Abandon hope all who enter here – Busy Bee next Saturday.
This dismal and depressing view can be found near the corner of Alexander Drive and Grand Promenade Dianella. The best way to approach this church would be shackled to a guard in a prison van. A priest with some death row experience would be ideal. You can just see a section where a paritioner has tried to escape before the armoured collection plate arrived.
Click worst church in the categories link to the right to see all the worst church contenders.
Cityside Christian Church
Waverley Shopping Centre Dianella WA 6059
p: 
(08) 9275 5955
The Worst of Perth 
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I’d love to see how the “Countryside Christian Church” scrubs up.
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It would have to be in Bunbury.
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In the early 80’s it used to be Coles. The sign actually read “COLES NEW _O_LD” (world).
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Well spotted Tif! Normally you’d think changing from coles would be an improvement.
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Spot on Tif, it was a Coles New World right up to the very late 80’s when the store was closed. I only remember that because my ol’ man used to work there as a store manager back in the day.
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Yes TLA, I’m still trawling the silty estuarine floor of TWOP, ignoring your sound advice of catching that rare bit of winter sun. I can’t help it, being the bottom feeder that I am.
My grandmother—still active and lively, having her 83rd birthday today—used to work here when it was Coles New World, from the time it opened in 1972, until when she retired in 1984, in the meat department. I used to go there in tow with her, Mum and my sister for years most Saturday mornings, then regroup at my grandparents’ place in Nollamara for lunch, usually salad with cold cuts, served with Nanna’s own condensed milk-based mayonnaise. I also had a friend who worked there part-time around 1990-91, so it probably closed then.
That Coles quite simply became the victim of competition: it was viable during the 70s and 80s, when the Rude & Ignorant Bank and a few other shops were there, with Dianella Plaza on the other side of (what was) Lowick Road with Woolies, with the library sandwiched in between. When DP was refurbished around 1988, when the Action supermarket entered the fray, there were some outrageous doorbuster specials, such as bread and milk at 1c each in a three-cornered contest. Eventually though, Coles was facing the reality of being cut off from the other far larger grouping of shops, thus succumbed and soon after, all the other tenancies vacated, leaving this site behind as something of a ghost town.
Additionally, I lived across the road, at that same age, from the Summerfield shopping centre on Girrawheen Avenue. That too ended up something as a no-go zone eventually—is it still operating? If it is, surely a Worst—though I remember it rather differently when it opened around 1980, when most of the the tenancies were letted, unlike when I returned briefly to that suburb around 2000-02.
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Don’t know what’s happening here now.
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When I was out at dinner for Nanna’s last night, she was shown what has become of her erstwhile workplace. While she thought it quite sad—she hadn’t realised it had been closed so long—she thought the line about the armour-plated collection plate rather hilarious. Then one of my cousins had a squizz and said that there is a GymbaROO on that site, with a Google Earth street view to confirm that. But I’m guessing that it’s at the old R&I Bank building nearest to the street, so perhaps Suicide Christian Church is still drillin’ in religion with extreme austerity, pronouncing today’s Second Reading from Romans 5:1-5, “…but we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character…”, with deep joylessness.
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Just drove past late this arvo on a reconnaissance mission to Waverley Street in Dianella, to satisfy my curiosity re what became of Coles.
I can now say that the House of bugger-all Mercy church has moved on, maybe gone out on a missionary service of evangelising the Word of God by telling its parishioners to Harden the Fuck Up, Unworthy Scumbags. The building—sans corrugated iron—now hosts a wedding gown (and related paraphernalia) store and a furniture outlet specialising in French antique reproduction pieces. Also, I can confirm GymbaROO’s location as previously mentioned as correct.
A vanished worst. May peace be upon those miserable souls who endured such privations in the name of faith.
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Whoa, this is back to the first few days of TWOP, when cunt was still outre rather than clsruomopy. Apparently they are fucking around with the stats engines as they activate more features. Will be a little svenkage for a while. But hey. sisnister sign no?
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I do enjoy reading your reminiscences Turnips; makes me reflect on how funkin’ shot my memory is. Perhaps it’s the drink. Perhaps it’s my native preference for the abstract over the concrete. Perhaps, despite my protestations, I have taken on the goldfish mentality which characterizes contemporary society.
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I’m just grateful at times my long-term memory is still superb; it’s not as if at times I haven’t made valiant attempts to jettison the flotsam and jetsam that finds its way into the warehouse I call my mind…no matter how I’ve tried to bend my mind , I still recall too many things things.
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Thanks NF#1, that’s part of what makes TWOP truly great: we don’t just talk trash and merely bad-mouth Perth and WA, there’s wonderful insights into what gives Perth that je ne sais quoi and all the historical perspectives that come about from having grown up in this most isolated of locales, all the while seeing a lot of changes…in the time that I’ve been alive (35 years), Perth has grown from about 750 000, to almost 1.7 million. Whatever is right (lots), wrong (similarly lots, ergo the raison d’être of TWOP) or otherwise about it, this is our city that we call home and these stories, observations and witticisms that people share are what give this blog its humanity and charm.
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And now they are being recorded. However long this intense window of ephemera lasts, it will be a rich vein for lazy social history cunts of the future.
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I’m just writing up my PhD thesis proposal now, a cultural geomorphology of spaces Michel Foucault would have visited if he could have ever stopped living in the memory of May 1968.
The Worst of Perth could very well utilise a Google Map application. I have seen them work for identification of transport hazards.
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Interesting and thats near my house its gymbaroo and a furniture store now.
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What do you think of the closure of T_e Pub, L101?
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This place, I mean.
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Oh yes the old pub it dosent worry me theres a buetiful resturant owned by some really nice English people its called Limited Edition and I had my birthday there this year.
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You remind me of Someone Natalia Fan 1 is your Name Mr Spano and do i know you?
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Yep, that’s me alright.
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OMG are you sure?
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I looked at your webpage so your famous right.
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