100 years ago
23 November 1922
Dandenong Horticultural Society’s – spring flower show
“The best show so far held, as regards quantity and quality of exhibits,” was the official verdict regarding the Spring Show held in the Town Hall on Thursday November 16. It was certainly a most creditable display considering the adverse weather conditions that have prevailed here for some weeks. The cut flowers especially, made a splendid show and the roses were well up to Dandenong’s high standard, the champion rose exhibited by Mrs Woodcock. The ladies committee admirably carried out their usual undertaking in connection with the afternoon tea and supper.
50 years ago
23 November 1972
The freewheeling freeways
The planners dream of a system of multi-laned highways linking rural areas like Cranbourne and Berwick to city suburbs like Waverley and Chadstone is beginning to come true. The day is not far off when the Gippsland ‘çocky ’will be able to drive from his outlying property along a futuristic freeway to his city broker, almost without stopping. In a world not immune from the projections of HG Wells or 1984 – concepts like these have become realities. Dandenong with four freeways planned within its boundaries will be one of the first cities to feel the effect of this development. On Tuesday, the Governor, Sir Rohan Delacombe, opened the first stage of what will be one of the country’s major motorways. The 3½ miles of four laned highways from Princes Hwy near GMH to Stud Rd Dandenong is but just the beginning.
20 years ago
25 November 2002
Fear Factor
Emergency services were kept busy in Dandenong last week after a bomb scare brought the city’s railway station to a standstill. Mindful of the terrorist threats made against Australia, Special Operations Group police were called to Dandenong Railway Station last Thursday morning after what looked like a bomb was found in a toilet. It was found to be a fake and after several hours police declared the area safe. Police later charged a Dandenong youth, 16, with making a bomb hoax.
5 years ago
27 November 2017
‘Slum’ fight won
Dandenong residents have won a four-year battle to save their streets from becoming “slums”. Planning Minister Richard Wynne announced on Wednesday 22 November that he’d approved Dandenong Planning Scheme Amendment C182. “This is a huge win for the people,” Dandy key campaigner Silvia Mastrogiovanni said. With her neighbour Carmel Puglisi, she founded the Dandenong Community Association to advocate for change. They’d seen too many cramped apartments cropping up in streets surrounding their homes with next to no open space for the people who lived in them. “We started this for Dandy,“ she said. “The smaller the spaces become for people to live on, the more you could see this place becoming a place where people didn’t want to stay and live, they would just be stuck here until they could get somewhere better. It would become a transient slum.”
Compiled by Dandenong & District Historical Society
