By Sean Reynolds
At the end of the line in Williamstown lies a decrepit building once dubbed the Terminus Hotel; an establishment so soaked in booze and brawls that even the walls seem to stagger under the weight of their own sordid history. After 110 years this grand dame of dilapidation, propped up at the rail’s end like some final pit stop before the abyss, sits sagging.
The original Terminus was constructed in 1858, a Frankenstein’s monster of brick, stucco, and wood. It grew like a wart at the edge of the world, inviting every sailor, dockworker, and commuter to drown their sorrows. The Terminus was reborn in 1911 by the Carlton Brewery Company under architects Sydney Smith & Ogg, turning it into something almost respectable — almost.
The Terminus saw its fair share of drama, like the day in 1949 when May White, a tempestuous mother of ten, accosted octogenarian Joseph Offin. She doused the geezer with her drink, then slashed his palm with a small knife; justice, she’d argue, for her mother’s ghost. It turned out, years back, May White’s mother, a weary soul in desperate need of refuge, had forked over cold, hard cash to Offin for a night’s shelter. But with a cruelty as casual as it was brutal, Offin took the dosh then tossed her out into the cold night. The woman, sleeping on a park bench, met her end in the icy grip of exposure, while Offin washed his hands clean of her demise, denying the bloodstains on his ledger. The courts gave May White two weeks in the clink to cool off, but the story lingered, steeped in the walls like so much spilled beer.
The Terminus ceased slinging ale in 1972. To have seen it in full swing would have been something—a chaotic symphony of humanity, the very essence of life on the fringes. But even in its derelict state, the place commands a certain warped respect. After all, not every building can claim to have been marinated in a century of spirits and survived to tell the tale.
