the East Park Lands.[lower-alpha 1] The street is close to Adelaide Botanic Gardens, Rundle Park, Rymill Park, Hindmarsh Square and North Terrace.

Rundle Street

South Australia
Rundle Street, looking east (April 2019)
Rundle Street is located in City of Adelaide
West end
West end
East end
East end
Coordinates
General information
TypeStreet
LocationAdelaide city centre
Length500 m (0.3 mi)[1]
Opened1837
Major junctions
West endPulteney Street
Adelaide
 
East endRundle Road
Adelaide
Location(s)
LGA(s)City of Adelaide

The street contains numerous cafés, restaurants, shops, cinemas, clubs, and hotels. It is one of Adelaide's most popular streets for cafés and fashion. Most of the street has a heritage façade, but has been redeveloped for modern use, with some buildings converted to residences, such as the East End Markets.

Junction list and description
Locationkm[1]miDestinationsNotes
Adelaide city centre00.0Pulteney StreetContinues as Rundle Mall
0.20.12Frome Street
0.50.31East TerraceContinues as Rundle Road
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi

Bent Street and Union Street run through to Grenfell Street on the southern side, Ebenezer Place runs south leading to a pedestrianised precinct and turns westwards into Union Street, while the cul de sac Synagogue Place, and pedestrianised Vaughan Place (next to the Exeter and leading to The Elephant Palace Nova) run off the northern side.[3] The street is two-lane, with parking on both sides plus bicycle lanes. It is one of the narrower streets of the Adelaide grid, at 1 chain (66 ft; 20 m) wide.

A separate Rundle Street continues from Rundle Road through Kent Town.[4]

Rundle Mall
Main article: Rundle Mall

The western extent of Rundle Street, which originally ran to King William Street, was closed in 1972 to form the pedestrian street of Rundle Mall.

History

The street was named after John Rundle, a director of the South Australia Company and member of the British House of Commons, by the Street Naming Committee on 23 May 1837.[5]

It was installed with the first electric street lighting in South Australia in 1895 at the former intersection of Rundle, King William and Hindley streets.

A tramline ran through the street in the early 20th century.

Grand Central Hotel / Foy & Gibson
Grand Central Hotel, later Foy & Gibson

The Grand Central Hotel was a magnificent heritage building which was located on the corner of Rundle Street and Pulteney Street, a six-storey Victorian-style building opened in 1911. It was later concerted into a Foy & Gibson retail store, designed to complement their adjacent furniture emporium adjacent. The building was demolished in 1975 and the Rundle Street UPark was built there.[6]

The Grand Central in its turn replaced the elegant and exclusive two-storey York Hotel,[7] but despite some high-profile guests (the Prince of Wales in 1920, Arthur Conan Doyle in 1922), it never prospered, and around 1925 was absorbed into the emporium.[8]

The building was sold to the Electricity Trust for showrooms and offices, then in 1975–1976 was demolished to make way for a multi-level car park,[9] an open, austere structure of concrete slabs and iron railings.

Rundle Street siege

In September 1976, a Victorian man, Michael O'Connor, entered Hambly Clark's gun shop (now closed) at 182 Rundle Street, between Pulteney Street and Synagogue Place, and stole two shotguns which he loaded with his own ammunition. He then began shooting indiscriminately. After a lengthy confrontation he was shot by a police sniper and taken to the nearby Royal Adelaide Hospital but was declared dead on arrival.[10]

Rundle Lantern
The Rundle Lantern, an LED display on the Rundle Street Upark

In late 2006, the Adelaide City Council proposed to transform Rundle Street's western approach, the Pulteney Street-Rundle Mall junction, into a Piccadilly Circus or Times Square-type meeting place at a cost of around $1.5 million.[11] The proposal, based on ideas expressed in mid-2005 for neon billboards and video screens,[12] included an initial nine design concepts, which were narrowed to two for consideration by the Council in early 2007.[13] A minimal design called the Rundle Lantern – a 748 panel LED lighting display wrapping around the façade of the Rundle Street carpark – was eventually selected, with the Council deciding video screens were inappropriate for the location.[14]

The Rundle Lantern was designed and developed by the Fusion company, with the design strategy focused on creating a 'lantern' for the city to use as a dynamic cultural canvas. There has been controversy about crediting artists that have contributed to the lantern.[15]

Notable traders

Grundy's Shoes has been in the shoe trade in the East End since 1868, first operating as Judd Shoes, a cobbler, and continuing as a family business which later imported and sold shoes. The Rundle Street store (built 1896) first traded as H. Grundy and Co[16] making it the longest continuous trader in the street. The company expanded to include Grundy’s and Barlows shoe stores across greater Adelaide and Victor Harbor.[17] In March 2018, the store celebrated 150 years in operation by a ceremonial transportation of goods by horse and cart from their Glenelg store to their Rundle Street store.[18][17] As of 2023 Grundy's is owned by the Judd and Whittenbury families, who bought the business in 1921.[16] It continued to perform strongly through a downturn in the industry in 2019.[19]

The Palace Nova Eastend, a cinema complex which hosted the Adelaide Film Festival in 2020,[20] as well as continuing to host series of other annual film festivals created by other organisations, such as the Alliance Française's French Film Festival,[21] along with regular screenings of other films in their 12 cinemas, including the Eximax, the largest screen in Adelaide.[22] Radio station Fresh 92.7 has its studios and office adjacent to Palace Nova Eastend.

Pubs in Rundle Street include the Exeter Hotel; The Austral;[23] The Elephant British Pub (in Cinema Place, near the Palace Nova);[24] The Stag Public House (at the junction with East Terrace);[25] and the Belgian Beer Cafe (on Ebenezer Place).[26]

There are many high-end fashion retailers in Rundle Street.[27][28] Among these is Miss Gladys Sym Choon, owned by a company which retained the name of one of the Sym Choon family's businesses, in existence since the 1920s, when they bought the business in 1985.[29][30][31][lower-alpha 2]

Garden East apartments (circa early 1990s)
The lighting up ceremony of the Rundle Lantern

See also

icon Australian Roads portal

Footnotes
  1. A separate Rundle Street continues from Rundle Road through Kent Town).[2]
  2. See List of Chinese Australians for more detail.

References
  1. Google (1 June 2022). "Rundle Street" (Map). Google Maps. Google. Retrieved 1 June 2022.
  2. 2003 Adelaide Street Directory, 41st Edition. UBD. 2003. ISBN 0-7319-1441-4.
  3. "Rundle Street". Google Maps. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
  4. 2003 Adelaide Street Directory, 41st Edition. UBD. 2003. ISBN 0-7319-1441-4.
  5. "Rundle Mall" (PDF). Adelaide City Council. Retrieved 6 January 2006.
  6. "One-of-a-kind building demolished for a carpark". April 2018.
  7. "Expansion of Adelaide". The Advertiser (Adelaide). South Australia. 17 June 1911. p. 6. Retrieved 10 January 2020 – via Trove.
  8. "Grand Central Hotel". The Register (Adelaide). South Australia. 12 August 1924. p. 9. Retrieved 10 January 2020 – via Trove.
  9. "Adelaide City Heritage: Grand Central Hotel". National Trust of South Australia. Retrieved 10 January 2020.
  10. Grace, Lynton (11 January 2014). "The most notorious crimes that shook and horrified South Australia". Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  11. Vlach, Anna. "Adelaide's Times Square", The Advertiser, 13 November 2006.
  12. Drayse, Rebecca. "Our Times Square", The City Messenger, 13 July 2005.
  13. Leo, Jessica. "Decision on Adelaide's Times Square", The Advertiser, 16 April 2007.
  14. Leo, Jessica. "Council votes for scaled 'Times Square'", The Advertiser, 16 April 2007.
  15. "Art: Adelaide artists get a raw deal when producing Rundle Lantern animations". Retrieved 15 January 2015.
  16. "About Us". Grundy's Shoes. 28 April 2023. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
  17. Baker, Rebecca (20 March 2018). "The shoe store that's still in the family, 150 years on". Adelaide Now. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
  18. "Grundy/Barlow Shoes to recreate history across 150 years, from Glenelg to Adelaide". Newsmaker. 13 March 2018. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
  19. Siebert, Bension (5 June 2019). "Online key as SA shoe store sales trip over". InDaily. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
  20. "Adelaide Film Festival, Oct 14 - Oct 25". Palace Nova. Retrieved 11 February 2021.
  21. "Alliance Française French Film Festival 2021". Palace Nova. Retrieved 11 February 2021.
  22. "About Palace Nova Cinemas Adelaide and Prospect". Palace Nova. Retrieved 11 February 2021.
  23. "Home". The Austral. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
  24. "Home". The Elephant British Pub. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
  25. "The Stag Public House". The Stag Public House. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
  26. "Home". Belgian Beer Cafe, Adelaide, SA. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
  27. "Fashion". Rundle Street East. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
  28. Rice, Katelin (10 May 2023). "Timeless Australian fashion brand Assembly Label officially opens on Rundle Street". Glam Adelaide. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
  29. "About Us". Miss Gladys Sym Choon. Retrieved 11 February 2021.
  30. Stewart, Hannah (16 December 2015). "Sym Choon Shops". Adelaidia. Retrieved 11 February 2021.
  31. "Sym Choon Shops". Adelaide City Explorer. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
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