Durban - The old picture this week features the old Durban Station superintendent’s offices in Walnut Road, that many will remember as the venue of Tilt nightclub.
The old picture was published in the Daily News on October 14, 1982, with the caption: “Durban is set to get its own ‘Market Theatre’ much on the lines of the one in Johannesburg. The plans are to convert the old superintendent’s offices on the Walnut Road side of the old station land into a theatre complex.
“City councillor Ros Sarkin said: ‘The idea is that it would be a community theatre that would be used by all groups and companies interested in promoting theatre. It is terribly important to have a broad range of activities on the station site in order to make it active and alive’.“
In the early 80s, Durban Station was moved to its current site in Umgeni Road, freeing up a large chink of real estate in the heart of the city for development. It was an opening up of the city that allowed for the later development of the International Convention Centre, the Hilton Hotel and the ICC arena, as well as a major exhibition centre complex.
While the focus of debate was over the original station building, and whether to demolish it or not ‒ the façade was saved and the building was repurposed as offices ‒ forward thinking councillors like Sarkin, the founder of the Durban International Film Festival in 1979, were looking at the site as a whole.
While nothing came of the theatre complex plan, possibly because of the renovation of the Playhouse and Princes theatres to form the state of the art Playhouse Company in the early 80s, the building was certainly “active and alive” as Tilt Nightclub.
The double-storey converted Victorian building provided an upmarket club pumping funky and deep house music upstairs and R&B in the VIP room. Rap was played on the balcony opposite the ICC.
Today 11 Walnut Road is the home of the Regus Business Centre as photographer Shelley Kjonstad’s picture shows.
The Independent on Saturday