Ithaca Town Council Chambers, Municipal building in Red Hill, Australia.
The Ithaca Town Council Chambers is a single-storey brick hall at 99 Enoggera Terrace, on the corner of Kennedy Terrace in Red Hill. Its main entrance sits at the southern end, with a second door at the north; an internal staircase leads down to an earth closet, lavatory and tool store. A 1950s extension runs west along Kennedy Terrace.
The Ithaca Shire Council bought subdivisions 131 to 133 on Enoggera Terrace in 1900, and tenders for brick chambers were called in October 1909. Charles Thomas Hall and Francis Joseph Mayer built it for £1,100, reduced from £1,149 after embellishments were cut, and the mayor hosted a dinner for about 100 guests at the opening on 19 March 1910. It served as town headquarters until 1925, when the Town of Ithaca was absorbed into the City of Brisbane.
The name Ithaca comes from the birthplace of Lady Diamantina Bowen, wife of Queensland's first governor. From the 1940s the Red Hill Community Centre ran a library in the former mayor's and engineer's offices, and a kindergarten opened in 1947 in the old council chamber, which was also hired for dances, wedding receptions and Liberal Party meetings.
The building stands at 99 Enoggera Terrace, on the corner with Kennedy Terrace, in Red Hill. A tram line once ran along Enoggera Terrace to a terminus at this corner, and a Brisbane City Council tram shelter was built in front of the chambers in the 1920s or 1930s. Communify, a not-for-profit group that owned the building in 2013, rents it out for community activities, so check access before visiting.
In May 1925 burglars tried to blow open the council strongroom with high explosives, drilling through the reinforced concrete floor; the blast noise drew attention and they fled empty-handed. The strongroom was one of the offices fitted out when the chambers opened in 1910.
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