MORE EVIDENCE SAYS IT NEVER EXISTED
New evidence reopens debate about fabled Woolies conveyor
THE great escalator debate is back and this time the answer is there was no escalator inside the old Woolworths building.
Mark McAdie posted an article the NT News published on December 21, 1983 in the Old Darwin Facebook page, which states the first escalator in Darwin was placed in the Jape shopping centre on Cavenagh St.
“OK, so there are three groups out there, those that passionately believe that there was an escalator at the Woolworths at Knuckey and Smith Streets. Those that equally passionately believe there was not. And those, who have become frustrated with the debate,” Mr McAdie posted.
“Now I can hear, even before I finish writing this, the escalator supporters saying that ‘the NT News sometimes makes mistakes’.
“So when I took this from the microfilm at the State Library, I also read the letters to the editor for the remainder of December – not one letter disagreeing with the article.”
The article contradicts a more recent NT News article in which Humpty Doo resident Brian Smith said he installed escalators 15 years earlier in Woolies in 1968.
“I can confirm the escalators were in there because I was the foreman who installed them,” Mr Smith said in late December. “I rode them to get to the cafeteria on the second floor. I stepped off them to join the queue to get a feed.”
The NT News understands Gwelo Developments, which has revamped the site, uncovered plans showing the escalator existed and may also know its removal date. However, some members of the Old Darwin Facebook page have written to Woolworths to settle the argument.
“The reply was they have no record of an escalator ever being in the building,” Graham Poeling-Oer posted. “I have even posted on here previously the pics provided to me by Woolworths but was told that I was wrong even though the information was provided to me by Woolworths.”
However, some pro-escalator say the newly discovered 1983 article proves nothing.
“It was in fact the first escalator. The one in the Jape Building that is. But is that evidence that there was not in fact an escalator in Woolies Darwin,” Angela Stringer commented.
Others simply find the debate interesting to watch. “Maybe it was just a fancy-looking staircase,” Lou Cowan joked. “Just a wild d thought ... was there ever a cafeteria or coffee shop at the top of the escalator in the Jape Centre?””