Rundle Street South Australia
Rundle Street, looking east (April 2019)
West end East end
Coordinates	34°55′22″S 138°36′20″E / 34.922651°S 138.605528°E / -34.922651; 138.605528 (West end) 34°55′21″S 138°36′39″E / 34.922405°S 138.610875°E / -34.922405; 138.610875 (East end)
General information
Type	Street
Location	Adelaide city centre
Length	500 m (0.3 mi)[1]
Opened	1837
Major junctions
West end	Pulteney Street Adelaide
	Frome Street East Terrace
East end	Rundle Road Adelaide
Location(s)
LGA(s)	City of Adelaide

Rundle Street, often referred to as "Rundle Street East" as distinct from Rundle Mall, is a street in the East End of the city centre of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. It runs from Pulteney Street to East Terrace, where it becomes Rundle Road through the East Park Lands.^[a] The street is close to Adelaide Botanic Gardens, Rundle Park, Rymill Park, Hindmarsh Square and North Terrace.

The street contains numerous cafés, restaurants, shops, cinemas, clubs, and hotels. It is one of Adelaide's most popular streets for cafés and fashion. Most of the street has a heritage façade, but has been redeveloped for modern use, with some buildings converted to residences, such as the East End Markets.

Junction list and description

Bent Street and Union Street run through to Grenfell Street on the southern side, Ebenezer Place runs south leading to a pedestrianised precinct and turns westwards into Union Street, while the cul de sac Synagogue Place, and pedestrianised Vaughan Place (next to the Exeter and leading to The Elephant Palace Nova) run off the northern side.^[3] The street is two-lane, with parking on both sides plus bicycle lanes. It is one of the narrower streets of the Adelaide grid, at 1 chain (66 ft; 20 m) wide.^{[citation needed]}

A separate Rundle Street continues from Rundle Road through Kent Town.^[4]

Rundle Mall

The western extent of Rundle Street, which originally ran to King William Street, was closed in 1972 to form the pedestrian street of Rundle Mall.^{[citation needed]}

History

The street was named after John Rundle, a director of the South Australia Company and member of the British House of Commons, by the Street Naming Committee on 23 May 1837.^[5]

It was installed with the first electric street lighting in South Australia in 1895 at the former intersection of Rundle, King William and Hindley streets.^{[citation needed]}

A tramline ran through the street in the early 20th century.^{[citation needed]}

Grand Central Hotel / Foy & Gibson

The Grand Central Hotel was a magnificent heritage building which was located on the corner of Rundle Street and Pulteney Street, a six-storey Victorian-style building opened in 1911. It was later concerted into a Foy & Gibson retail store, designed to complement their adjacent furniture emporium adjacent. The building was demolished in 1975 and the Rundle Street UPark was built there.^[6]

The Grand Central in its turn replaced the elegant and exclusive two-storey York Hotel,^[7] but despite some high-profile guests (the Prince of Wales in 1920, Arthur Conan Doyle in 1922), it never prospered, and around 1925 was absorbed into the emporium.^[8]

The building was sold to the Electricity Trust for showrooms and offices, then in 1975–1976 was demolished to make way for a multi-level car park,^[9] an open, austere structure of concrete slabs and iron railings.

Rundle Street siege

In September 1976, a Victorian man, Michael O'Connor, entered Hambly Clark's gun shop (now closed) at 182 Rundle Street, between Pulteney Street and Synagogue Place, and stole two shotguns which he loaded with his own ammunition. He then began shooting indiscriminately. After a lengthy confrontation he was shot by a police sniper and taken to the nearby Royal Adelaide Hospital but was declared dead on arrival.^[10]

Rundle Lantern

In late 2006, the Adelaide City Council proposed to transform Rundle Street's western approach, the Pulteney Street-Rundle Mall junction, into a Piccadilly Circus or Times Square-type meeting place at a cost of around $1.5 million.^[11] The proposal, based on ideas expressed in mid-2005 for neon billboards and video screens,^[12] included an initial nine design concepts, which were narrowed to two for consideration by the Council in early 2007.^[13] A minimal design called the Rundle Lantern – a 748 panel LED lighting display wrapping around the façade of the Rundle Street carpark – was eventually selected, with the Council deciding video screens were inappropriate for the location.^[14]

The Rundle Lantern was designed and developed by the Fusion company, with the design strategy focused on creating a 'lantern' for the city to use as a dynamic cultural canvas. There has been controversy about crediting artists that have contributed to the lantern.^[15]

Notable traders

Grundy's Shoes has been in the shoe trade in the East End since 1868, first operating as Judd Shoes, a cobbler, and continuing as a family business which later imported and sold shoes. The Rundle Street store (built 1896) first traded as H. Grundy and Co^[16] making it the longest continuous trader in the street. The company expanded to include Grundy’s and Barlows shoe stores across greater Adelaide and Victor Harbor.^[17] In March 2018, the store celebrated 150 years in operation by a ceremonial transportation of goods by horse and cart from their Glenelg store to their Rundle Street store.^[18][17] As of 2023^[update] Grundy's is owned by the Judd and Whittenbury families, who bought the business in 1921.^[16] It continued to perform strongly through a downturn in the industry in 2019.^[19]

The Palace Nova Eastend, a cinema complex which hosted the Adelaide Film Festival in 2020,^[20] as well as continuing to host series of other annual film festivals created by other organisations, such as the Alliance Française's French Film Festival,^[21] along with regular screenings of other films in their 12 cinemas, including the Eximax, the largest screen in Adelaide.^[22] Radio station Fresh 92.7 has its studios and office adjacent to Palace Nova Eastend.

Pubs in Rundle Street include the Exeter Hotel; The Austral;^[23] The Elephant British Pub (in Cinema Place, near the Palace Nova);^[24] The Stag Public House (at the junction with East Terrace);^[25] and the Belgian Beer Cafe (on Ebenezer Place).^[26]

There are many high-end fashion retailers in Rundle Street.^[27][28] Among these is Miss Gladys Sym Choon, owned by a company which retained the name of one of the Sym Choon family's businesses, in existence since the 1920s, when they bought the business in 1985.^{[29][30][31][b]}