ContributorCommunity HistoryDescriptionSnake pit plaque and surrounding area, located in the foot path on the corner of Manning Street and The Esplanade in Scarborough. The Johnny O'Keefe plaque was also located here.
This was removed during the redevelopments of the Scarborough foreshore.
The Snake Pit is an iconic name associated with Scarborough beach front. The official name of this Scarborough icon was La Spiaggia (“The Beachfront”), an alfresco café opened by US Naval Chief Petty Officer Don Errichetti and his wife Rosina. They met in Rosina’s mother’s Northbridge deli in 1942 and were married in 1944. The couple had planned to relocate to Don’s home state of Connecticut, but their love of Perth meant that they stayed here, eventually buying a run-down tea room on a sandy corner opposite the Scarborough Hotel in 1953. Today, the corner of Manning Street and the Esplanade is the site of every changing cafe venues.
Don would go on to import the first ever jukebox in Perth, and their Italian and Latin records were swiftly overtaken by the hot new sound of rock and roll. Hundreds of “bodgies and widgies” – the Australian equivalent of greasers and rockers – descended on the cafe’s paved alfresco to dance the jive.
The go-to uniform of the bodgies was black jeans and black t-shirts. Their feet donned desert boots if any shoes at all, with brightly coloured laces – one of the theories behind the name “the Snake Pit” is that the wriggling laces amongst a sea of black clothing resembled writhing snakes. (Another account is that the wriggling and writhing of the dancers was snake-like.)
This swarm of teenagers was self-policed, overlooked by bodgies like Andy Andros, “The Pit Boss” – paid in hamburgers, milkshakes and a parking spot for organising dance partners and diffusing conflict.
Meanwhile, down the road – on the corner where the Scarborough Beach clock tower is currently located – Ye Olde Kool-Korner Kafe became another favourite spot for dancing teens, who would congregate out the front.
