Townsville once had a fine pedestrian mall in Flinders Street complete with a water feature on which were two different sculptured figures of a naked, tubby musician , Benjamin , shown here tootling on a curved horn .
Despite his nakedness, the figures gave the city an air of being a tropical Athens ( one in the eye for snooty Adelaide ) , classical refinement , a respect for the finer things of life, grand old buildings from the early days when the city was regarded as the Wall Street of the North adding to the image.
Then , in a moment of tropical madness, it was decided to "revitalize " the mall , open it up to cars to boost trade . The water feature was turned off , demolished , the cars that ate Paris and beyond allowed in. But things did not work out the way expected . Shops closed , McDonalds caught fire . Complaints were made about the lack of parking , some even wanted the broad footpaths cut back to make more parking spaces. Supermarkets , with big, free parking areas, drained business away from the Flinders Street CBD, as they have in just about every other city in Australia .
But what happened to those unique musicians who stood out on the water feature , likened in a great stretch of imagination to Rome's famous Trevi Fountain into which coinage is thrown with gay abandon ? Today, when visiting maiden aunts come to Townsville they narrowly escape being run down by cars in Flinders Street and are then confronted and shocked by what seem to be naked men lurking in the undergrowth .
My sainted aunt !!! What kind of depraved place is this ? As Tamie Fraser pointed out in a previous post about the spotty attractions of Townsville, you just about have to be as low as a snake's duodenum to read the low , hard to decipher, information sign on one interesting spot along the Flinders Street Heritage Trail.
In the case of the now almost hidden, overgrown resting place of Benjamin and his horn , you have to get down on you knees , near a ubiquitous parking ticket dispensing machine , to learn that it is a 1981 bronze cast made by Townsville sculptor , Brian Engris , whose commissioned works include Heavenly Soldier Still Fighting at the Australian Defence Forces Academy , Duntroon .
Compare the dank, grotto like setting of Benjamin today with this sunny spot on the water feature , his horn clearly visible , looking like a bronzed Aussie, sporting white bird droppings on body and musical instrument . Avert your eyes as you approach , below, another Engris sculpture of Benjamin blowing life into the CBD with a conch shell . The setting is like a scene from Moses in the Bulrushes which could be regarded as fitting for someone with the Biblical name of Benjamin , his two depictions close to the holy temple known as the Cowboys Club .
One of the dubious attractions of Flinders Street today is The Bulletin Square which boasts a giant TV screen catering for idiot box addicts . It is sponsored by the Murdoch owned Townsville Bulletin newspaper .
