The inner Melbourne suburb of Footscray was once a bustling shopping hub. Remnants of its Victorian past remain to anyone who looks up at the tops of the terrace buildings that line all the streets; tragically, the fronts of nearly all the shops have been ruined by cheap and classless retailers who have all but destroyed the area.
One particularly painful example of misguided greed (of the 80s, surprise, surprise!) is Metro West. Apparently, someone thought it a good idea to knock down whatever building(s) was here before to replace it with a soulless shopping centre. What remains today is an almost deserted relic that only gives away hints to its original intention.
One of the very few tenants of the plaza, Centrelink (i.e. welfare office) recently relocated its entrance to inside the centre, perhaps due to the fact that its street frontage has been overtaken by drug-addicted, drug-dealing, drunken no-hopers who spend all their time smoking and stinking on the streets of Footscray. Centrelink, a clothing store, and a rather strangely-located cafe in the far back corner are all that gives a faint pulse to Metro West – by far one of the biggest blights in all of Melbourne.
Exploring the centre on Saturday was quite a bizarre experience; plants still hang from the ceiling, the escalators are on, yet seem to lead nowhere, and a man cleans the floor, presumably dirty from all the ghosts who walk on it all week. Behold the architectural crime that is Metro West.
