After the bestselling success of their book Alphabetical Sydney, Antonia Pesenti and Hilary Bell turned their eyes towards the local shops to create Numerical Street, paying homage to the ‘ordinary and unremarked’ streetscapes of Australia. Here’s how it all happened ...
When Alphabetical Sydney was published, we realised how astonished and delighted kids were to find ‘their lives’ between the covers of a book, from Wiley’s Baths to Mr Whippy. So when we started thinking about our next project, we decided to build on what we’d discovered in our first collaboration, and take it somewhere new.
What we loved doing, and what we were good at, was using verse and image to explore place. Numerical Street continues this exploration. It’s our tribute to an Australia of forgotten corner shops and shoe repairers, and our way of celebrating the imaginative possibilities of the ordinary and the unremarked.
Signage inspiration for Numerical Street. Photos: Antonia Pesenti.
So now, in the spirit of Numerical Street, we’ll count down 12 little-known facts about the making of the book.
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The idea for Numerical Street originally came from a comment from Tanguy, Antonia’s partner. One day he said, ‘You’ve done Alphabetical Sydney – what about Numerical Sydney?’ Antonia laughed at the time, but later started thinking about ways of reworking of the traditional counting book.
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The illustrations in the book are based on real shops and businesses (and often real signs) photographed in streets all over Sydney, as well as Melbourne, Batemans Bay, Braidwood and the Blue Mountains. In the book we are under the awning, in front of the windows, taking in the visual chaos of signage, countable products and numerical clues.
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In the two years we have been working on the book, many of the shops we referenced and photographed have disappeared. This generation of shopkeepers is retiring, or their buildings are being renovated or sold. Some major Sydney icons have vanished in this time as well. Sol Levy Tobacconist Extraordinaire on George Street closed its doors, as well as Perkal Bros Bespoke and Surgical Bootmakers on Crown Street, Surry Hills.
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Our original pitch for Numerical Street included a tobacconist at number 9. This was immediately vetoed by NewSouth.
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In Alphabetical Sydney we tried to include swooping magpies and sausage sizzles, without success; we tried again to squeeze them into Numerical Street but they got bumped. We’ll get them into the next book, whatever the subject.
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The cake shop was inspired by one Hilary found in Leura, the butcher came from Rosebery, the hair salon was inspired by a sign in Croydon Park and the bandaged mannequin is chained outside a chemist in Bondi Junction.
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During the making of the book, we exchanged many text messages that would prove mysterious to anyone collecting metadata: Comfort footwear. Swags and pelmets. Nutritonic perms. You smash em we fix em. Quality meat purveyors. After 5 styles.
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While the initial version of the book was a non-stop shop experience, we both decided halfway through that we needed to step out from under the awnings and take a break – so we inserted roadworks, witch’s hats and red-brick flats at number 6.
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The hair salon is in part a tribute to Ray & Kay’s, of North Bondi, a husband-and-wife business that was there for at least 30 years until it closed recently. While you waited your turn, you were given their family photo albums to peruse.
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We have had semi-serious discussions about a sequel as we weren’t able to fit in all the great Australian shops – newsagents, greengrocers, hardware stores and $2 shops are some of our biggest regrets.
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The shopfront on the cover is not actually a cake shop but Elvy’s Butcher, in Leichhardt.
- If possible, this book has been more fun to make than Alphabetical Sydney. As each shop was completed and we got closer to number 12 we both felt sad that this project was going to end.
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Antonia Pesenti and Hilary Bell’s book Numerical Street is out now from NewSouth. Alphabetical Sydney is also available from all good bookstores and from NewSouth here. Find out more about Antonia and Hilary’s alphabetical and numerical adventures at alphabeticalsydney.tumblr.com
An exhibition of prints from Numerical Street is showing at Koskela, Sydney, until 20 December 2015. See the Koskela website for more info.
