Vietnamese and East African grocers spill onto the footpath around Footscray Market, near dual gauge freight tracks and the station on Irving Street.
What Footscray looks like
's concrete facade faces the forecourt outside the railway station, with crates of produce and hanging bunches of herbs run out from the covered hall onto the footpath. Vietnamese and East African grocers line Hopkins Street on both sides of the market, awnings pulled low over footpath tables of fruit, dried goods and cut flowers.
The station spans several platforms on Irving Street, where lines to Sunshine, Williamstown and Werribee converge under brick platform buildings and steel canopies. Broad and standard gauge freight tracks run on the same alignment behind the passenger platforms toward the Port of Melbourne.
and carry rendered Art Deco shopfronts with stepped parapets, some of the original lettering and detailing hidden behind later plastic fascias and roller shutters. A few storefronts still show an earlier tenant's paintwork bleeding through under the newer sign above it.
The Town Hall stands on Napier Street in brick that runs from warm brown to red, completed in 1936 with buff terracotta trim around its arches and columns and a Streamline Moderne interior behind the Romanesque front. A barrel vaulted ceiling runs the length of the portico inside.
Shot in Footscray
Romper Stomper filmed at on Irving Street in 1992, one of its own real locations. The film's story of a Footscray skinhead gang is set in the suburb itself, so the station appears in it as itself rather than standing in for anywhere else.
Romper Stomper, 1992
Footscray Station
Romper Stomper used the platforms at Footscray Station on Irving Street as one of its filming locations. The production is set in Footscray itself, so the station appears in the film as the real place rather than standing in for anywhere else.
What Footscray can double for
Southall in Ealing, Greater London, United Kingdom
Southall's Broadway is anchored by its own railway station and lined with South Asian grocers who spill produce and sacks of spice onto the footpath under close set awnings, the same market energy as Hopkins Street. Both suburbs grew their retail strip around passengers changing trains rather than around a town square. Southall's shopfronts are taller and more ornamented than Footscray's, with Punjabi and Hindi signage stacked over English, so tighter frames stay generically South Asian rather than specifically Vietnamese. Try searching spice sacks on the footpath now.
Roosevelt Avenue runs under the elevated 7 train through Jackson Heights, with fruit stands, Colombian bakeries and South Asian grocers layered along the sidewalk the way Hopkins Street layers Vietnamese and East African stalls under its awnings. Both strips sit right where several train lines converge, so a crowd of transferring passengers is already part of the street. The elevated steel structure over Roosevelt Avenue is a giveaway in any wide shot, since Footscray's own station sits below street level rather than on a viaduct. Try searching fruit stands under the elevated now.
Cabramatta in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Cabramatta grew its own Vietnamese market strip directly around its railway station, with fresh produce and butchers set out from Freedom Plaza onto John Street. The scale and the transit anchor match Footscray closely, station platform to shopfront in a few minutes' walk. Cabramatta's dragon gates and pagoda rooflines over the mall are a much more decorated built form than Footscray's plain brick shopfronts, so a wide shot has to avoid them. Try searching produce set out John Street now.
