Sunday, 26 October 2025
3:00pm - 6:00 pm
Harbour Room (upstairs with lift access)
Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron
Pier Road, St Kilda
The St Kilda Historical Society and Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron present an afternoon exploring the history and pleasures of St Kilda Pier, while admiring its charms through the windows of the refurbished Harbour Room.
Two speakers will share their passion and knowledge
Promenading
Oscar Schwartz, co-founder of The Paris End newsletter, will read from his 2025 essay about ‘a pier that was built mostly for leisure’. The essay, a poetic homage to the 160-year-old pier, is also a homage to the ebbs and flows of St Kilda’s fortunes and character, drawing on Oscar’s own connection to the suburb. He will also touch on the founding of The Paris End.
Penguins
Tia Scott, from Earthcare, will talk about the Little Penguin colony nesting within the rocks of the breakwater and Earthcare’s dedicated work for over 35 years to protect this colony through research, education, and community engagement. The penguin’s presence was first recorded in 1976, some twenty years after the rubble stones replaced the timber breakwater, inadvertently creating a perfect penguin habitat.
More about our speakers:
Oscar Schwartz is a Melbourne based journalist and writer whose reporting and criticism have been featured in publications including The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic, and the Sydney Review of Books. In 2023, he co-founded The Paris End, a weekly newsletter of culture and society, with Sally Olds and Cameron Hurst. Described by The New York Times as an "enchanting hyperlocal paper for the digital age," the newsletter has almost 10,000 regular readers and is the only publication of its kind to do longform cultural reportage on contemporary life in Melbourne.
Tia Scott is the Assistant Research Coordinator at Earthcare St Kilda, where she leads the planning and delivery of research programs to protect the Little Penguin colony at the St Kilda Breakwater. She holds a Bachelor of Wildlife and Conservation Biology, and an Honours degree focused on microplastics in Little Penguins.
Tickets are $15 + booking fee, and include a free wine, beer or soft drink/juice when you present your ticket at the bar. Additional drinks and snacks can be purchased at the bar. Booking essential.
Copies of The Paris End anthology, to be released on 1 November, will be available for purchase at the event.
